I usually make enchiladas on Sundays so we have plenty of leftovers to go until Tuesday. It's a low-cost dish that has excellent flavor, and this is a recipe that's been passed down to me from my great-grandmother. You can modify the recipe as you want, but you cannot use flour tortillas to replace corn tortillas. A traditional enchiladas always has corn tortillas. The bastardized version of enchiladas has flour tortillas in it, is extremely fattening, and doesn't taste authentic. That kind of dish doesn't even deserve to be called enchiladas.
That little foodie rant aside, here are the ingredients for the recipe:
1. Bunch of dried ancho chiles, with three pasilla chiles thrown in for additional heat.
2. 1 tomato.
3. Three garlic cloves.
4. Cumin.
5. Vegetable oil or olive oil.
6. Mexican cheese
7. One white onion, chopped finely.
8. 12 or 14 yellow corn tortillas.
And the recipe is this:
1. Deseed the chiles, and remove the dried stems. If you want heat, you can leave two chiles whole with just the tops removed.
2. Put the dried chiles, tomato, and garlic cloves into the saucepan. Fill with water. Put on the burner on medium-high heat until the chiles have softened for about half an hour to forty-five minutes.
3. Remove from heat, and let cool for fifteen minutes.
4. Add the chiles to the food processor, and keep the water from the saucepan on hand to thin out the puree.
5. Add in some olive oil, and blend.
6. Add in a tiny dash of cumin.
7. Wait for the pureed enchilada sauce to cool.
8. Take the corn tortillas, wrap them in plain kitchen towel paper, put on a plate, and microwave for a minute and a half until the tortillas have softened enough.
9. In a casserole dish, pour a ladleful of the enchilada sauce on the bottom.
10. Soak each tortilla into the enchilada sauce, fill with about a tablespoon and a half of cheese, and roll, tucking the end of the tortilla in at the bottom. Repeat each process until all the tortillas have been filled.
11. Pour the rest of the enchilada sauce on top.
12. Cover with a bit of cheese.
13. Put into the preheated oven at 350 degrees for about half an hour until the cheese on top has melted.
14. Take out of oven, add chopped white onion on top, with sprigs of cilantro.
You can serve this with salsa verde rice. Here's my recipe for it.
Long-grain white rice
Canned salsa verde
1/2 cup frozen corn kernels
2 cloves of garlic
Olive oil
1. In a wide saucepan over medium-high heat, pour in about a tablespoon of olive oil, and add the two garlic cloves. Let brown on one side before adding in a cup of white rice.
2. Stir, and let the rice become opaque for about three to four minutes. Add in about two to three tablespoons of salsa verde.
3. Stir until the rice has soaked up the salsa verde. Add in two cups of water, and let come to a boil. Add in the corn kernels.
4. Cover with a lid, and reduce heat to low. Let the rice go for about twenty to twenty-four minutes.
That's what I'm doing today for dinner. Right now, I'm making the enchilada sauce well in advance for dinner. With the pasilla chiles, it definitely has a note of heat to the smell filling the house. You can always add stuff to the cheese filling like shredded chicken, beef, mushroom/spinach mixture, and so on to change the recipe up.
What are you guys making for dinner tonight?