Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Wrap It Up

Last night's dinner was easy and delicious. Can't ask for much more than that. Over the weekend we picked up some giant chipotle tortilla wraps from the Cheverly Community Market. We've had these before and really enjoy them. They have a subtle heat that plays very nicely without overpower the little kids.

I decided that we'd use the wraps for a variety of meals this week. For the first one, there would be chicken and it might be kabobed. In the end...not really...I decided to Greek it up. Let's get started:

First up...a marinade for chicken and veg. Juice of one lemon. 1-2 tablespoons of freshly chopped oregano, 2 minced garlic cloves, salt, pepper and olive oil. Whisk together until emulsified. Spoon a little of the marinade into a bowl for vegetables and into the remaining, add your chicken. In this instance, I used one package of boneless, skinless chicken breasts cut into strips.

For the veg, I used what was in the kitchen. An orange pepper, a sweet banana pepper, cherry tomatoes and shallots. Cut them all to a manageable sizes and toss with the marinade. Allow the veg and chicken to soak up the flavors for about an hour. Note that the lemon juice in the marinade will make the chicken appear opaque. This is a chemical process similar to cooking with heat. It's ok, as long as you don't let it sit for several hours, or overnight.

Either grill the chicken or saute in a non-stick pan. I wanted to grill, but it was too hot and muggy for me outside, so I sauted the chicken. Also, I wanted to saute the vegetables as well. The chicken took about 8 minutes.

The veg took about 4 minutes. After the chicken was removed from the pan, all the vegetables were tossed into the pan, along with any remaining marinade that they were soaking in. After two minutes, the pan "dried out", so I added about 1/4 cup of water. This helped steam the veg, bring up any fond/chicken bits from the pan and otherwise finish the cooking. The tomatoes will just start to burst open. Don't let them cook too long or they will break down completely.

I decided on a base of green leaf lettuce that was dressed in a simple lemon vinaigrette (lemon juice, finely diced shallot, salt, pepper, pinch of sugar, pinch of oregano, olive oil). Lightly toss the lettuce in the dressing, then lay down a bed of it on the wrap. Add some of the chicken.

Top with the sauted veg, some toasted pine nuts and some cheese. Feta would be a perfect choice here, but I didn't have any, so I used some mozzeralla.

Wrap the wrap, cute and eat. You might need a fork for all the goodies that may or may not fall out. The filling was fragrant, herbal and wonderfully lemony! The chipotle wrap provided just a tiny bit of heat/warmth. And again, it played very nicely with the lemon and veg. A very good meal. Nearly perfect!

2 comments:

DancerInDC said...

Really very satisfying - I loved the Greek flavor of these wraps. (And the tomatoes came from the farmer's market as well, BTW.)

We each ended up with 1 huge wrap, which was plenty, but you could certainly do a couple of small ones per person.

Tony said...

My go-to marinade for chicken breasts (especially when I have no plan for them) is a variation of this; though I use lime juice instead of lemon (because that's what I usually have lying around, for whenever the margarita bug bites!).