We like spicy food–hence why I had several dozen pepper plants this year. We like the flavors of Mexican food. We both make pretty darn good fajitas. We make decent burritos. We do just fine with prepared taco shells. My enchiladas are embarrassing.
Until recently, I have to confess that I did my best to create enchiladas without ever have seen the process of making them by an expert. My husband told me that the solution to my rolling issues was to make them like in New Mexico, stacked and not rolled. Then I watched the new chef from Mexico on the Food Network making enchiladas. She dipped the tortilla in sauce to get it to roll better. I thought: ah ha! I see what my enchiladas have been missing. Tonight I generously spread my home-canned tomatillo sauce (again, my own recipe) on both sides of my lovely allegedly authentic corn tortillas and stacked them to keep them moist as I filled and rolled. Even as I placed them in the casserole dish, they cracked. Again. And in the end they were both too moist and too dry.
So, internet surfers with a world of expertise, please help my enchiladas. What’s your favorite authentic enchilada recipe? What do you do in the process? Do you have a sauce recipe that works well? We don’t eat red meat but can adapt beef and pork recipes to our dietary limitations, if you can help me figure out the rest of the process.
As for recipes, I don’t have one that is authentic. But I do enjoy corn tortillas a lot, and have had really good luck with using them when I heat or steam them for a bit. Usually I just throw them one at a time on the gas burner of my stove and constantly rotate it, but you can do the same thing in a skillet. That should keep it from cracking as badly….
Thanks, Karl. I’ll try that. I thought the sauce would help too, but maybe it wasn’t juicy enough. I had the last enchilada for lunch as a leftover, and I decided I liked the flavor more than I thought yesterday.
The classic New Mexico cook will run each tortilla through a skim of hot oil in the frying pan. I heat about 1/4 inch of good oil in my cast iron frying pan until it shimmers, and put each tortilla in for a few seconds, fishing it out with tongs and filling and rolling it as soon as I can touch it. Be sure to let the oil reheat between tortillas. I then roll the enchiladas into that very frying pan for baking.
Thanks, Sarah! I’m a big cast iron fan (I know; it’s obvious), so I’ll have to try this method too. Do the tortillas not retain a lot of oil that way?
I always drain my lightly fried tortillas on paper towels (many of them) to absorb some of the oil. Then I blot them with paper towels to try to get more of the oil out. I fry as many tortillas as I plan to use, and then I dip them in the sauce and roll them. Afterwards, I heat the whole dish in the oven to heat through and melt the cheese that I have put on top (and sometimes inside) the tortillas.
Of topic, but I think your mini pound cake idea is pretty terrific.
Thanks! I’ll have to try the blotting. We use regular towels whenever we can, but it sounds like this really is a job for paper towels.
Thanks for the kind words on the mini pound cake. They came out pretty well, even using whole wheat flour. 🙂 That pastry flour is key, as is gently folding the egg whites.
I’m with Sarah. Most of the recipes that I’ve seen run them through the oil first. Oddly, we had them tonight before I saw your post! I filled them with corn, cauliflower, peppers, etc… but I have to admit that I used a canned sauce. We’re also super fortunate to have fresh corn tortillas at our fingertips here in the Southwest.
Do they get oily that way?
I’m still on the hunt for a good sauce. With so many peppers in the freezer to use, I can’t go canned in good conscience. 🙂
What kind of peppers do you have? Red, green, mild, hot? Long green, jalapeno? I buy cases of NM long greens from Hatch NM usually in the late summer/early fall. When they are fresh, I like to make chille rellenos. Then I roast, peel, and freeze the chiles in small batches of 4-6 chiles in small storage bags. An easy salsa that I like to make is I’ll put one of those small bags of chile + 1 can of S&W Mexican style or Rotel tomatoes + as much cilantro as I can fit in the bowl ( ~1 1/2 c.) and I just use my hand blender to blend it coarsely. Depending on the sweetness of the tomatoes, I might add a tiny bit of sugar.
I made a big pot of pinto beans earlier in the week. Tonight I made some of that easy salsa because we had burritos, and calabecitas (stewed squash). That doesn’t sound too fancy, but we are in the middle of a kitchen remodel, so I am working under limiting conditions.
If you are wondering about fillings, I like to use chicken breasts that I poach with a little onion and garlic, S&P. Then I shred the chicken, and I add a little cream or half and half, S&P. That is the filling I use with enchiladas using tomatillo salsa. I can’t describe the effect of the cream, but the memory of that filling/feeling (because a lot of the effect is textural) is so nice as I type this… dreaming of a finished kitchen….
p.s. I followed your link here from huffpo.
I had to laugh when you asked what kind of peppers. I had almost six dozen pepper plants producing last year, with everything from a mild habanero (yes, there is such a thing) to different variations on jalapenos, to Anaheims from store-bought seed and Anaheim/Hatch peppers from seeds a friend picked out of some dried peppers that we weren’t sure would make. I also had variations on sweet peppers. We really like peppers. 🙂 I had to freeze several gallons without processing this year because of a time crunch, but even that has worked well, and if I roast them individually over open flame, I can still peel them easily.
Thanks for the recipes! I’ll be trying all of them in the weeks to come, especially as our cilantro comes in.
All the Mexican restaurants around here steam the tortilla first, in a device that reminds me of a steam press for clothes (but smaller!), making it soft and enabling them to roll up the tortilla with meat or cheese, then cover with sauce and cheese. I don’t think dipping them in cold oil would work, they need to be warmed more than oiled up I think. Also if you can steam them somehow first, it would be healthier than frying or coating in oil I bet.
I’ll have to try that too! Thanks!