Skillet Chicken Tamale Pie

Yes, you read that right - Skillet Chicken Tamale Pie was FINALLY on the menu for dinner this week.  (I mean, it has been on the menu for, like, weeks now, but I FINALLY made it this week!)  This all started when a friend of mine shared some of her family's Easter tamales with us and my oldest claimed that tamales are her favorite food. (My youngest daughter then regaled us with the claim that she does NOT like tamales, but that is neither here nor there...for this post at least.  Obviously, we have to have some kind of intervention for her, because - WHO doesn't like tamales?!)  Anyway, the tamales were amazing - clearly homemade with a meat filling that practically fell apart and masa that was perfectly seasoned and moist.  We enjoyed them.  Thoroughly.  Of course, that brought up the question, again from my oldest: "Mommy, why don't you ever make tamales?"  I tried explaining to her the time consuming factor of making tamales, among other issues, then, when my excuses continued to fall upon deaf nine-year-old-tamale-craving ears, I took a look at one of my favorite cookbooks, "America's Test Kitchen Healthy Family Cookbook".  Lo and behold, there was an "easy" recipe for Skillet Chicken Tamale Pie.  She seemed excited about this new recipe and a twist on traditional tamales, so I thought we would give it a try.

Now, I put the word easy in quotations for a reason: ATK recipes are typically not what I would classify as "easy", especially for a weeknight, family meal.  They typically involve ALOT of extra steps (and thus ALOT of extra dishes), so I tend to distill their recipes down into a more manageable and efficient procedure.  This recipe was no different - the intention is obviously to make this a one pot/skillet meal, but, if you are like me and forgot (AGAIN) to defrost the meat the night before, it becomes necessary to accomplish this in a different series of steps. 

The original recipe says to heat a skillet in a 400 degree oven until it is smoking hot and then to sear the chicken thighs in the skillet, thus quickly rendering their fat.  You then use part of the rendered fat to saute the vegetables, returning the meat to the sauce at the end to finish cooking in more of a braise method.  Like I said, I was defrosting my chicken thighs in a sinkful of water at 5 pm that day and I needed dinner on the table no later than 6:15 pm, so I changed things up a bit.  While said chicken was defrosting, I chopped all the veggies (onions from my garden, and the manky old poblano chiles - hey!  They did not have mold on them!  Don't judge. - plus garlic and cilantro to add towards the end of the cooking process.) I sauteed them in a scant tablespoon of olive oil until they started to soften, then added a bag of frozen, organic corn.  (Another substitution - the original recipe calls for fresh corn or for defrosted and patted dry frozen corn.  Duh - I didn't have time to pat the freaking corn dry.)  I then sprinkled about a tablespoon of flour over the top, cooked it for about 30 seconds and, once I had some nice color on the corn, I added the garlic, cooked until fragrant, then added the cilantro, a can of chopped green chiles, a can of white hominy (drained and rinsed) and about a cup and a half of chicken stock.  I brought all of that to a low simmer, thickened the sauce, then added about a cup of medium cheddar cheese, off the heat.  I poured all of that into a 9 x 13 inch casserole dish and stuck it in my microwave to keep warm until I was ready for it.  I wiped out the skillet, added a tiny bit of olive oil and sauteed the chicken thighs, which were, by this time, partially defrosted.  I rendered the fat of the skin and browned it on all sides before sticking it in the microwave (after removing my casserole dish) to finish cooking it (really to nuke the crap out of it - I don't mess around with undercooked chicken by any means).  While that was cooking, I made the "masa" topping - 3/4 cup each of flour and cornmeal, 3 tablespoons of sugar, 1 teaspoon of baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda, 1/2 teaspoon of salt, 3/4 cup buttermilk, 1 egg and 1 tablespoon of butter, melted and cooled.  I shredded the nuclear chicken, mixed it in with the corn/pepper mixture in the casserole dish, dolloped the masa topping, spread it out and baked that sucker in the oven at 400 degrees for about 30 minutes, until bubbly and nicely golden brown. 

The result: pretty tasty!  I definitely made it more complicated than the original recipe was supposed to be, but it worked.  It was very slightly spicy and the heat was more than tempered by the sweet corn bread topping.  The chicken was chewier than it should have been - especially considering that it was mostly supposed to be braised - but what are you going to do?  I had the leftovers for lunch the next day and I have to say - the flavors continued to develop and meld.  I think it might have been better the next day than it was the first time around.  I don't know if I will make the recipe again, especially since my tamale lover was not completely blown away by it, but it was a decent Wednesday night meal.  Everybody ate it, so, as you well know - that's a winner in my book!