You may have noticed I didn’t title this post with a recipe name. That’s because I’m taking you with me on an adventure in Carmen’s Kitchen. As I may have mentioned before, there is sometimes a language barrier between myself and Carmen resulting in miscommunication. Thats where the adventure begins.
When I walked into the kitchen I expected to find tortillas and chicken for our chicken enchiladas we were scheduled to make today. Instead, Carmen had about 12 dried red chilis on the counter in front of her. She turned to me with a smile and started discussing my day with me as I watched her cut off the tops of the chilis and hollow them out. She explained to me that the chilis are too hot for her so she removes all the seeds.
As I watched her I wondered if we were making a different recipe because I had never seen chilis needed for enchiladas. So my white brain tried to run through the Hispanic recipes that I’d seen with big red chilis. The best I could come up with was stuffed chilis.
Carmen boiled the chicken last week with garlic and onion
As I mentally tried to catch-up, Carmen was already onto the next step of rinsing the chilis and then putting them in a pot, just covered with water, on the stove on high. She covered the pot and moved on to a bag of shredded chicken, that she’d made when we made the beef chimichangas, and frozen.
Periodically, while seperating out the frozen chicken and defrosting it in the microwave, she would check the chilis. Once the chilis had reached a boil she turned them down to medium, to simmer.
At this point I am thinking my guess was right, we were going to take the chilis once they were soft and stuff them with the 3-4 cups of chicken she’d just defrosted. But then another twist came in the adventure as Carmen turned on her fryer and started cleaning the oil. Were we going to fry the chilis after we stuffed them?
At any point during this I could’ve just stopped her and asked what we were making, but I didn’t want to seem foolish and I was kind of enjoying the mystery.
Once the chilis had been cooked for 30 minutes, Carmen asked me to strain the chilis from the water and then using tongs to put them in a blender that she’d added 1 cup chicken broth to. Once I’d put all the chilis to set the blender to high, pureeing the chilis.
Well there went that recipe, I thought as I watched the chilis become a deep red sauce. And that’s when it hit me! We were making chicken enchiladas, but from a kind of scratch that I’d never thought of. As a typical white girl, whenever I had made chicken enchiladas it off a Food Network recipe. Though they were good, the recipe had directed me to a shelf at the grocery store for a can of red sauce. But here Carmen was teaching me the real deal.
This revelation launched a whole new excitement for the food we were about to make. Meanwhile, completely oblivious to my being lost and now found, Carmen was dipping corn tortillas in the fryer.
She explained that you just want to put the tortillas in real quick, to heat them. This will keep them from cracking when you roll them into enchiladas, just like we heated the flour tortillas for the chimichangas. She told me that people can use flour if they prefer too. After dipping the tortillas, she laid them out flat on a cookie sheet lined with paper towels.
Once the chilis were at a good constitency Carmen emptied them into a pan with just enough oil to cover the bottom. She heated the sauce through, routinely taste testing and adding more chicken broth as needed. She uses the chicken broth as salt to add flavor and reduce some of the spicyness of the chili sauce. Even with all the seeds removed, the sauce was still pretty hot.
Next she pulled out a baking dish and told me to get started rolling. She showed me how to dip the corn tortilla in the sauce to coat both sides, then lay it flat in the pan, put a line of chicken and roll. Carmen left me to my rolling, with instructions to cover the enchiladas with more sauce once I had filled the pan and then to top it all with cheese.
We set the oven to 350 and then baked the enchiladas for 20 minutes. Once they were done we sliced up some lettuce and tomatoes to put on top and then we sat down to eat. These were definitely better enchiladas then I’d ever made before.
I hope you enjoyed my mystery and get started on your own in your kitchen.
Buen Provecho!
Inside La Concina 