Recipe: Chicken Tacos

To celebrate the arrival of the meat grinder, we decided on chicken tacos for dinner. Instead of buying ground chicken, we used the meat grinder to grind up chicken breast. The result was a ground meat that is juicy without being greasy! How perfect.

Ingredients

2 6oz. chicken breasts, cut into long narrow strips
1 medium-sized jalapeno
1 Tbsp oil
1 package of taco seasoning (we used Old El' Paso... mucho fun tonight!)
2 Cups water
1 package of hard taco shells (Old El' Paso again)
1/2 head of iceburg lettuce chopped
1 small tomato chopped
1 small onion chopped
1/4 green pepper chopped
1 cup shredded medium cheddar cheese
1/2 cup salsa
1/2 cup sour cream

Directions


Preparing the Meat: 
Slice the jalapeno, seeds and all, into 1mm slices. In a medium sized bowl mix chicken chunks with jalapeno. Place bowl in the freezer for about 30 minutes or until chicken is very cold and stiff.

Attach the meat grinder attachment to the stand mixer using the course grinding plate. Place a large bowl underneath the attachment. Place chicken mixture onto the grinder's hopper and tray. With the Stand Mixer turned on to Speed 4 use the food pusher to feed chicken though the hopper.

Once all your meat is ground, turn the stand mixer off and unplug. Use the wench provided to loosen the exterior ring to remove the grinding plate for cleaning. Remember the grinding plates and knife are NOT dishwasher safe!!

Heat a large skillet on medium heat and add 1 Tbsp of cooking oil. Add chicken and brown. Add Taco seasoning and water. Bring skillet to a boil then reduce heat to a slow simmer. Let simmer for about 20 minutes or until thickened. Scoop finished meat into a bowl for serving.

Preparing the Shells and toppings:

While your meat is cooking, arrange chopped toppings - lettuce, tomatoes, onions, cheese - on a plate for a build-your-own style meal. Place salsa and sour cream in bowls for serving.

Arrange hard taco shells on a medium-sized baking sheet. About 5 minutes before you are ready to eat, warm shells in an oven set to 350 degrees for about 4-5 minutes. Shells make a sizzling sound when they are up to temperature. Do not brown shells but simply warm.

Enjoying:

Bring all ingredients to the table for each person to build their own taco! Enjoy!

Recipe in Photos:

Meat Grinder Attachment on Artisan

Chopped up chicken and jalapenos ready for the grinder

Using the food pusher to send chicken down the hopper and into the worm, knife and grinding plate

Browning the chicken in a skillet

After adding the taco mix and water. Notice how soupy it looks - this will thicken with a slow simmer

Taco shells ready to be warmed

A delicious array of ingredients - ready for a fun dinner of build-your-own tacos

What I Learned:

• ground chicken breast is 100x better than ground chicken bought from the grocer. You get the best of chicken breast - its juicy delicious flavour, without the greasiness of ground meat. This is probably because the most amount of fat that made it into our ground meat was the regular amount of fat you would expect on a breast (very little). This is in contrast to packaged ground meat that has an undetermined amount of chicken fat added to the mix. 
• I LOVE tacos so much - You can chop up any veggies you choose. I think lettuce, tomatoes and onions are fairly staple ingredients whereas Joey could have gone without the lettuce. Make tacos the way you wish! I saw a cookbook the other day of 300 taco recipes - now thats some creative play on a single dish! Apparently the sky's the limit with tacos. 
• The grinding plate seemed to get gummed up a little with some connective tissue from the chicken breast. Not sure if there is any way to avoid this in the future or not. 

Ground chicken or beef can be bought from the grocery store - I have done this many, many times to make tacos. Because of this, I give this recipe a two whisk rating. Grinding your own meat actually takes more time and effort than purchasing it from the grocery store. The big BUT however, is that when you grind your own meat you know exactly what is in it. Thats a big bonus I can't refute!