Chili Lime Chicken Filling for Tamales
Chili Lime Chicken Filling for Tamales is a light, bright, citrusy, classic tamale filling that's chock full of roasted tomatillos for lots of flavor.
Ingredients
- 1 ½ pounds tomatillos
- 1 Spanish or yellow onion
- 3 garlic cloves
- 2 serrano chiles
- 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
- ⅓ cup fresh lime juice
- ¼ cup packed cilantro leaves
- sea salt
- black pepper
- 4 ½ to 5- pounds bone-in chicken I used breasts and thighs at room temperature
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 500° F.
- Husk and halve the tomatillos. Cut the onion into wedges. Peel the garlic. Stem the chiles and if you’re wimpy about spice, seed the chiles as well.
- In a medium roasting pan, toss the tomatillos, onion, garlic and chiles with the oil.
- Roast for about 30 minutes, stirring twice, until the vegetables are very soft and browned in spots.
- Transfer the contents of the pan to a blender or food processor. Add lime juice and cilantro.
Purée until smooth. - Season the sauce with salt and pepper.
- Reduce the oven temperature to 350° F. In a large enameled cast-iron casserole or Dutch oven, pour the sauce over the chicken.
- Cover and braise in the oven for about 1 hour and 15 minutes, until the chicken is cooked through. Remove the chicken from the pot and let cool.
- To reduce the sauce, set the pot over moderately high heat and boil the sauce, stirring frequently, until reduced to 2 ½ cups (15 minutes).
- Discard the chicken skin and shred the meat into bite-size pieces.
- Add the chicken to the sauce and let cool completely.
Notes
Adapted from Anna Zepaltas