Rosa de la Garza’s Texas Chicken

Original recipe by: Rosa de la Garza by way of Craig Claiborne
Adaptation and headnote by: Leslie Brenner

This dish — great Tex-Mex for chicken lovers — came into my life as an ancient Craig Claiborne recipe my mom clipped from The New York Times Magazine around 1970. Claiborne called the dish Rosa de la Garza's Texas Chicken (without an explanation of where he got it). It quickly made it into my mom’s regular rotation. One night my grandparents came to dinner, and Rosa de la Garza’s Texas Chicken was the last thing my grandpa ate; he died of heart failure the next morning. My mom, who wasn’t exactly a sentimental sort, changed the name of this dish in his honor: After that it was known as The Chicken that Killed Grandpa.

Over the years, I’ve tweaked the dish; for the original, you didn't brown the chicken, deglaze the pan or use cilantro. Its origin remains a mystery, though I have spent some hours trying to unearth in. H…