Cebolla. Comino. Caldo.

Taco night in our house is serious business, and a lot of that stems from the fact that I found a great Mexican pulled chicken recipe that I have been using with tremendous success for the past few years.  From this recipe and several others, I've stumbled upon the secret holy trinity of Mexican cooking: onions, cumin and chicken stock.

Sure, onions in their many varieties are ubiquitous across cuisines of the world.  No, cumin is not unique to Mexican food and is probably more immediately thought of as an Indian staple spice.  Chicken stock is commonly used in any cuisine that features the chicken (yeah, that's right, all of them).  But somehow, when you mix the three of them together, the magic of Mexican food is born.  Add some tomato salsa and ground red chiles and you've got yourself a party, er, fiesta.

After about 20 minutes of simmering, these boneless, skinless, boring chicken breasts will hit 165 degrees and be bursting with flavor.  Take them out of the liquid and let them rest.  We all need to rest after we party.

Time to reduce.  You want to concentrate the flavor and thicken the sauce.  Water isn't welcome at this party. Water isn't really welcome at any party.  I like to squeeze in a little lime juice at this point to give the sauce a little tart kick.

Once the chicken is rested, it's time to pull it apart.  Almost every recipe I've seen for pulled anything says to use two forks.  Nuts to that.  I was picking up dinner from City Barbecue one night and saw a dude there pulling meat with a dough scraper.  I filed it away and used one the next time I made pulled chicken.  So much faster and easier.  As long as the meat is tender (which your chicken should be if it's cooking in liquid), all you need to do is drag the blade against the grain and the strands should separate without much effort at all.

Once the meat is pulled and the sauce is thickened, it's time to mix those two back together. You should have enough liquid to coat all of the chicken liberally.

While the chicken was simmering, I made some Mexican rice and refried beans to go along with our tacos.  Guess what went into those?  If you said "onions, cumin and chicken stock," congratulations: your short-term memory is just as good as your reading comprehension skills.