Midwestern Mexican with Southern Tier Collards

This was sooooo good that DH asked for it the second night in a row.  I changed up the starch and veg (Sunday night it was broccoli and quinoa) with mash and collards.  That’s Southern Fried Chicken pieces in the achiote “gravy”.

I try to experiment with our local Mexican products, but had no clue what to do with this paste.  A quick twirl around the net produced some guidelines:  add vinegar and oil and then . . . well, couldn’t find much else that interested me.  So I added vinegar and oil, a good bit of bone broth, and a slurry of flour and some coconut milk that was lurking in the refrigerator to make the gravy you see here.

There was a small bit left over from Sunday night, so I just enlarged on the whole thing, chopping up additional chicken, and adding regular milk for the slurry this time.  Couldn’t tell any difference.

The three-quart InstantPot made this do over a complete snap.  I steamed six medium potatoes for 15 minutes.  Then, while everything was still hot, I plopped in the collards for an additional seven minutes.  While the collards were cooking, I peeled the potatoes (the skins slip right off at that point, but asbestos fingers are a plus!) and got them mashed up.

The meat heated nicely in the new gravy . . . and Bob’s your uncle!

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