Chimichanga
Mexican or Southwestern American dish consisting of a deep-fried burrito
A chimichanga is a deep-fried burrito that is common in Tex-Mex and other Southwestern U.S. cuisine. The dish is typically prepared by filling a flour tortilla with various ingredients, most commonly rice, cheese, beans, and a meat, such as machaca (chopped or shredded meat), carne adobada (marinated meat), carne seca (dried beef), or shredded chicken, and folding it into a rectangular package. It is then deep-fried, and can be accompanied by salsa, guacamole, or sour cream.
Etymology
The origin of the term chimichanga is uncertain. According to Mexican linguist and philologist Francisco J. Santamaría's Diccionario de Mejicanismos (1959), Chivichanga is a regionalism from the State of Tabasco: In Tabasco, it's any trinket or trifle; something unimportant and whose true role or origin, is not known legitimately. — Variants: chibachanga, chimichanga. Chimichanga and its variants Chivichanga and Chibachanga are synonymous with the term Timbirimba, which means: Term used in some parts of the interior of the country, to refer to a thing whose name is unknown, or a thing that is properly ignored. What timbirimba is that? Synonym of chivichanga.
Folk history
From the Mexican term chivichanga, one account adduces that Sonoran immigrants brought the dish with them to Arizona.
“Chimichanga” enters the record as mexican or Southwestern American dish consisting of a deep-fried burrito. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Chimichanga, Mexican and Southwestern can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “Chimichanga” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.