Chicken in Chipotle Cream Sauce (Chicken Zarape)

Inspiration for Chicken in Chipotle Cream Sauce

This chicken in chipotle cream sauce is one I’ve been wanting to make for about five years now. It’s from notes that I wrote down at a Mexican Restaurant here in Denver where I was served this dish.

The restaurant has since gone out of business but this Mexican chicken recipe lives on in my kitchen.

This recipe and my recipe for Achiote Chicken is my favorite ways to prepare Mexican style chicken. Plus I’ve been on a bit of a chicken with bacon kick lately.

This is a recipe that I enjoyed several times and vowed to make in my own kitchen. What took me so long? I have no excuse really. Perhaps I finally grew tired of looking at its name staring back at me on the culinary list I’ve titled, “Must Make Soon”.

Once I made the commitment last week to actually dive in and prepare it.

I have to admit it took some planning. As simple as it sounds, I needed to come up with a way to make it easy for us home cooks. After all we don’t have all that restaurant equipment to push out perfectly planned chicken breast meals at the blink of an eye.

Culinary School taught me that restaurant use sous vide machines and commercial toaster/broiler ovens like a Salamander to finish dishes. A cast iron skillet and our home oven will replace those.

Chicken in Chipotle Cream Sauce – How to

Once I decided my cast iron skillet and my oven was the key to the success of this recipe, the rest of a breeze. Here’s the route to take for a no-full chicken dinner:

• Make the Creamy Chipotle Sauce and set aside.
• Make the tomato salsa. Chop a few orange and red small tomatoes. Add a bit of fine chopped jalapeno pepper and chopped onion, and a splash of red wine vinegar. A sprinkle of salt and pepper and set aside.
• Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
• Wrap two sliced of bacon around two boneless skinless chicken breasts in a criss-cross pattern.
• Heat your cast iron skillet over medium high heat. Once the skillet is hot, add one tablespoon of oil. Once the oil is shimmering add the bacon wrapped chicken breasts.
• Add them with the criss-crossed side of the bacon facing up.
• Once the breasts have browned, using tongs, turn them over and sea the other side.
• Move the skillet to the oven and cook about 25 minutes, or until instant read thermometer reads an internal temperature of 165 degrees.
• In the meantime, prepare rice.
• To plate, add a good scoop of rice to each plate. Snuggle that chicken breast up against the rice. Spoon a good amount of the Creamy Chipotle Sauce over each chicken breast and top with a spoonful of the tomato salsa mixture.

Simple and oh so flavorful.