Chicken Chichen Itza

This is a really good meal that is made from a lot of leftover ingredients!  It was a little mushy as a leftover, but still very good!


1 chicken, or 3 boneless skinless chicken breasts
1/2 cup rice flour
1 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
3 tomatoes
1 small onion
3 cloves garlic
1 T oregano
1 T cumin
1/4 cup butter or margarine, plus more to saute
Banana leaves (or aluminum foil)
Rice, brown or wild


Combine the flour, salt and pepper in a plastic bag.  Stick the chicken in and shake to thoroughly coat.

Heat some butter or margarine in a skillet and brown the chicken on both sides.  Cover and continue cooking on low for 20 minutes, until done.

Meanwhile, prepare the sauce.  Heat a tablespoon of butter and a tablespoon of oil in a pan.  Chop up the tomatoes, onion and garlic, and throw them all in.  Saute for 3 minutes.  Sprinkle with the oregano and cumin, cover the pan and cook over moderate heat for about ten minutes.  Uncover and simmer for 10 minutes.  Finally, put it all into a food processor and blend.

Preheat oven to 350.

Beat 1/4 cup butter into the tomato sauce.

Place a piece of chicken either on a plus-sign shape of crossed banana leaves, or in the middle of a square of foil.  (Foil is certainly less messy, but leaves add a nice flavor and look very cool.)  Spoon at least 1/4 cup of tomato sauce over the chicken.  Wrap it up.  Repeat with the other pieces of chicken, place all of them in a baking pan (in case of leakage), and bake for 20 minutes.

Serve with rice.

Any leftovers are excellent as taco meat for tomorrow's dinner!