Recipe #2: Creamy Enchiladas with Chicken and Green Chile

I went into this recipe with very high hopes. Enchiladas are my dish of choice at just about any Mexican restaurant. Delicious meat or cheese wrapped up in a fresh corn tortilla, baked in that wonderful sauce with more melted cheese on top...paired with some good rice and beans, it is far and away my favorite.

Let's just say I didn't achieve the level of happiness while eating my own as I typically do while eating them at a restaurant. But hey, it's my first try, and they certainly weren't bad.

The book says you can make the sauce in advance, so this was what I decided to tackle first.

First step...roast the chile. This is done in a dry skillet over medium heat. Kendra bought a really big jalapeno, so where this step normally takes about 5 minutes to blacken most of the skin...this step took about 15. The best part about this step, the chile did a little dance in the pan. Try it, it's entertaining.

EDIT: I roast just about everything under the broiler now. The chiles roast more evenly and it seems to take less time.

Next step, once softened and blackened in spots, add the roasted chile to two 28 oz cans of whole, peeled (and drained) tomatoes in a blender, and puree until smooth. I also added one clove of garlic here even though the recipe didn't call for it. Also, despite adding the entire jalapeno (yet only half the seeds), the sauce was not spicy at all.

Once smooth, the tomato and chile puree was added to some onions, which were sauteing in a deep pot, and cooked at a strong simmer/boil on medium-high for about 15 minutes. Chicken stock was added at this point and the sauce cooked for another 15 minutes, removed from heat, and finished with a touch of heavy cream.

One hurdle cleared...so many left to go.

At this point Kendra left the house for a bit. I was left alone with Siena, who is just shy of 8 months old and my two older kids, Madison and Jack, who were playing MarioKart in the other room, and my unfinished enchiladas. The big kids were occupied, but Siena was angry. She has a habit of yelling at us when she's the slightest big ignored, and yell she did. What she should have done was laugh at my feeble attempt at making some corn tortillas...which leads us to the next step...

Corn tortillas. Three ingredients: masa harina, hot water, salt. I wish I had been able to see myself try this from a different perspective because it really was comical. I got the dough to a consistent I thought was right. I put the pieces of plastic on the tortilla press's plates so the dough wouldn't stick. I pressed a small ball of the dough. The first one looked pathetic, like the little corn tortilla all the other ones pick on. It was about 3 inches in diameter, and just a sad looking thing. But I cooked it as specified, on the ungreased griddle for about 1 minute per side. I figured since this one was so pathetic looking that I would eat it to see how it tasted. Actually the taste was not too bad, but the tortilla was too thick. FAIL. So for the next one I combined two of my dough balls, pressed the combined dough ball out...this time to about 6 inches in diameter. A few words of advice: make sure the dough doesn't touch the tortilla press plates AT ALL. This one was torn to shreds when I opened up the press because a small area was in contact with the press's upper plate. FAIL. Let's try again...maybe the dough was too dry? I again combined two small dough balls into a bigger one, this time added a few drops of water to it while i worked it a bit. This time I successfully pressed it to about 6 inches and was able to remove it from the tortilla press. I baked it on the griddle and again tasted it. Too thick and not cooked enough. FAIL. So in about 30 minutes, I have created zero usable tortillas. Kendra is due home soon, and I have no tortillas with which to make enchiladas. Even if the consistency had been right, the tortillas would have created what could have been called enchiladitas, because they would have been so tiny. I got in touch with Kendra and told her to pick up some tortillas at the store. Unfortunately they didn't have corn, so we used flour. Bummer. But at least we'd have something that resembled enchiladas for dinner.

Now it's 8PM, the kids are still playing MarioKart, and I haven't even cooked the chicken. In my haste, I prepared the chicken for the enchiladas in the microwave. I know, this sounds awful, but it works, especially if you plan to shred the chicken. I didn't have time to poach it, so in a pinch, i poked some holes in the chicken so it didn't explode, and microwaved the three breasts on high for about 7 minutes. If covered with plastic wrap, the chicken comes out surprisingly juicy and shreds easily with two forks. Hey, RB pushes non-pretentious cooking. Chicken in the microwave is as non-pretentious as it gets.

I coated a 13x9 with some of the enchilada sauce, added a bit more sauce to the chicken and rolled that up in the store-bought flour tortillas (wincing all the time because I was looking forward to the flavor of corn tortillas), placed them in the 13x9, covered with the remaining sauce and some cheese, and baked in a 350 oven for about 15 minutes.

RESULT: Essentially what we had for dinner were giant shredded chicken burritos topped with enchilada sauce and cheese. Tasty, but certainly not what I had bargained for. Oh well, there's always next time. On the side we had Goya brand Mexican rice (awesome) and some Old El Paso brand refried beans. We had enough to feed 10 people. Good to know for next time.

Although it took quite a bit of preparation, this was an easy dish minus the corn tortillas, which are going to take some practice. And paired with the rice and beans, a hearty meal indeed. This is one that the whole family can help prepare, and actually probably should. Working alone and being bossed around by my 8 month old, I was a bit overwhelmed.

I will try these again once I have a better grasp on how to make corn tortillas...ones that are big enough to be enchiladas, but not so big as what we had.

Ratings (as prepared by me, the greenhorn):

Flavor: 4/5 (Kendra: 5/5)

The enchilada sauce is very flavorful. I got a slight tang to mine, which I didn't really like. Not sure where that came from, maybe the acidity of the tomatoes?

Heat: 0/5 (Kendra: 0/5)

The lone roasted jalapeno chile we used only added a nice flavor. There was not even a hint of heat to the finished dish.

Difficulty: 4/5

If not for the corn tortillas, this would have been a 2/5. With some practice, hopefully some day I'll have some real enchiladas.

Kid Friendliness: Unsure, but probably 4/5

There's nothing scary for kids here. Keep the ingredients simple and they should be able to enjoy these enchiladas.