This recipe has a lot of components, but don’t let that fool you into thinking that it’s difficult.
The hardest parts are: pre-heating the oven to 400 degrees, washing some vegetables, cutting some onions into huge chunks, and mixing oil, spices, broth and tomato paste together.
Seriously.
(Well, to be fair you also have to roll tortillas, but if you can handle the rest, you can handle that.)
I consider this recipe to be at drunk cooking level. (An idea that I’ve had for years for a cookbook. What can you cook while a little drunk but not totally hammered? This is a perfect example.)
Ingredients
- 1 lb of tomatillos
- 3 jalapenos
- 2 red onions, peeled and quartered
- Salt and pepper
- Olive oil
- 2 cooked chicken breasts, diced
- 1 ½ cups of shredded monterey jack cheese (reserve half a cup of the cheese)
- 1 tablespoon of lime juice
- 2 teaspoons of cumin
- 4 flour tortillas
Enchilada sauce
- 2 tablespoons of olive oil
- 4 tablespoons of chili powder
- 2 cups of chicken stock
- 1 (6 oz.) can of tomato paste
- 2 teaspoons of cayenne
- 1 teaspoon of cumin
- 1 teaspoon of oregano
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Cover a large baking sheet with olive oil or parchment paper. Add the tomatillos, and jalapenos whole, along with the quartered onions to the baking sheet. Drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper. Roll the vegetables to make sure they are coated in the olive oil. Roast for approximately 20 minutes, or until they are completely soft.
While the tomatillos, onions and jalapenos are roasting start the enchilada sauce. In a small sauce pan on medium low heat, stir the olive oil and chili powder together for 2 minutes. Add the chicken broth, tomato paste and spices. Stir until the sauce thickens and there aren’t any lumps.
When the jalapenos are cool enough to handle, cut the tops off of the jalapenos and then rough chop all of the vegetables together in a bowl. (I used 2 butter knives. The vegetables don’t need a lot of encouragement to break apart.) Add the lime juice, cumin, cooked chicken and 1 cup of the cheese. Mix well.
Decrease the oven temperature to 375 degrees.
Spread enough enchilada sauce to cover the bottom of a baking pan.
To assemble: spread enchilada sauce over most of a flour tortilla, and add a quarter of the chicken/roasted vegetable mixture. Bring the sides of the tortilla in, and roll up. Place seam side down in the baking pan. Repeat until the chicken/roasted vegetable mixture is all gone.
Pour remaining enchilada sauce over the enchiladas, and cover with the remaining cheese.
Bake until the cheese is brown, about 25 minutes.
As long as you have cooked chicken in the refrigerator, and the ingredients on hand, this would make a wowza of a post-pub meal for you and a couple of friends, in just under an hour.
Makes 4 enchiladas.
