I am the enchilada queen!
Posted by Sarah
For those of you who don’t know (and you should all know) last Saturday marked both Cinco de Mayo and the Kentucky Derby. As a girl who grew up far from the world of horse racing and is about as white as a girl can be, I’m not really into the holidays themselves (is the Derby a holiday?) but I am quite fond of the consumables associated with them. Cinco de Mayo of course means Mexican food and margaritas and Derby day can’t be celebrated without mint juleps and a healthy dose of southern fried fare. As this last sentence summed up a large part of the category “Sarah’s favorite foods,” I was presented with a bit of a dilemma: do I opt for enchiladas and margaritas or juleps and grits? Fortunately the decision was made for me when some of my friends to a julep and enchilada party and I was chosen to make the enchiladas. This plan didn’t really start to take shape until Friday afternoon and the party duties were divvied up sometime around 2 a.m. after a good deal of wine had been consumed by all so I’m honestly not quite sure how I ended up making enchiladas for eight but come Saturday afternoon that’s just what I was doing. In years past, enchilada making has been a nearly all-day event for me but as I was working on pretty short notice and suffering the aftereffects of a long night of drinking, I took the easy way out and made my version of quick enchiladas. Just as a reference point, my old routine was as follows: slow cook sauce, either green or red and often both; roast chicken; shred chicken; make tortillas; dredge tortillas in sauce; form enchiladas; bake. Since this could take six hours or more you can understand how the hour to hour and an half version is ‘quick’ (it actually took me about two hours this time because, due to the aforementioned night of drinking, I wasn’t exactly working in top form).
Sarah’s Quick Enchilada’s*
First things first: in a baking dish, coat two or three boneless, skinless chicken breasts in olive oil and sprinkle liberally with chile powder, salt, and cumin on one side. Bake chicken for about 30 min. at 375°. Remove chicken from oven and let cool. When chicken has cooled enough to handle, shred it with two forks or your fingers and set it aside. Heat a frying pan over low heat and set out all your components and your baking dish. You need: shredded chicken, grated Monterey Jack or Cheddar cheese, corn tortillas and enchilada sauce. Bottled salsa verde makes a great green sauce and there are all sorts of decent to good bottled and canned red enchilada sauces (Trader Joe’s makes a really good one). Pour some of the sauce in a deep plate or wide, shallow bowl. One at a time, heat the tortillas for about 30 seconds on each side and then dredge the tortilla in the sauce. Wrap half a cup of chicken in dredged tortilla and place in baking dish. Repeat this until you are either out of chicken or the dish is filled. Pour remaining sauce over enchiladas, sprinkle with lots of cheese and bake at 350° for twenty to thirty minutes or until cheese has melted. Alternately you can also fill the enchiladas with cheese or roasted onions, green peppers and tomatillos or anything else you fancy. Let them cool a bit so you don’t burn your tongue on the cheese and enjoy!
*I’m not real good at cooking with recipes- I don’t always have all the ingredients and I always change the quantities (more butter, less sugar)- so it makes sense that I’m not real good at sharing recipes either. The amounts are estimated and I’ll try to get all the ingredients but I can’t guarantee it and times and temps could just be plain wrong. So, bear with me: I’m new at this and I’m sure with a little time and patience I’ll get better. Maybe.