WHY THIS RECIPE WORKS: Take a soft flour tortilla, roll it around a small amount of flavorful filling and fry it until satisfyingly crisp and golden brown, and you have a flauta. Spanish for “flute”, these crunchy, fun-to-eat rolls
are similar to taquitos, but while taquitos are small and use corn tortillas, flautas are much larger and are made from flour tortillas. To make a rich chicken filling, we built a spicy tomato sauce by sautéing onion, jalapeño, garlic, oregano, chili powder and cayenne to bloom their flavors. After adding a can of tomato sauce, we simply nestled the chicken in the skillet, covered it, and let the chicken cook through. As the chicken cooked, it absorbed the sauce’s spicy flavor; once it was cooked through, we shredded the chicken into bite-size pieces, added it back to the sauce, and stirred in cilantro and lime juice for bright flavor. To make the flautas, we decided to use 8-inch flour tortillas, which were large enough to hold a pleasing amount of filling but small enough to allow us to fry all the flautas in
just two batches. But when we rolled the flautas, we found that the tortillas were too long, leaving large flaps of excess tortilla. These flaps didn’t get as crisp when fried and didn’t allow the filling to shine. We solved this problem by cutting off one-third of the tortilla before we added the filling. To keep the flautas from opening up during frying, we “glued” the flaps down using a paste made from equal parts flour and water, and then fried them seam side down.
Using merely a cup of oil, we were able to turn out flautas with ultracrisp, golden-brown exteriors in just a few minutes. The leftover trimmed pieces of tortilla can be used to make Homemade Baked Tortilla Chips.

Serve 4 to 6

INGREDIENTS

• 1 tablespoon plus 1 cup vegetable oil
• 1 onion, chopped fine
• 2 jalapeño chiles, stemmed, seeded, and minced
• 1 tablespoon chili powder
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• ¼ teaspoon dried oregano
• ⅛ teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1 (8-ounce) can tomato sauce
• 2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts, trimmed
• Salt and pepper
• 2 tablespoons minced fresh cilantro
• 2 tablespoons lime juice
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons water
• 12 (8-inch) flour tortillas
• 1 recipe Avocado Sauce (recipe follows)

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Heat 1 tablespoon oil in 12-inch nonstick skillet over medium heat until shimmering.
2. Add onion and cook until softened, about 5 minutes.
3. Stir in jalapeños, chili powder, garlic, oregano, and cayenne and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds.
4. Stir in tomato sauce and bring to simmer.
5. Season chicken with salt and pepper and nestle into sauce.
6. Cover, reduce heat to medium-low, and cook until chicken registers 160 degrees, 10 to 15 minutes, flipping halfway through cooking.
7. Transfer chicken to cutting board and let cool slightly.
8. Using 2 forks, shred chicken fine.
9. Stir shredded chicken, cilantro, and lime juice into sauce.
10. Line rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.
11. Whisk flour and water together in bowl.
12. Cut off bottom third of each tortilla (discard or reserve for another use).
13. Wrap tortillas in damp dish towel and microwave until warm and pliable, about 1 minute.
14. Lay 6 warm tortillas on counter with trimmed edge facing you.
15. Mound half of chicken filling alongside trimmed edges.
16. Roll trimmed edge of 1 tortilla up over filling, then pull back on tortilla to tighten it around filling.
17. Working with 1 tortilla at a time, brush remaining exposed tortilla with flour paste, then roll it up tightly around filling.
18. Press on edges firmly to seal; transfer to prepared baking sheet.
19. Repeat with remaining 6 tortillas and remaining filling. (Flautas can be covered with damp towel, wrapped tightly in plastic wrap, and refrigerated for up to 24 hours.)
20. Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 200 degrees.
21. Line plate with several layers of paper towels.
22. Set wire rack in second rimmed baking sheet.
23. Heat remaining 1 cup oil in clean 12-inch nonstick skillet over medium-high heat until 325 degrees.
24. Place 6 flautas, seam side down, in oil.
25. Fry, turning as needed, until golden brown on all sides, 3 to 5 minutes, adjusting burner as necessary to maintain oil temperature between 300 and 325 degrees.
26. Let drain briefly on paper towels, then transfer to wire rack and keep warm in oven while frying remaining 6 flautas.
27. Serve with Avocado Sauce.