- Hey, I'm John Kanell.
Today on Preppy Kitchen, we're making chicken fajitas
So, let's get started.
Before I get started, I have a very special visitor today.
My lovely mother Rita's visiting for my birthday,
so I thought, "Why not make something together on camera?"
Come on (indistinct). Come on over.
- Hello. Good to be with you.
- It's been so long. - Hi.
- People have been asking me about you.
- Oh, thank you.
- They don't realize that you live far away now.
- Oh, I do, unfortunately.
- So, we're making chicken fajitas today.
- Yeah, I love them.
- We're going to do a little bit of prep work first.
So, I'm going to put you to work.
I'm going to get my own knife.
And who picked these?
- We did, from your garden.
- Yes.
- Freshly picked.
- You can tell there's like sort of soft skin on them.
Anyways, we're going to chop up three bell peppers.
I have different colors for just some variety.
Remove the seeds.
- Always.
- And then we're going to give everything a slice.
- So good to have a lot of vegetables in your fajitas.
- Yeah.
And, the same time, I'm going to be chopping up
these beautiful little onions from our garden.
And, just cutting them into wedges.
These are super fresh,
so they only have a little, tiny skin.
- I know. I love the size.
- I've been waiting for that for so long.
Because when you buy onions at the supermarket,
they can have all those papery layers.
But I know that when you grow them yourself,
they have barely any.
And, look at this.
- No tears.
- What's happening?
- No tears.
- There's no tears because it's the old onions
that really have the tear inducing qualities.
Did you know that?
- No.
- It's the old ones.
And, normally in this recipe, you'd use two onions.
But, these are like little baby ones,
so we're using a three today.
Really, it's all up to taste though.
It's like if you, for example, hate bell peppers,
you could skip the bell peppers.
It's totally fine.
- Well, it's good that you say that
because at home I can do a variation of vegetables.
- Uh-huh.
- And I love zucchini.
And then the pepper, the onions have to be a little bit
caramelized for me.
- Yeah.
Oh my God. She chopped so much faster than I did.
(John and Rita laughing)
- I'm getting a little bit of tears in my eyes.
- Really? Okay. And just like that we're done
- It's done. - With all of our chopping.
Okay. We didn't chop this one though.
- You told me you didn't want to.
- We're going to chop this off camera.
And then, we're going to get all of our spices and the lime
juice and everything else out to make these
fajitas really delicious.
All right.
So first of all,
we're going to compare my mom's recipe to mine because I
didn't ask her advice on this one.
Two tablespoons, 30 ML of vegetable oil.
- Yes.
- Okay.
Now we're going to zest two limes.
So, I know that like you, I love lime
- Yes. - And lemon Zest.
- Love them.
- So do you want to tell everyone what I made,
of what special treat I made for you.
- Oh my God. The glorious margarita, passion fruit margarita
that was to die for.
- I made this Passion fruit margaritas for her.
- Heavenly.
- And, instead of salting the edge,
I sugared them because my mom does not like salt.
But, I added granulated sugar with brown sugar,
so it wouldn't be like,
I wanted it to mix, and lime zest and I've worked it in.
So, it's a lime sugar and that was on the edge.
And it was really good.
- Lovely.
- Let us know if you want that passion fruit margarita
recipe, because it was actually like,
- Superior to anything ever tasted, really.
- She's biased.
We're going to juice one lime.
Do you see this?
- It dries.
- It's like dry. So sad.
- And they are dry because they are not matured.
- Oh, really?
- Or they get dry when they are too, too old.
- It's just like a Goldilocks situation.
- Sad.
- I'm going to juice one lime and I'm eyeballing it.
I know I want a few tablespoons of lime juice
but if it's too wet and there's too much lime juice,
it's not really going to be like a rub anymore.
We want it to be like a paste.
- That's true.
- It'll be more like a marinade.
And this isn't a marinade, it's a rub.
- I can understand that.
- Okay, now can you guess what this is?
- Yes. Pepper.
- Want to sip it? - Chili pepper.
(John laughing) I don't want to taste that.
- It's chili pepper.
- One and a half teaspoons of chili powder.
In you go. What's that? - Paprika.
- Can you guess how much it is?
- About tablespoon.
I mean teaspoon.
(John and Rita laughing)
- It's a teaspoon
Oh, it's half a teaspoon of paprika.
Wait, that was half a teaspoon of paprika.
- Well. - We were both wrong. - How much is this?
- One tablespoon or two teaspoons.
- Of?
- Cumin.
- Two teaspoons of powdered cumin, she was right.
In you go. We both love cumin.
It's such a good spice.
- Garlic powder.
- Yeah. One teaspoon of garlic powder.
I'm just quizzing her because I know all of this.
- Oregano.
(John and Rita laughing)
- All right. One teaspoon of oregano.
And, that brings us to the salt and pepper.
You're going to add this, I would say to taste,
but we're going to give you a guideline because some people
like their...
- I like a lot of black pepper.
- Yeah, she does.
- And I had some by accident.
- Eyeballing it.
- You can always (indistinct)
- All right.
And, you can add one teaspoon of salt, let you eyeball it.
- Oh yeah.
- Hurry up.
(John laughing)
- I'm only laughing because my mom is so anti-salt.
I've never seen this in my life.
- Or sugar.
- Okay. Let's give this a little stir.
This is interesting.
So, I said you wanted a paste and this is coming together in
a nice paste, see?
I feel like we could add a little lime juice
and this one looks much more promising.
Now, I love lime like no one's business.
I love all the citrus fruits.
So, if you want to have more lime flavor,
we're going to add it in later.
This is going to go into the recipe
but we're going to add it in towards the end.
But for now I just want a nice paste to cover this up.
See? That's nice.
- Perfect.
- Want to smell?
- Mmmm. Beautiful.
- Okay. So, I posted a story on Instagram
of you making my special birthday treats
and everyone thought you were Greek.
(John and Rita laughing)
- At heart.
- My dad was Greek. My mom is from Mexico.
So just FYI, if you see her making any
special Greek desserts for me, this is why.
- Well, we always cook Greek food.
- We love Greek food too.
- And (indistinct) food is very healthy.
- This is true. All right.
So, right now we're going to be just covering our chicken up
with this paste like that.
I'm using a one and a
half pounds of chicken.
You could also add a little bit more, add a little bit less.
And what would you use?
- I will add some chili peppers a little bit because of
the smokiness. It will be amazing.
But then you can also do, if you don't want to do chicken,
you can do fish or beef and if not, you can
do vegetarian.
- Yeah. But today.
- It's Fish.
- It's chicken.
- I mean, chicken.
(John and Rita laughing)
- These are all coated up. - Ready.
- We prepped all our veggies and now we just have to grab
all my strength.
You want a large cast iron pan for this.
I didn't know that cast iron had to be like a happy medium
between too smooth and not smooth enough.
If it's too smooth, you know what happens?
- It doesn't brown it.
- It doesn't season. The seasoning doesn't stick.
But if it's too rough, it's just like not nice.
We're going to put this over medium heat with a little bit
of oil and head over to the stove.
- Yes.
- Ready? - Ready.
- I added two tablespoons of olive oil into my pan.
It's heating up and I'm waiting for it to dance.
You'll see the oil rippling on the surface.
- Sometimes it smokes a little bit when it's ready.
- Yeah, but you want to use a high heat or.
- Yeah. No burning.
- My oil is dancing right now we're going
to add our chicken breasts in carefully.
That's the sizzle we all love from a fajita.
How does that smell?
- Excellent. Beautiful.
- Okay.
- Smells delicious.
- And get the rest of those herbs up. Our chicken
is in we're going to let this cook
for about eight minutes per side.
It kind of depends on the thickness of your chicken as well.
So, keep an eye on it.
About eight minutes per side and then on to the next step.
Oh, does this look about right?
It's getting close. So you press it.
- Yeah. It's still tender.
- And you can tell it is not done
because it's bouncing back.
- This is ready.
So, we're going to take these off.
Now it's time for the onion.
So, we're going to cook these onions for about five minutes
or until they start to soften. If you have smaller onions,
like we do maybe a little bit less.
- Yes.
- Stir frequently. They will burn.
This is really happening slowly.
I turned the pan off.
- (indistinct)
- We were resetting the camera. Took a second.
Here we go. I was like, oh that sizzle is like so soft.
- But the smell.
- That's okay.
The nice thing about a cast iron pan is it really retains
the heat for a long time.
Getting close. Come and take a look at this.
I want you to see how the onion is looking right now.
The onion is crossing the line into delicious.
That's a delicious onion piece right there.
These are mostly still raw
but we're going to continue cooking with the bell pepper.
So mom, can you get some bell pepper.
- Beautiful bell pepper coming up and red for more color.
- Now we're going to cook these for like five minutes to get
to the crisp tender stage.
My mom and I both love crisp vegetables.
Don't overcook them because you're not adding more flavor.
You're just taking away the texture.
You want some crunch. Some crunch to help things along.
- I think they are more nutritious
also when they are not so
over cooked.
- So, while we cook the peppers,
the chicken's been resting for a little bit of time.
So we can take the chicken out,
give it a nice slice since it's in pieces
and then as needed season.
- The seasoning is really aren't
all sides except the center.
I don't like to slice them in too thick because then when
you add them to your fajita and when you're making that,
you can add more vegetables and whatever else you want.
Avocado. But this looks beautiful.
It's so well-cooked.
- I missed you're slicing.
(John and Rita laughing)
- I like the slicing but I love having sharp knives.
When they are dull it's frustrating.
- I should do a whole video on taking care of your knives
because even if you buy... I'm still stirring.
Don't worry.
Even if you buy like a nice knife,
you still have to sharpen them fairly regularly.
- So, the chicken looks beautiful. It is perfectly cooked.
- And guess what our bell peppers are?
- Ready.
- Crisp tender
- Oh good. But you see that the chicken is not dry
or uncooked and is beautifully seasoned
so fajitas are going to rock.
- Okay. All right.
We're going to add that delicious chicken in right now.
Stir it in just to mix it up. That looks so good.
Mom, do you think this needs a blessing of lime juice?
- Of course. - Okay.
- You read my mind.
- You may do the honors.
- You read my mind.
- Remove this from heat and now you can serve these
with tortillas, some sour cream, guacamole, salsa.
- Lettuce.
- I like a mountain of cilantro on top of mine.
- Oh my God yes.
- Maybe some radishes.
- Some of roasted peppers on the side for the whole heat
or, but they will be amazing.
Amazing. The best.
- I'll see you in the next video. If you like this video,
check on my Latin playlist.