That's the Way the Enchilada Crumbles

Yesterday I went to the supermarket.  I had decided that I was going to make enchiladas for dinner.  I found all the ingredients that I wanted, including a package of corn tortillas.  (Except in northern Mexico, the idea of using flour tortillas is sacrilege.)

That afternoon I got started making my enchiladas.  This was going to be a more time consuming preparation than most of the quick and easy dinners that I make for myself.

I began by making the enchilada sauce.  I had looked at a couple of recipes online, and I improvised from there.  I put a large can of tomato sauce and a carton of chicken broth in a kettle.  I added a good splash of chipotle flavored Tabasco Sauce for heat.  Alejandro told me that I should put a chunk of onion in the kettle to lend its flavor to the sauce while cooking.  (By the time that it was done cooking, most of the onion had dissolved into the sauce.)  I let it simmer for more than an hour until it had attained a thicker consistency.  Toward the end I added spices... some cumin, some oregano, and some garlic powder.  

While the sauce was cooking down, I prepared a side dish of refried beans.  Alejandro always teases me about that fact that I use canned beans.  He insists that real "frijoles" must be made with dry beans cooked in a clay pot.  

Before adding the canned beans to the frying pan, I sautéed a couple of chopped jalapeño peppers, some chopped onion and some minced garlic in olive oil.  I added a couple cans of drained black beans, and proceeded to mash the mixture with a wooden spatula (which I had bought in Mexico).  I like my refried beans to have some chunkiness, so I don't put them in the blender.  After smashing them to the consistency I wanted, I added some shredded cheese and let that melt into the mixture.

The enchiladas are usually filled simply with shredded chicken, but I once again sautéed some onion, jalapeños, and garlic to flavor the canned chicken breast.  It was then time to assemble the enchiladas.  I briefly warmed the tortillas in an unoiled skillet.  I put a spoonful of the chicken mixture on each tortilla, rolled the tortilla up and placed them in a greased baking dish seam side down.  (An entire enchilada didn't fit in the corner, so a cut a tortilla in half and made a couple "mini-enchiladas".)

Once placed in the baking dish, I covered them with a layer of sour cream thinned with a bit of the enchilada sauce.  (In Mexico I would have used "crema" which isn't exactly the same as our sour cream, but it will do.)  I then covered them with a layer of the enchilada sauce.  Finally I topped it with shredded cheese.  In the supermarket they sell what they call a "Mexican blend".  (Which really isn't all that Mexican.)  On this trip to the supermarket, I had found something I had not seen before... a thick cut "Mexican blend".   I used that.

The enchiladas were now ready to go into the oven.  I put them in a 375 degree oven for a while, mainly to melt the cheese on top.

I took them out of the oven, and they looked great.  However, when I tried to put a couple on my plate, the enchiladas fell apart.  They still tasted delicious, but the presentation certainly left much to be desired.

Alejandro later told me that I should have lightly fried each tortilla in oil before rolling it up.  However, I think the problem was with the tortillas.  I had bought a package white corn tortillas, and they seemed very thin and fragile, almost like crepes.  Some recipes call for dipping the tortilla in the sauce before rolling them up.  I tried that with a couple of the tortillas and they fell apart.

So even though my cooking experiment was not a complete success, it was very tasty.  My home made enchilada sauce was excellent.  I will definitely make that again to use in other "Mexican-inspired" concoctions!