cum grano salis — nobody likes a clever bastard

1 lbs chicken breast
cooking oil (preferably olive)
1 large lemon
salt
ground black pepper
Tabasco sauce (red)
8 oz salsa
1 lbs shredded cheese (”mexican style” pre-shredded cheese combination works well)
big flour tortillas (not the small taco ones)

Freeze the chicken breasts partially so they are easy to cut into strips about
1/8″ wide. Clean out as much excess fat from the chicken as you cut because
you don’t need it. Heat up some oil in a large non-stick frying pan (the deep
kind, since there is going to be a lot of liquid in it soon) and add the
chicken strips. As soon as they start to cook pepper the chicken evenly, but
generously, and add some salt to your liking. Once the chicken is fully
cooked on the outside shake enough Tabasco sauce on the chicken to turn it a
nice light reddish-orange color. Don’t worry about it being nuclear-hot when
it’s finished, because it won’t be. Cook this until most of the fat comes out
of the chicken and the juice boils evenly. This is where the lemon comes in.
Squeeze half, or all, of your lemon juice into the chicken, then in a couple
minutes add the salsa. This is mostly what determines how spicy and hot your
quesadillas will be. I prefer to use a nice chunky one like Pace “Thick and
Chunky” because veggies are good for you. Mix this all up and cover it,
letting it boil. Don’t forget to stir it often. You’re basically waiting for
it to cook down so the chicken falls apart and gets all juicy, but you don’t
want soup.

About the time that you realize your stew of chicken and salsa is nice and
thick, you want to heat up a frying pan (the shallow kind, because you’re
going to be flipping these giant tortillas with the mixture and melted cheese
on them.) Add oil to your pan and when it heats up shift the oil around so it
isn’t a big puddle in the middle, then add a tortilla and swish it around so
it gets coated evenly. Put a wad of cheese in the middle and kind of spread
it from the middle of the tortilla outwards, but don’t get within about an
inch from the edge of the tortilla. Cover this cheese with a layer of the meat
mixture. Add as much as you want, but remember you’re going to have to flip
it over soon. When the bottom tortilla is crispy and brown on the bottom, put
more cheese on top of the meat, another tortilla, smoosh it all flat and even
(pressing the meat and cheese mess outwards so it’s relatively flat,) and flip
it all over. Fry it until it’s crispy and brown, just like the other one!

That’s it. You’re finished. Just repeat this until you run out of meat
mixture, cheese, or tortillas. Wait for them to cool off a bit so they’re not
all stringy with cheese and cut them like pies.

Serves 2-4.

Chicken Quesadillas by cum grano salis — nobody likes a clever bastard, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.