Recipes By Lesley Téllez

NYT Cooking

Chicken Flautas Ahogadas

These crunchy, tube-shaped flautas ahogadas — the name roughly translates to “drowned flutes” — are served in a pool of spicy tomatillo sauce, and the idea is to slather each bite in the sauce as you eat. They’re immensely popular in Mexico City, where they’re prepared using long corn tortillas specifically made for the dish. This faster version uses standard corn tortillas and a quick rotisserie chicken filling, but the tomatillo sauce, which is tart with an underlying sweetness, deserves to be made from scratch. Prepare it a day in advance or freeze it to save time. It’s worth making a double batch of the sauce, because it brightens up just about anything: tacos, quesadillas or eggs.