A recipe serendipitously discovered by not wasting leftover food from a barbecue, a riff on Mexican (more accurately Tex-Mex) chicken fajitas with the added delight of butternut squash.
Another frauthentic fusion dish—it really is a fakejita—resulting from not wasting leftovers from a barbecue with with my family last week. My brother and sister-in-law were over on a visit from Australia. One of the dishes I made was skewers of chicken, red bell pepper and red onion marinaded in a mix of yakitori, soy, and Mayan honey. And, one of the things my sister-in-law made was butternut squash cooked on a barbecue in foil. There was quite a lot of food left over. So, I left with a lot of Tupperware, plied upon me because they wouldn't have time to get through it before heading back to Melbourne.
The recipe below is a bit of a shorthand version—unless you really want to create the long-marinaded version. For example, the chicken, peppers and red onion I originally marinaded was far too much for the number of skewers needed for final guest numbers. So a lot of it never made it on to skewers and sat marinading for 48 hours. Similarly, the butternut squash my sister-in-law made, brushed with olive oil and dressed with a smidgen of cinnamon, black pepper and sesame seeds, done in foil on the barbecue, was perfectly cooked and I simply stuck it in the fridge still in its foil for the same period.
You can recreate it faithfully, or you can use the recipe below. This recipe serves 2 diners. You know how to do the math if you have less or more mouths to feed.
Shopping list
for the fajitas
1 chicken breast per diner, cut into bite-sized irregular "cubes"
1 large red bell pepper, cut into large pieces
2 medium red onions, cut into six vertically, left as "wedges"
2 tbspns honey
4 tbspns light soy sauce
½ a small iceberg lettuce, cut into strips, washed and drained
1 large red chilli, finely sliced
2 tspns finely cubed smoked garlic
½ a medium butternut squash; the ½ without the cavity, scrubbed and cut, skin on, into "cartwheels", 2 to 3cm thick
Enough sunflower oil to barely coat your wok or frying pan
Soft flour tortillas, 1 or 2 per diner, depending on size
The juice of ½ a fresh lime
A little olive oil
for fajita spice mix
You will not use all of this spice mix for this dish. I often make it up in larger quantities, ready to go in the future. Simply store it in a dry, clean jar. Alternatively, there are a lot of good readymade versions out there. I personally like Bart Fajita seasoning. If making your own, mill in a spice grinder or use the old-school method of pestle and mortar.
1 tspn chilli powder
1 tspn dried garlic flakes
1 tspn pimentón (ideally the "sweet" version)
1 tspn cumin
1 tspn oregano
1 tspn black pepper
a dash of salt
for the salsa and sour cream condiment
Approx. 120g small cherry tomatoes, sliced
Approx. ¼ of a medium cucumber, roughly grated
1 level tbspn olive oil
A generous clutch of flat leaf parsley, finely chopped
The juice of ½ a fresh lime
½ tspn minced red chillies
Approx. 150ml soured cream
salt and pepper to taste
Cooking Method
The salsa and sour cream condiment
Do these first. You can do them up to 24 hours before and store in the fridge. Just make sure they're ready before you serve
In a suitable dish, mix the sliced cherry tomatoes, grated cucumber and finely chopped flat leaf parsley together. Dress with the olive oil, lime juice and freshly milled black pepper. Store covered in a cool place until serving
In another bowl, stir the minced red chillies into the soured cream—not too fully blended together. Cover and store in the fridge until just before plating
The fajitas
Fold together the raw chicken, red bell peppers and red onions in a suitable storage container with a lid. Add the honey and the light soy sauce. Stir so that the liquids coat all of the ingredients. You can do this up to 48 hours before, but at least 4 hours before cooking. About 2 hours before cooking, pour off any liquid in the bottom of the container. Sprinkle over approx. 2 tspns of the fajita spice mix and mix in with a wooden spoon, ensuring it's evenly distributed. Re-cover and return to the fridge
Brush (or sprtiz) your raw butternut squash "cartwheels" with a little olive oil. Season with black pepper—and a smidgen of cinnamon and some sesame seeds if you wish. Wrap in oven foil and bake in a hot oven for about 30mins or until fully cooked. NB: I advise not roasting it uncovered because butternut has a tendency to caramelise quickly on the outside, but not to cook evenly through. If you prefer that texture, go ahead and roast it. You can do this up to 2 days before and store in the fridge once cool. If you cook it just before the main dish, do so early enough so that you can cut it up without burning yourself
In a wok (there is a reason for this clearer below) or a fairly deep frying pan, cover the surface with a thin film of sunflower oil and heat on a high heat. Once hot, add the cubed smoked garlic and allow it to sizzle for barely a minute. Add the sliced red chilli. Stir and allow both to cook for a few mins
Add the marinaded chicken, red peppers and onions, stirring almost continually at first. Allow all the ingredients to seal. Then, if you prefer your fajitas on the spicier side, sprinkle over another tspn of the spice mix
Don't overcook the chicken. But, it will cook more quickly than the red bell peppers and rather chunky onion wedges. Hence the preference for a wok: using a wooden spoon or spatula, move the chicken to the elevated edges, where the heat is lower. Push the peppers and onions to the centre where the heat is more intense. This way you control that all your ingredients cook as they should. In a frying pan, it's simply harder to control
While these are cooking, cut your butternut squash into cubes. At the same time, warm the tortillas in the even so they are hot, but not overly dried. Tip: sprinkling a little water over your "pile" of tortillas will reduce the risk of them drying out
When the chicken, peppers and onion near their optimal cooked state, reduce the heat to medium. Add the butternut squash and gently fold in. Since it's already cooked, stirring in too vigorously will turn it squishy. You don't actually need to cook it so much as reheat it if you're doing this stage immediately prior to plating. You want to ensure the butternut has sufficient time to soak up all the flavours in the pan; about 4 to 5 mins. Once cooked, plate. Or, you can even do this stage this up to 24 hours before serving, reheating before plating
Think of this fajita as a "Tex-Mex hamburger": place a warm tortilla on a plate; add a generous amount of the chicken and butternut "meat" of the dish; add some crispy lettuce for crunch; finally, dress with the salsa and soured cream. Yep, you could eat it politely with a knife and fork. Or, you could just get back to its "street food" heritage, roll up the tortilla and eat it all with your hands. Don't worry, we won't tell anyone...
Alternatives
Vegetarians and vegans
This dish will work perfectly well using Quorn or tofu chunks, cooked in exactly the same way as the chicken. It is vegan until you add the soured cream and, trust me, that's not essential to how tasty it is. Similarly, you can simply bypass the idea of a chicken substitute and increase your quantities of red bell pepper, onions and butternut squash.
Pairings
In this case, this recipe is so new I'll have to get back to you on this one. Tonight I'm going to for a fairtrade South African chenin blanc of no pedigree whatsoever, plonk from the local supermarket. Nonetheless South African chenin blancs have repeatedly proven themselves to be one of grapes—particular from South African terroirs— that work really well with spicy dishes. We'll see.
But I have no doubt it will also be great with a variety of cold beers or simply sparkling water with a squirt of lime juice.
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