Baked Chicken El Pato

In America we eat a lot of chicken -- fried chicken, baked chicken, roast chicken, rotisserie chicken, teriyaki chicken, chicken cordon bleu*, chicken kabobs.... it's all so good!  But if you're cooking chicken a couple times a week, you need some variety into your chicken rotation so that your loved ones will get excited about Winner Winner Chicken Dinner every time!

This dish is cooked in the oven!  That is rare for me since almost everything I cook is made on top of the stove.  So I decided to try something different!  El Pato Tomato Sauce comes in small cans and large cans.  It is Mexican tomato sauce that has some chile added to it so that it's a little bit spicy (picante).  This dish has a LOT of juice after it's cooked, so it will be great with rice or something that can soak up all the juice!

EL PATO BAKED CHICKEN:

3 lbs. of chicken pieces - I used thighs.
4 onions - sliced
3 tomatoes - cut into 1-inch pieces
Holy trinity of spices - salt, pepper, granulated garlic, red chile powder
Butter - 2 or 3 tablespoons
Olive Oil
El Pato - small can

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Coat the chicken generously with the Holy Trinity of spices.  Melt some butter in a large frying pan and brown the chicken for a few minutes on each side, till they are about 1/2 cooked.  This serves 2 purposes: browning the chicken before baking it adds flavor to the dish, and it also gets a lot of the chicken fat cooked out of it.

Meanwhile in another large frying pan or wok, saute' the onions in olive oil until they get soft, stirring often.  Add the Holy Trinity of spices to the onions as well, as they are cooking.  When the onions are cooked, add the tomatoes and stir them in.  No need to cook the tomatoes at this time.

Get a large baking pan, like 13x9 inches.  Oil it very lightly.  Spread the onions and tomatoes across the bottom of the pan.  Then nestle the chicken pieces into the onions/tomatoes with the skin side up.  Finally, pour the El Pato over the top of everything.  Sprinkle with a little more seasonings and cover the pan with aluminum foil.

Put the pan in the oven.  After a couple minutes lower the heat to 350 degrees.  Bake it for about 45 minutes until the chicken is very tender.   Mmmmmmmm!!!  El Pato Chicken is yummy!!!

* (whatever that is...)

10 Minute Meal: Salad with Pan Fried Fish

If you like fish, you'll like this one.  It's delicious, and bonus - very fast to make.  These days, you can get tilapia filets for about $1.  It's nice because they are each individually packaged, so you can buy them one at a time, or a whole bag of them for $8-$10.  That way, you can take as many as you want out of the freezer, and they thaw pretty quick.

PAN FRIED FISH WITH SALAD:

Fish filets (the fish in the picture is tilapia)
Holy trinity of spices: salt, pepper, granulated garlic, red chile powder (mild)
Butter

Put the raw fish on a plate or prep pan.  Dust the filets generously with the Holy Trinity of spices.  Melt some butter in the pan, 1 or 2 tablespoon per filet.  When the butter is melted, place the filets in the butter, spice side down.  Now season the other side.  Cook the fish in the butter for a couple minutes on each side, till it's done.  It won't take long.

While the fish is cooking, get your salad ready.  Use spring greens or herb salad.  I like to chop them up a little so I don't have giant pieces of salad on my plate.  It's hard to eat giant pieces of salad politely.  You'll have to cut them up eventually, so I just start out that way.  Put a nice pile of salad greens on your plate, then chop up some pepper jack cheese to put on top.  On top of that put salt and pepper, olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

When the fish is done, put it on the plate with the salad.  It could be on top or off to the side.  Put a little hot sauce for a finishing touch!