Our hosts this month, Barbara of Barbara Bakes and Bunnee of Anna+Food have chosen a delicious Stacked Green Chile & Grilled Chicken Enchilada recipe in celebration of Cinco de Mayo! The recipe, featuring a homemade enchilada sauce was found on www.finecooking.com and written by Robb Walsh.
A Cinco de Mayo challenge? Sweet! I love Mexican food! Chicken enchiladas? Yum. I am totally up for this challenge! I planned on making it for Cinco de Mayo, but my husband's work travel dictated that we celebrate on siete de Mayo. No problem - two extra days to study the recipe!
This recipe challenge had many components, so this will be (as usual) a long and picture heavy post. It was so much fun, though, so I hope you enjoy reading about it.
The first aspect of the challenge was the green chile enchilada sauce, which was new to me on several fronts. The sauce is made with tomatillos, which I had never tried before, and Anaheim peppers, a variety of pepper with which I was unfamiliar. I knew this would be interesting. I scoped out our local Produce Junction to make sure that they had those items in stock, and my confidence grew when I consistently saw them on the board. Until, that is, the day I finally went in to purchase them. That was the day that they were out of tomatillos. Of course. And Anaheim peppers? Not even listed on the board that day. Uh oh. I am not a pepper expert, but knew that Anaheims are relatively mild, but flavorful. I was pretty sure that poblanos, which were listed on the board that day, would fit the bill. I asked for poblano peppers, and the man pointed me towards the front table. Uh oh. I have no idea what different peppers look like. I grab the bag it looks like he is pointing to, and when he nods, I assume that I have the right thing. Good to go for one of the two key ingredients...
Back on the search for tomatillos, I headed over to one of the five supermarkets that I am fortunate enough to have in easy driving distance. I chose the one that has the biggest, most varied variety of produce, knowing that tomatillos are not a common ingredient in the Northeast. As luck would have it, they had plenty of tomatillos at a reasonable price, so I thought I was back on track. Out of curiosity, I strolled by the pepper section, where I found that they had Anaheims as one of t
The first step in making the sauce, ingredients finally in hand, is to roast the peppers. I decided to ro
The next ingredient in the sauce was the toma
As a side note, the tomatillos were very interesting to work with. When I first heard of tomatillos, I thought they were just a green variety of tomato. Turns out that, while the tomatillo is in the same family as tomatoes, it is not a variety of tomato. Also, unlike tomatoes, tomatillos have a papery husk that must be removed. Little miss was more than happy to help me with that. And it only took a couple for us to get the hang of it.
Anyway, back to the sauce. All of the in
Except that I would be serving these enchiladas to a four year old. Who doesn't always eat spicy thing
The next component of the challenge to tackle was the tortillas. Homemade tortillas were optional to the challenge, but was something that I wanted to do. I had made tortillas once before and knew how tasty the homemade variety is, so thought that, this being a challenge, I might as well go all in and make them again for my stacks. Most flour tortilla recipes are pretty similar, but I chose this one, as I usually love the things I see on her blog, so I knew it was a trusted source.
Little miss was happy to help in many of the aspects of preparing the tortillas, and I was more than happy to let her. She mixed the dry ingredients:
Cut in the shortening:
And then helped me roll the dough into ping-pong-ball sized balls:
At this point, I took over, since the next steps involved timing and, w
The last piece was the easiest to prepare - the chicken. Instead of grilling my chicken, I baked it, using only a little bit of broth in the pan to flavor it. I wanted the chicken to be both mild (to let the flavors of the enchilada sauc
*phew*
That was a lot of prep work, but I was finally ready to stack up some enchiladas! I decided to make one stack with each kind of s
By the time these were ready to come out of the oven, I was so ready to see this meal finally come together. When I pulled out the pan of oeey, gooey, cheesy, delicious goodness out of the oven, I knew that all of the prep work (and all of the dishes) were worth it. The hardest choice was now which one to eat for dinner first!
Barbara and Bunnee - thank you so much for such a delicious, fun and festive challenge. I love Mexican food, and am so excited to have been able to try something so new.
To check out the amazing work of the other daring cooks, take a look here.
Looks delicious! Your tortillas look so yummy. Great job and as always, I love your little helper.
ReplyDeleteCute sous chef you have there. You did a great job of finding substitutes and creating a couple versions of the challenge. Love the pictures and the results look perfect.
ReplyDeleteWonderful pictures of your cooking process! The roasted peppers look like they're done by a pro. Love your ooey gooey goodness!
ReplyDeleteVery adorable sous chef she is gorgeous! It sounds like you had a ball doing this challenge and children are such fun to cook with. Your posting is so well written and the photos are so cute well done on this challenge. Cheers from Audax in Sydney Australia.
ReplyDeleteSo much fun! I also like the little helper :)
ReplyDeleteI suppose it's a lesson learned to stay away from grocers who grunt and point at stuff, instead of showing you and telling you themselves. Argh.
Looks delicious! I had the same problem finding Anaheims and did 1/2 poblano. Love the photos!
ReplyDeleteCool! Now I'm really hungry! Those look delicious!!
ReplyDeleteLove your step by step pictures. It's nice that you have a little helper in the kitchen. My kids are not that interested in helping, they only want to stir and try cake batter!
ReplyDeleteYour enchiladas look delicious, both varieties! Your sous chef must be very talented, as well as extremely cute:) The step-by-step photos are great--I must remember to do that some time!
ReplyDeleteWhoa! I know seasoned bakers who can't do the double-knife shortening cut. Amazing! :D Did she taste the green enchiladas at all? I'm curious if she found them spicy; my son devoured them and wouldn't touch his "plain jane" taco.
ReplyDeleteLooks like all your hard work paid off. :) Those plates look very yummy; what a great feast!
For your two pounds of jalapenos.. you could freeze them up to a year or so. Or if you decide to try and use them, some milk or sugar can cut back on their heat a little bit. Charring the skin (and oil) off of them helps remove the heat, too. ;)
I enjoyed reading your post. How fun to have a little helper in the kitchen. Your stacks look delicious! Thanks for cooking with us.
ReplyDeleteThe tortillas look delectable! That's so awesome that your little one helped you out.
ReplyDeleteIt's so sweet making the enchiladas with your little girl. The enchiladas look so yummy!
ReplyDeleteDon't feel bad, I figured out that 'posilla' or 'pasilla' peppers are the dried versions of 'poblano' peppers and that our grocery store has them mislabeled.}:P
ReplyDelete-Wolf
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You make the tortilla process sound like a blast! I definitely need to try it. So glad you enjoyed this project with your Little Miss.
ReplyDeleteI love reading your entries and seeing the photos because there's such joy in each thing you make, especially with your sweet little sous chef. Your homemade tortillas look phenomenal and the 'whole enchilada' looks fanastic!
ReplyDeleteOh wow! They look delicious! That's a lot of work but it sure payed off!
ReplyDeleteFor all those jalapenos, slice on one side, scoop out the seeds and any membraine. Then stuff with cream cheese, wrap with bacon, and grill or bake. The cheese mellows out the heat. It seems that grocers all over the world are confused by chiles.
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