Well today is full of surprises. (See my thread for the disturbingly hilarious one.
That's right, I just plugged me thread. 
)
So I am trying to use up all of my cooking materials I've stock piled over the years, stuff that's in the freezer, etc. to start to get ready to move at the end of summer without having to haul food with me. In that vein, I grabbed a few items that I needed to use up and tried to toss something together. Best combination I found was chorizo, two chicken breasts, onion and garlic, and a pack of corn tortilla shells that just sat there since I normally use flour. I settle on making Taquitos. Well, somehow I stumbled into what may be my favorite meal I've ever cooked. I mean, I normally talk down my food to everyone around me (I undercooked it, didn't use enough seasoning, etc.)... but not this. It was just unequivocally delicious and I am owning that entirely!
So, here's the recipe!
First, homemade salsa. I was missing a few ingredients of traditional salsa, but I think this worked out better in the end. One can of diced tomatoes, one whole onion, one whole bulb of garlic, onion and garlic chopped roughly and put in blender with the tomatoes. Then add one tbsp sugar, one tbsp cumin. Chopped up a few arbol chilis roughly and dumped them in too (seeds included. I was missing cilantro, so I made due with a blend I've been building up of fresh grown herbs including: Thai Basil, Italian Basil, Mint, and Thyme. (Previously dried and ground in a mortar/pestle.) A good bit of that as well. Then a bit of fresh basil as well, just for good measure. Blend up, kept it a little chunky. The salsa alone was okayish, but then that wasn't what it was for anyway.
Boiled the chicken breasts until cooked through, then shredded. Cooked the chorizon in a pan, I want to say around 12 ounces (was 4 of the La Banderita casings' worth). Ground really fine while I was cooking, really nice and crispy. Mixed in the shredded chicken and let it heat back through mixing it in with the chorizo grease to get that flavor all nice and set in the meat. Added in the salsa, and a touch of salt and pepper. Coated everything well and cooked the water down (no tomato paste or thickening agent, so it was a touch watery). Taste wasn't quite there, so I added a bit of generic taco seasoning, I think it was old el paso, about a packets worth. In the future, I'm going to match this with fresh herbs. The big flourish however was a packet of Sazon with saffron. Also could be matched with fresh approximation, but since it has the saffron probably not worth it. Lastly, put about a 1/3rd cup of colby jack and turned the heat off, so it would melt into the meat mixture a bit but not just disappear into it.
Took a cookie sheet with foil on it, and filled the tortillas with about a 1/3rd spatula of filling, rolled them up as best i could and packed them tightly on the pan. And by rolled them I mean I broke every shell because the tortillas were super old and brittle, but still good. Not a big deal though. Managed to match the amount of filling to the amount of shells, so that worked. I then brushed the top of the tortillas with corn oil, and baked it at 400 for about 15-20 minutes, checking at 10 and 15 and just making sure the shells weren't burning on top. Managed to get a nice crisp top crust on what sort of looked like taquito casserole.
I think what put it over the edge was the sazon, but oh my god it was perfect and if you like that sort of food I recommend it heartily.
