Chicken Tinga Tostadas with Refried Beans

you can always take shortcuts or go all in

things you’ll need to go all-in: bone-in chicken thighs (carrots, celery, onion, and water for poaching), dry pinto beans (plus onions, bell pepper, jalapeño, and water for cooking), bacon fat or some other good fat for bean frying, chipotles in adobo (dried guajillos, anchos, chipotles, roasted tomato, onion, garlic, stock, vinegar, whole cumin, oregano, black pepper, and brown sugar for scratch adobo making), plum tomatoes, onion, garlic, oregano, tostadas (or tortillas or just a rice bowl), toppings like lime, onions, avocado, lettuce, crema, salsa, cilantro, cotija or queso fresco.

things you’ll need to make it easy: rotisserie or leftover chicken to shred, canned chipotles in adobo, onion, garlic, canned tomatoes, canned refried beans, tostadas (or tortillas or just rice), and same toppings.

so many recipes for tinga online, but inspiration pulled from here, here, here, and behind the paywall here. Refried beans made using guidance from Racho Gordo, obvi.

incidentally gluten-free, for vegetarian and vegan you can use vegetarian/vegan beans or make them yourself, then sub cauliflower, jackfruit, mushrooms, sweet potatoes or whatever you like for the chicken

Chapter 181

Sometimes you lie in bed and your brain wanders in and around an idea or ambition. Sometimes it keeps you awake because you are playing the idea like a dream game: planning, strategizing, imagining all the ways you can fail or succeed.

Occasionally these ideas are about your future, career changes, romances, or other life-based choices. Sometimes you torture yourself with this subconscious planning by laying out the “right way” to achieve your goal, which is often an enormous amount of difficult steps and you wonder if your brain is opposed to you ever accomplishing anything.

Other times, you are just thinking about food. These nights, teetering on the edge of consciousness, thinking about sauces, casseroles, and other indulgences are much more pleasant than the nights you spend wandering a labyrinthian version of your high school, managing a mouth of crumbling teeth, and running late while being unable to accomplish any single task before eventually falling head-first into startled consciousness.

In both cases, you overthink, over-plan, and sometimes manage to talk yourself out of ambitions without ever considering “the easy way” because that way is for suckers, or so says your brain. Your brain is, on many occasions, a petty brainhole full of lies.

You don’t have to try and make everything from scratch, although you can. You don’t have to build everything from the ground up, although you can. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel because wheels are already wheels and you probably can’t make a better circle, although you can try.

You can copy and paste. You can tweak a template. Shortcuts do not mean that you are cheating. You are just getting it done rather than being paralyzed by the brain-induced panic of doing it wrong (or not well enough).

You can take the time to poach some bone-in chicken thighs in enough well-seasoned (salted) water to cover along with carrots, celery, onions, and garlic for about 45 minutes until the meat pulls easily from the bone. You can also buy a rotisserie chicken. Either choice will provide the cooked chicken that you need to shred.

You can soak some pinto beans overnight and then cook them in enough water to cover (by 3 inches) with some onions, garlic, bell pepper, and jalapeno. Or you can just open a couple of cans. You can take the time to heat up some bacon fat, maybe fry up a little onion, add the beans with their liquid, mashing and stirring, and cook until they are as fine or as chunky as you like them. You can also just open a can of refried beans and heat them up. Either way, season to taste.

You can find some ripe and juicy, end of the season, tomatoes to broil in the oven until their skins begin to blacken and crack. You can also just open a can of fire-roasted tomatoes or whatever tomatoes you have canned and ready to rock.

You can make your own adobo with dried Anchos and Guajillos, roasted tomatoes, whole cumin, oregano, and black pepper all reconstituted with garlic, stock, vinegar, salt, and a bit of sugar, then soak some dried chipotles to simmer in your adobo until it’s all rich and fragrant. You can also just open a small can of chipotles in adobo.

Blend your tomatoes with a few chipotles and a little adobo until smooth, adjusting with adobo or chipotles to your taste. Up the cumin or garlic or just leave well enough alone.

Sauté some onion strips in vegetable oil until just translucent and add your shredded chicken. Stir in your blended sauce and cook until the bright tomato red begins to take on a rich and jammy hue. Add a little chicken poaching liquid (or water) to thin if it gets too pasty. Let simmer while you chop toppings.

Break out some packaged tostadas or you can fry up your own tortillas. Unless you prefer tacos, burritos, or rice bowls.

Top your tortillas (or rice) with beans and forkfuls of juicy chicken tinga. Top with as many or as few things as you like. Take the leftovers and wrap them as burritos to freeze and enjoy on some other day when you just need things to be a little easier.

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