El Sinaloense

Last night I was braver than I've ever been in the kitchen as I attempted to recreate my newest favorite dish served at La Carreta (our newest favorite Mexican restaurant where we'll be moving). This was brave because I tend to be "recipe-oriented" as my husband described it (when he came into the kitchen and was surprised to see that I had none).

The dish is called El Sinaloense, and while I have no idea what the name means my taste buds are well acquainted with the savory Mexican goodness of this platter. It consists of chicken and chorizo (Mexican sausage) with that delicious white melt-y cheese, re-fried beans, Mexican rice, and tortillas on the side. Here I am the first time we ate at La Carreta and I ordered El Sinaloense. Yes, I'll take credit for picking a winner on the very first try, thank you.

After two years of cooking dinners, experimenting with new recipes, and forcing myself to work with raw meat and chicken in an effort to be a good wife and and make my husband's stomach happy I decided to spread my culinary wings. And now I'm glad I went for it...as is my husband's stomach. :)

I started by cooking two portions of chorizo, taking the time to crumble it well.

When it was done, I removed it from the pan and added my chicken (seasoned with adobo and oregano and cut into very small pieces).

Once the chicken was cooked I turned the heat down and added the chorizo back into the mix.

Meanwhile, I cooked some yellow rice. After perusing all the varieties of rice in the grocery store, this seasoned yellow rice from Mahatma was my best guess. It wasn't exactly the same as the restaurant's, but it was very flavorful and yummy.

Finally, I heated up some fat-free re-fried beans (no lard in the fat-free kind). Sadly, I was unable to find the real melting white Mexican cheese so I used Pepper Jack instead. It didn't melt well at all but was still quite tasty.

All in all, I'd say it was about a 90% match to the original. And when Adam turned to me mid-meal, clapped his hands, and said "Bravo, my dear!" I knew I'd come pretty darn close.