Botana Potatoes

The other day my daughter came home with birria fries from a local taco truck and it looked so delicious! So I decided I needed to try and create a similar version of my own.

This month in our HealingStrong meeting we discussed how to adapt recipes so that they are healthier and help contribute to our healing and good health. I’m going to walk you through my thought process as I created this. So let’s first look at what her dish was made of…

french fries
birria meat
melted cheese
and cilantro

Seems easy enough.

The Potatoes
First, I had to figure out the potato portion. My daughters version used french fries which I didn’t have. I figured any potato could work for this so I looked to see if I had any hashbrowns in the freezer, which would have been an easy choice for this… I didn’t have any, but I did have some golden potatoes so that’s what I chose! I hurried and started those cooking so that I could dice them up later.

The Birria Replacement
Then I turned my thoughts towards what to use in place of the birria meat. Shredded jackfruit could have been a good substitute if I’d had any. So then I went through the list in my head of other ways to make meat substitutes. I have a recipe for great taco flavored lentils. But I didn’t really want lentils or a lentil texture in this dish. I also have a recipe for a great walnut and sundried tomato meat recipe that is really tasty! But I wasn’t really feeling that one either.

And then! I had the thought to just use some chickpeas flavored in Botana sauce. This was probably the easiest thing to throw together so I went with this idea! Easy peasy!

I really like this Botana sauce from Siete foods. It is so flavorful and the ingredients are pretty clean! And I figured it would give a nice flavorful Mexican taste even if it wasn’t real Birria. Score!

The Melted Cheese

You could always use a vegan “cheese” in a pinch that you can find at most grocery stores these days, but I don’t always think the ingredients in those are very supportive if you’re on a healing diet (aka, not the healthiest choice). And since this was a melted cheese, I figured I could get away with something that is just “creamy” instead. I decided to do a basic cashew ranch dressing because I felt like the ranch dressing would add a nice cooling counterpart to the hotter Botana sauce. And then all of a sudden I began to feel like I wasn’t making a Mexican dish anymore but something more like buffalo wings.

The Cilantro

This one should have been easy. Just use cilantro. But I didn’t have any!!! So I had to keep thinking about what would taste good with this and I finally settled on some green onions.

Putting It All Together

In order to get more greens in, I decided to put it on a bed of broccoli sprouts. I am always trying to figure out how to sneak more of these into my dishes because they are so full of sulforaphane which is a powerful compound found in broccoli sprouts that is a powerful cancer fighting compound. It is up to 100 times more concentrated in sprouts than in mature broccoli. Sulforaphane helps protect healthy cells from damage and may inhibit the growth of cancer cells so load up on it whenever you can!

So basically just add some potatoes and the botana chickpeas on top of the broccoli sprouts. Drizzle it with the ranch dressing and top it with some green onions! You could probably even drizzle more of the Botana sauce on it if you want. And voila!

Botana Potatoes

This dish was inspired by a local Mexican food truck's tasty Birria french fries.

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Ingredients

• Potatoes, french fries or diced hashbrowns
• 1 can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
• Botana sauce, enough to cover chickpeas
• 1 cup raw, unsalted cashews
• 1 cup plant milk
• 1 tsp dried parsley
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1/2 tsp onion powder
• 1 tsp salt
• Broccoli sprouts
• Green onions

Instructions

1. Cook your potatoes of choice.
2. Rinse and drain the chickpeas and place in a bowl. Add Botana sauce, enough to cover the chickpeas and mix well. Warm them up in a pan.
3. For the ranch dressing, in a high speed blender add the cashews, plant milk, parsley, garlic powder, onion powder and salt. Blend on high until it is nice and creamy.
4. Lay a nice layer of broccoli sprouts on a plate. Top with your cooked potatoes, then add your warmed chickpeas. Drizzle with your ranch dressing and top with sliced green onions.

Notes

If you don't have a high speed blender, then soak the cashews in warm water for about an hour. Rinse and drain the cashews and then add to the blender with the rest of the ranch ingredients.

You could also drizzle more Botana sauce on top if you want.

And that’s how I came up with this dish using my recipe substitution skills. I thought it turned out pretty tasty in the end, but I’m not sure if this is more mexican or buffalo wing style so if you try it you’ll have to let me know what you think!