Hello, this is Chef John from foodwishes.com and today, I’m going to show you Chicken Chile Verde which is chicken stewed in a delicious green sauce.
And there’s our chicken, I cut that up, and there’s tomatillo. You’ve seen that in the store. Normally, I don’t like to use vegetables that have veins but that’s just on the paper husk and it’s quite a delicious, unusual flavor, kind of tart, very delicious. And what we’re going to do is we’re going to peel that paper husk off. I’m going to use about eight of these, depends on the size, but I’ll have the amounts on the site as usual. We’re going to cut those in quarters, and now we’re just going to throw those in a blender, okay? So I want you to just toss them in your blender. Of course, you do it at a regular speed. So that was about eight big ones.
Now, the rest of the ingredients are very simple. I got a bunch of garlic—a lot of garlic, two hot jalapeno peppers and a big old handful of fresh cilantro. I’m going to throw all that in the blender. I just trimmed the peppers, took the seeds out, toss those in. I’m going to fill it up about halfway with chicken stock.
So I want about a quarter and a half of this sauce mixture when I’m done, so that was about almost three cups of stock, and then you know how to do this, right? You just turn it on and off until it purees and then once it gets rolled in, you can leave it on. Check this out, it’s really cool. When you turn it off, it goes from white to dark green. So we’re all done, take it out. I don’t know, it’s kind of cool.
Alright, I chopped up one onion, just in a large dice. I generously salted and peppered my chicken. In a saute pan, I’m going to brown the chicken well on both sides. And then in my Dutch oven, I’m going to put the onions in there with a big pinch of salt and just a little bit of oil, vegetable oil, and we’re going to cook those over medium low heat until they kind of soften and sweet. And there’s my chicken browning. Let’s just listen to that for a second. I love that sound.
Alright, my onions are soft and sweet. It took about ten minutes. I'm going to dump in cumin, oregano and a bay leaf, and we’re going to adjust the seasoning later, so that just kind of gives us a start. So I’m going to give that about a one minute saute just to kind of wake up the herbs and spices and I’m going to put my chicken back in and kind of arrange it so it all fits. Pour over your about quarter and a half of the tomatillo sauce, and we’re going to bring that up to a gentle simmer and this is going to cook a pretty long time. So we’re going to make sure everything is kind of poked down and evenly spaced, and we’re going to turn the heat to low after it comes to a simmer. Turn it down to low. We’re going to cover it and we’re just going to gently simmer this for 1 hour and 15 minutes.
After 1 hour and 15 minutes, I’m going to remove the lid and I’m going to just check it out. Now, you want this falling off the bone. You do not want it undercooked at all. The meat from the thighs and legs will just literally kind of start falling off the bone.
I had about a pound and a half of white rose potatoes. You can use any potato—red, yellow, white, it doesn’t matter, in large chunks. I’m going to poke those down into my hot liquid and I think I’m going to leave this uncovered, maybe turn the heat up just a hair so it kind of simmers like that. And when the potatoes are cooked, the stew, the Chicken Chili Verde is done. And by the way, you can skim off some of that oil off the top of course.
Real Chicken Chili Verde is actually chunks of pork cooked in this green tomatillo and chili sauce, so this was inspired by that recipe, only we’re using chicken. So that was about a half hour 35 minutes later, the potatoes are tender. The sauce has reduced a little bit. It has a really great texture. You're going to taste that with salt and pepper. If you want to add some more hot pepper, go ahead. I'm going to spoon it in a bowl, a little more sauce.
To garnish, you can put a dollop of sour cream and some hot pepper if you want, just for a little color. I actually use, believe it or not, non-fat yogurt which gives it a nice little creaminess without all the extra fat. It brightens up the plate a little bit. It’s not a pretty dish but it’s a beautiful dish. You got those delicious, sweet, translucent onions. Those tender potatoes soaked up all that juice. The chicken is just falling off the bone, super tender, super moist, just a great dish.
I hope you give that a try, super delicious, really easy. Check the ingredients on the site if necessary. And as always, enjoy.
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