Love in an Enchilada

What was I saying about a tangent? Oh yeah, I'm on one. Deviating once again from any recipes or cookbooks, I decided to try my hand at making enchiladas, off the cuff, using the techniques and methods I have learned over the past few months from watching the master. What I came up with was probably a combination of traditional Mexican and Tex-Mex...cheese enchiladas (Mexican) topped with chili con carne (Tex-Mex). They got the vote of approval from my wife, who is beyond sick of Mexican food at this point. Kudos to her for soldiering on and continuing to allow me to cook these meals for her.

Being my own worst critic, I'm usually very reluctant to give myself credit for anything. I'm always looking for input and validation from others. But this time I think I pretty darn near nailed it. They weren't perfect by any stretch, and they weren't 100% from scratch (store bought tortillas to save some time), but they were good...really good. Here's how you make them.

There are three major components to enchiladas...the tortillas, the filling, and the sauce. From what I've learned (and please correct me if I'm in error!), the tortillas are traditionally corn, the filling typically pork, chicken, or cheese, and the sauce usually consists of reconstituted and pureed dried chiles, tomatoes, water, and stock/broth, along with some other seasonings OR a salsa verde of tomatillos, chiles, water, and cilantro.

Here is the ingredient list, with suggestions for what I might do the next time to try to make them even better.

The tortillas

corn tortillas, flour tortillas (for my wife)

The filling

Monterey Jack and cheddar cheeses, shredded

The amount will vary, use enough to get some gooey melted goodness, but don't over-stuff the tortillas so they're bursting open

The sauce

For me, this is the most important part of the enchilada experience. A bad sauce ruins the whole thing, no matter how good your fillings are. Here's what I used, followed by a brief summary of how I'll do things differently next time:

1.5 pounds ground beef (next time I'll use about 0.5 lbs)
1/2 cup finely diced red onion
3 garlic cloves
1/2 can (15 oz) low sodium beef stock/broth (next time might use whole 15 oz can)
1/2 can (15 oz) fire roasted tomatoes
1 cup water
about 1 T. achiote paste
about 8 dried guajillo chiles, soaked in hot water for 30 minutes, then chopped
salt, to taste
1 T. oregano
1 T. ground cumin

What is achiote paste?? From Wikipedia...The spice mixture usually includes annatto, Mexican oregano, cumin, clove, cinnamon, black pepper, allspice, garlic, and salt. The annatto seeds dye the mixture red, and this gives the meat or vegetables it seasons a distinctive red hue.

Before I explain how to turn these 11 ingredients into a smooth, wonderfully textured sauce for your enchiladas, here are a few things I'll change next time around. I'll use about 1/3 the amount of beef, the sauce was way too thick when all was said and done. I will use more beef broth (probably 1 whole 15 oz can, instead of 1/2), more achiote paste (perhaps 2T.) and a few more dried chiles (perhaps 10-12).

Now on to the preparation of the chili con carne sauce:

Step 1: Boil water, remove from heat, insert dried chiles. Place a weight (like a small plate or lid) on the chiles to keep them submerged. Do this for about 30 minutes to reconstitute the chiles.

Step 2: While the chiles are soaking, brown the ground beef over medium high heat with a little bit of olive oil. Once browned, reduce the heat to medium and add the onion and garlic until they are soft. Then remove from the heat and cover until the other parts of the sauce are ready to be added.

Step 3: Stem and seed chiles. I use my hands, no tools. First, rip off the stem, being careful not to remove too much flesh. Then turn it over to dump out the water inside and most of the seeds. Then cut a slit in the chile and open it up so you can scrape out the remaining seeds.

Step 4: Puree. Once all the chiles are seeded and stemmed, chop up the chile flesh and put it in a food processor with 1 cup of fresh water. Puree the chiles until you have a smooth liquid.

Step 5: Using a wire mesh strainer over a bowl, sift out the chile skins. In the bowl, you'll be left with a chile puree that is devoid of annoying little bits of flesh. Now it's a cake-walk from here on out!

Step 6: Add to the food processor your chile puree, along with the broth, tomatoes, achiote paste, and about 1 teaspoon of salt. Pulse the liquid until pureed.

Step 7: Add the liquid component of the sauce to the pot with the beef, and bring to a light simmer for about 20 minutes or so. Then add your 1T. oregano, 1T. cumin, and more salt, to taste.

Seven steps just to make the sauce?? Once the chiles are brought back to life and the food processor is out, these 6 steps go by pretty quickly. 

The Whole Enchilada

Step 1: Preheat your oven to 350 degrees, and spoon several ladles full of your sauce into a 13 x 9 or similar baking dish.

Step 2: One by one, dip your tortillas in the pot of remaining sauce until they are pliable enough to roll. Be careful not to leave them in too long or they'll fall apart when you try to remove them. This will take some practice...believe me! Good thing a package of 30 corn tortillas is about $1.50!

Transfer to the baking dish and roll each one up with a mixture of MJ and cheddar cheeses. Line the enchiladas up, leaving some space between each one for ease of removal later.

Step 3: Top each enchilada with some more sauce, and bake for about 20 minutes.

Step 4: Try your best to wait until they cool down a little bit so you don't burn mouth with hot, oozing, melted, delicious cheese and chili con carne!

Summary

Enchiladas are my dish of choice at just about any Mexican restaurant. This version was a great success and very encouraging, but at the same time a good learning experience. Next time I'll be sure to use less beef in the sauce, so the sauce is a bit more fluid. But all in all I was very happy with the outcome, especially just shooting from the hip.