Chicken Quesadillas

Preparing tortillas for quesadillas

1. Chicken quesadillas are quick to make at home, since you can buy all the ingredients, ready-made tortillas included. All that’s left is to cook the chicken fillet and make a spicy salad or sauce: salsa, pico de gallo or guacamole, whichever you prefer.

   

   I must admit I was surprised that you can buy excellent ready-made tortillas in stores.

2. Get the tortillas ready: check that their diameter fits your frying pan, unless you’re using a grill. Corn or wheat tortillas are extremely easy to make: flour and water make a dough that you roll out thinly and cook on both sides in a hot dry pan.

   

Making the filling

1. Prepare the chicken breast. Trim off any bits of bone and large pieces of fat. Slice the fillet horizontally so it opens like a book. Then pound the meat so it’s the same thickness all over: lay it on a cutting board, cover with plastic wrap and pound lightly.

   

2. Cook the fillet over medium heat, turning it, until done and lightly browned. You can use an ordinary frying pan without oil or a grill pan. By the way, it’s even tastier over hot coals on a barbecue: an idea for a picnic. Then let the meat cool a little so you don’t burn your fingers.

   

3. Coarsely grate the cheese into a bowl. For tasty chicken quesadillas, use good-quality hard or semi-hard cheese that melts easily when heated. Of the easy-to-find kinds, that’s Emmental, cheddar or Gouda.

   

   Pull the chicken apart into shreds with your fingers and add it to the cheese. Add coarsely chopped fresh chili to taste and 1-2 pinches of ground coriander, then stir the filling.

Assembling and grilling the chicken quesadillas

1. Lay a tortilla on the table or a flat plate. Spread the filling over one half of the tortilla, level it and press it down lightly. The layer of filling can be fairly thin, in principle. But a lot of filling is always great! Don’t hold back; it’ll be delicious.

   

3. Fold the tortilla in half over the filling, then press lightly. A chicken quesadilla holds its shape quite well and doesn’t break or lose its form. It’s easy to move and flip. Quesadillas are usually 1.5-2 cm thick. Get all of them ready for cooking.

   

4. Heat the grill or frying pan and, without greasing it, lay in two filled quesadillas. The folded tortilla must fit flat in the bottom of the pan without bending. My square grill pan fits two quesadillas diagonally, which is very handy.

   

5. Cook the filled tortillas over medium heat on both sides until the cheese is clearly melted and the tortillas are browned. A grill pan gives you beautiful, clearly visible stripes that tell you when to stop so they don’t burn. When you’re happy with the result, move the tortillas to a board and cut them into 2-3 wedges with a sharp knife.

   

Spicy salad

1. The easiest sauces to serve are salsa, guacamole or just a hot tomato sauce. I suggest making a spicy Mexican salad similar to pico de gallo, one of my favorite cold Mexican snacks. It’s best to make the salad before cooking the quesadillas, so you can serve them hot.

2. Finely chop the bell and chili peppers, cilantro and garlic. Mix everything, salt it and add 1-2 tbsp of lime juice. Then dress with olive oil.

   

Serving

1. Put the hot quesadillas on a serving plate. Put the salad in a small bowl, which can go on the same plate. Such snacks usually come without cutlery: you can eat the salad straight with the tortilla.

   

   When you make snacks like this, all the ingredients should be ready to eat by the time they go into the tortilla. Although a “classic” quesadilla is just cheese, use your imagination: the fillings can be very varied.