Category: cooking

Sunday is a sacred cooking day. I often save the best or most complicated meals for Sunday. It goes back to my days in the 9-5 grind where preparing and eating a really nice meal was a distraction from the rapidly upcoming Monday.

My journey into Mexican food started when we lived in South Carolina. We were far removed from the familiar tastes and flavors of family and Mexican food, even though there were several Mexican markets in our small town. Sunday was dedicated to cooking out of Rick Bayless’s “Mexican Kitchen“. I would spend as much as six hours preparing Sunday dinner. My book is literally falling apart from use.

My wife recently started getting connected with different online sources of Mexican cooking, I think to stave off quarantine madness. She has started working on mastering some of the basics. We were watching this old woman cooking classic recipes in this rustic kitchen, so that is what I decided to make yesterday.

Part 1: Making the broth

I take a whole chicken, one onion, carrot bits, celery stalk, a couple bay leaves, three garlic cloves, peppercorns and some salt an put it into a pot. then I fill the pot up with water. I boiled the chicken about an hour and a half (on low). Another note on stock, you don’t need to peel or trim any of the vegetables, just make sure they are clean.

I took the chicken out and let the broth cool about two hours to make working with the parts a little easier.

Part 2: Making the Salsa

In this recipe, I used Guajillo and a few Arbol chiles. I really didn’t count the Guajillos, but I would say about thirty, but the pile next to the skillet in the picture was what I used. I used five Arbols, they are spicy, very near the cayenne range, so go easy on them.

To make the salsa, destem and remove the seeds in the chiles. Fry the chiles in oil and soak them in about four cups of broth for about thirty minutes. When done with the chiles, blacken some tomatoes for depth. Put the chiles, tomatoes, 1/4 of an onion, 3 tablespoons of oregano and salt into the blender. Add the soaking broth into the blender for liquid and blend the mixture. Put the salsa back onto the stove to reduce the liquid.

Part 3: The Filling

To make the filling, I diced carrots and potatoes. Those were fried in oil and seasoned to taste. In a separate preparation I roughly chopped one onion and combined with queso fresco (I would guess 1/2 pound?). Those were set aside when I started working on assembly.

Part 4: Assembly

Things were starting to happen fast, so I didn’t get as many pictures in this phase. Heat up a skillet of oil and the oven to 350 degF. Take a corn tortilla, dip it into the salsa. Immediately move it to the skillet and fry about 20 seconds a side. I prepare about six at a time because that is what my tray holds.

Add the carrot/potato filling and add about half of that in cheese/onion mix. Roll the enchiladas and repeat until you run out of ingredient or tray space or time or tortillas or whatever is your limitation. I dumped probably one cup of salsa over the top of the rolled enchiladas and put the tray into the oven while I finished the dish.

Part 5: Finishing

I broke down the chicken into the eight basic parts, wings, breast, drumsticks and thighs. Then I put those into the skillet to heat up and crisp. On top of chicken I added about half a cup of salsa while cooking. Once that was done, I took the enchiladas out of the oven and plated.

Three enchiladas, some shredded lettuce, topped with sour crème and pickled serranos is the basic plating. The chicken is served to the side.

This was a bit of work, but excellent flavor. I hope that you will try this as well.