chicken enchiladas

Is that ↑ a thing of beauty or what? I'll tell you, it is simply the best enchilada that I have ever eaten. Fact. I am about to tell you how to do this for yourself, reducing the process to the basics, and we're having no substitutions. We're going to get real, and you can imagine as we go changes and substitutions you might care to make for yourself. 

Enchilada means "chilied" or enchilified, or chilinated. En means in, and ada is feminine past participle (mindful that Spanish has two types of past tense, one that began and ended in the past, and another that began in the past and might possibly still be going on, which while demanding specificity also opens up room for humor.) So there you have it, "in chilied." 

Here is where the free-range chickens roasted earlier are put to use.  A stuffing is produced consisting of bits of chicken that is pulled to expose individual fibers that act as a sort of sponge, with mild Anaheim chiles, one step beyond bell peppers on the Scoville heat scale, and diced onion, along with the most popular Mexican cheese, queso fresco, fresh cheese, a sort of farmer's cheese, slightly acidified, crumbly in texture. Queso fresco will soften when heated but it will not actually melt.

A Béchamel sauce is prepared that is softened and slightly acidified with sour cream and made potent by the addition of diced jalapeños, but not too potent, for jalapeños are just two to three steps beyond bell peppers on the Scoville scale . 

Corn tortillas, made from the same masa that in a wetter form enfolds the filling of tamales, refreshed and prepared for rolling by briefly heating in oil for a mere few seconds. The filling is rolled in a tortilla, covered with sauce, topped with a finishing melting cheese and then baked. The contents tend to amalgamate into a single unit as they cool so working out individual enchiladas onto a plate that are cooked this way as a casserole is not always precise. It doesn't really matter. It's all good. 

Anaheim chiles, mild, for the filling. Jalapeño chiles, less mild but not exceedingly hot, for the sauce. The two together, wow.

The chiles are roasted until they blister. They are turned so that they blister all around. Some are faster than others. They are removed as they complete. They are enclosed in a bag and wrapped with a towel to sweat. During this period, their skin loosens considerably. They become much easier to peel.

The charred skins are picked off and the chiles de-seeded. It's a proper mess. The chiles should not be rinsed, because that rinses away too much roasted flavor. It is not necessary to be precise about this.  I would have liked to preserve more of the inner membrane to which the seeds connect because there lies most of the capsaicin heat, but alas, removing the seeds rid the membrane also, and that's too bad. Separating seed from membrane  would have been easier had the chiles not been partially cooked by charring. 

The larger Anaheim chiles will be roughly chopped and included with the chicken stuffing. The idea is to impart to the chicken some chile flavor character without too much heat. The jalapeños will be finely diced and included with the sauce to impart some capsaicin heat character. 

Jalapeños diced now and held in reserve, ready for inclusion in the sauce later. 

This is the filling ↓. Chicken, picked and pulled from the two free-range chickens previously roasted for broth, here,  Along with Anaheim chiles roughly chopped, one onion finely diced and enough crumbled queso fresco to suit me. That turned out to be half a wheel. It is a large bowl. This too is set aside and held in reserve for enchilada assemblage later. 

Queso fresco crumbled into that ↑ is arguably the most popular Mexican cheese. It is milk brought to a boil then acidified, drained for a few hours, much as farmer's cheese. It is often made right at home and it can be crumbled over nearly anything. It does not melt. 

For the sauce, half a stick of butter + 1/4 cup flour = roux. Cook slowly to brown and nutty. The darker the roux, the more flavorful the sauce. Ask any Cajun. They'll tell you roux cannot be rushed. You cannot just kick it up to high and blast it to brown. That doesn't work.  At any rate, milk is added by the cupful while whisking. This took three full cups of milk to attain the desired consistency + a little more, perhaps an additional 1/4 cup. It is brought back to the boil and its thickness gauged carefully adjusted as necessary. 

I want to point out that here is where I could have used some of my new homemade chicken stock. Had I incorporated chicken stock along with the milk, then the sauce would have become something closer to a velouté sauce instead of a mere Béchamel, but in that moment I decided against it. There is no real good pro or con, so I just kept adding milk by the splash until I had the desired consistency. 

The jalapeño chiles diced earlier are added here all at once and then finally one cup of sour cream is added OFF THE HEAT. The mixture is not to be boiled after the sour cream lest you tempt disastrous separation.  

Now, tortillas are ready by heating through oil until they submit. No longer than five or six seconds.  The filling is ready and the sauce is ready, and the tortillas are ready.  A great anticipatory swelling overtakes you as you sense a plan coming together toward its final phase. 

Sauce is ladled directly into the casserole dish and spread around in preparation to receive the rolled enchiladas, in the same way a dish is prepared with sauce for the stacking up of lasagna layers. 

Bang! The first enchilada is overstuffed, naturally. Hey, a guy's gotta try, innit. 

Hahaha. See that big fat one? That is so wrong. 

Covered with remaining sauce. 

Topped with Asadero (grilling) meltable cheese. This cheese is really good. Surprisingly good. Better than I imagined, actually.

Baked to volcanic torrefaction. 

 Now, what we have here is chicken enchiladas baked in a unifying Béchamel/chile sauce as a casserole but without a proper enchilada sauce topping. That's fine for today for these are fresh from the oven and quite moist as they are, but by tomorrow they will amalgamate and cohere even further and these will then need a little more help moisture-wise. Therefore, another sauce is prepared that features two more completely different chile types, a red chile sauce this time.  So, fine as these enchiladas are tonight, tomorrow they will be even better with a moistening  refreshing sauce that expands further its chile profile, now four completely different chiles two green and two red, all with different chile characteristics. Can you handle that awesomeness? Can you hardly wait? 

Enchilada topping sauce here.

If you are thinking, "Is there not an easier way?"  The answer, off course there is. Grocery store roasted chicken for your meat, tinned chiles instead of fresh, sauces purchased in jars, cream soups in tins, cheese that is pre-shredded and packaged for convenience, even onions pre-diced, and chopped garlic marketed in jars.  Substitutions all around. The end result will still be very good and most likely even praiseworthy, as good as you'll ever get in a restaurant for certain, and maybe your family cannot tell a difference, but it will not be extraordinary as this.