Southwest chicken wraps

 

Not as pictured. Don’t try this at home. This disclaimer should accompany some recipes, including this one when it was photographed in the magazine.

I’m drawn to recipes by both their ingredients, and often, their picture. I understand that food stylists have to take liberties to make a dish attractive, but sometimes there’s an enormous leap, kind of like the Sidney Harris cartoon of two scientists where one has drawn “then a miracle occurs” as part of the equation. This is one of those, and a case where it’s best to follow common sense instead of the recipe if you want to achieve the same visual result.

I first tried these with the specified 10-inch wraps and the preposterously mismatched quantities of food. There was no way to have the sides of the wrap even meet, much less wrap around. Dave was the sensible one and ate most of his as a salad before attempting to roll it up.

Since we had lots of the spread leftover, I tried it again, this time cutting back significantly on the ingredients, and managed to achieve a sort of taco effect. The third time I did the barest sprinkling of everything and could achieve the slightest amount of rolling. Basically, if you really want this to wrap elegantly, you might want to buy something bigger than the 10-inch size or go really lightly on the toppings.

Southwest chicken wraps

Adapted from Martha Stewart Living Everyday Food November 2003. You can watch the video where the cook manages to actually wrap up a respectable-looking 10-inch wrap. I noted that she was clearly using far less of each ingredient than was originally specified.

Ingredients
¾ cup sour cream
2 to 3 tablespoons chopped pickled jalapeños
2 tablespoons lime juice
Sandwich wraps, the bigger the better if you really want them to wrap
Cooked chicken
Cooked black beans, drained
Chopped fresh tomato
Thinly sliced red onion
Fresh spinach leaves
Sliced avocado

Method
Combine sour cream, pickled peppers and lime juice in a small bowl. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Spread mixture as needed over sandwich wraps, leaving a two-inch border. Top sparingly with chicken, beans, tomato, onion, spinach and avocado. Fold in two opposite sides on the left and right. Fold in slightly on the ends. Roll up if you’re able.

Rating: Not bad. Probably not worth fussing with three times if I hadn't had leftover sour cream mixture to use up. If I try this again, I'll come armed with bigger wraps and sub in yummy guacamole sauce as the base spread.