I'm posting this on Saturday. Perhaps tonight or tomorrow night, you need a deeply satisfying dish for your family or for a party. As you can see, this dish is brilliant visually and it will be equally enjoyable on your palate. From Mexican Flavors by Hugh Carpenter and Teri Sandison, this dish is representative of their recipes: authentic, flavor filled, and something that can easily become a family favorite.
Hugh is a practical man and this recipe of his involves both the chicken and two salsas providing those intense red and green components. He suggest to speed preparation time by using whole roasted chicken from your local deli. Yes, you could do your own chicken with adobo and spices and you are welcome to do that. But there is plenty of work for you here in making the salsas. And those salsas will be the first things to dart across people’s tongues, so they deserve your full concentration.
This dish serves 4 as a main course, many more as an appetizer. For a larger group, you just need more casserole dishes and chickens from the deli.
This dish is an ideal one-pot meal. Just add a beverage and a side salad to make your evening complete.
[For a look at my book review of Mexican Flavors, just click on this link.]
Red and Green Chicken Enchiladas
Yield: Serves 4
Background:
Here the chicken filling is coated in a red sauce. Before baking, a tomatillo salsa and a spicy red sauce are spooned on the enchiladas to give the enchiladas two radically different colors. To speed preparation time, use a whole roasted chicken from the supermarket deli.
Ingredients:
- 1 cup Mexican Chile [recipe below]
- 1½ cups chopped vine-ripened tomatoes
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ cup chopped fresh cilantro, leaves and tender stems, divided in half
- Meat from 1 whole roasted chicken
- 3 ears white corn
- 6 ounces Chihuahua or medium-sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
- Tomatillo Salsa [recipe below]
- 1 cup flavorless cooking oil
- ½ teaspoon ancho chile powder
- 8 (6-inch) corn tortillas
- 1 cup chopped red onion
- ½ cup crema or sour cream
Preparation:
Place the Mexican chile sauce in a bowl. Then add the chopped tomato, salt, and half of the cilantro. Cut the chicken into bite-size pieces or pull the meat into shreds. Cut the corn kernels off the cobs. In a bowl, place the chicken, corn, 1 cup of the Mexican chile-tomato sauce, and half of the cheese. Toss to evenly combine. Make the tomatillo salsa.
Place a 10-inch frying pan over medium-high heat and add the flavorless cooking oil. When the oil makes the edge of a tortilla bubble when dipped into the oil, sprinkle the chile powder over the oil. Dip each corn tortilla into the oil for 5 to 10 seconds, then drain on paper towels. Pat the top of the tortillas with paper towels to remove any extra oil.
Spread ½ cup of the Mexican chile-tomato sauce across the bottom of a 9 by 13-inch baking dish. Place ⅛ of the chicken-corn mixture in a tortilla and either roll into a cylinder or fold the tortilla in half. Repeat with the remaining chicken mixture and tortillas, and place the tortillas side by side in the baking dish. The recipe can be made up to this point 6 hours in advance and kept refrigerated.
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Pour the tomatillo salsa over half of the enchiladas, coating them evenly. Spoon the remaining Mexican chile-tomato sauce over the rest of the enchiladas. Sprinkle with the remaining grated cheese. Bake until the sauce begins to bubble, about 30 minutes. Sprinkle with the remaining cilantro and the red onion, and drizzle with the crema. Serve at once.
Mexican Chile Sauce
Yield: 3 cups
Background:
This sauce can be spooned over grilled meat, or spread on each dinner plate, topped with grilled meat, and garnished with avocado slices. It can also be spooned into martini glasses with three large chilled cooked shrimp nestled inside. Garnish the sauce with crema and then start plunging the shrimp into the sauce.
Ingredients:
- 1½ ounces guajillo chiles, about 6
- 2 large vine-ripened tomatoes,
- 12 to 16 ounces
- 4 cloves garlic, peeled
- 1 serrano chile
- ¼ cup lightly packed light brown sugar
- ½ teaspoon ground cumin
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano, or 2 teaspoons minced fresh oregano, preferably Mexican
- ½ teaspoon salt
Preparation:
Cut the stem ends off the guajillo chiles and shake out the seeds. Place the guajillos in a bowl and cover with boiling water (put a small plate on top of the chiles to submerge them). Soak for 30 minutes, then drain, reserving 1 cup of the chile soaking water.
Cut the stems off the tomatoes and slice them in half horizontally. Place a dry cast-iron frying pan over medium-high heat. When hot, lightly brown the garlic, tomatoes, and serrano chile, 5 minutes. Discard the tomato skins.
In a blender, add the guajillo chiles, garlic, tomato, serrano, brown sugar, cumin, oregano, salt, and the 1 cup reserved chile water. Blend until liquefied. Taste and adjust the seasonings. This will keep refrigerated for 3 months stored in an airtight container.
Tomatillo Salsa
Yield: 2 ½ cups
Background:
The green salsa served in every Mexican restaurant is made from the slightly sour tomatillo, a close relative to the tomato. For more information about tomatillos, see page 13. In this salsa, the roasted poblano chile deepens and lengthens the flavor of the salsa. An excellent variation is the addition of a finely diced avocado, used in place of or in addition to the poblano.
Ingredients:
- 8 small green tomatillos, husks removed
- 1 poblano chile
- 3 cloves garlic, peeled
- 1 serrano chile
- ¼ cup packed fresh cilantro, leaves and tender stems
- ½ teaspoon salt
Preparation:
In a dry, heavy frying pan over medium-high heat, lightly char the tomatillos. (It’s impossible to brown the tomatillos on all sides. Just brown them on the tops and bottoms and on a few places on their sides.) Char the poblano and rub off the blackened skin as described on page 125. Then discard the seeds and stem. Cut the tomatillos into quarters. In the same dry, heavy frying pan over high heat, lightly brown the garlic and serrano chile. Cut the garlic and chiles a few times so they are in slightly smaller pieces.
Place the poblano chile, tomatillos, garlic, serrano-garlic mixture (including the seeds), cilantro, and salt in a blender. Blend until smooth. Alternatively, if you have the time, finely chop the salsa ingredients by hand for a more interesting texture. Taste and adjust the seasonings for salt. This can be stored for 3 days refrigerated in an airtight container. Bring to room temperature before serving.
All Recipes From: Mexican Flavors: Contemporary Recipes from Camp San Miguel, by Hugh Carpenter, Teri Sandison, Andrews McMeel 2014