Enchiladas work as side or entree
This basic recipe for cheese enchiladas is the foundation to a lifetime of enchiladas. The technique works for beef, chicken or pork enchiladas. The sauce is a chile gravy. Use it on practically anything, and you won’t be disappointed.
I like to make a batch of enchiladas and serve them as a side dish with steak, guacamole and rice or potatoes.
Ingredients:
12 corn tortillas
2 cups grated cheddar cheese, preferably Tillamook
1 small onion, diced
1-2 chopped serrano chiles, optional
1½ cup enchilada cup sauce (recipe below)
½ cup vegetable, canola or corn oil
Sauce ingredients
Two cups chicken stock or premium chicken broth
3 tablespoons canola oil
1 tablespoon flour
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 tablespoon chile powder
1 tablespoon ground red chile like chimayo or any other pure red chile
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon kosher salt
½ teaspoon onion powder
*½ teaspoon white pepper
*½ teaspoon cumin
*½ teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
Instructions:
Combine cheese, onion and chiles.
Prepare the sauce.
Prepare sauce. Heat a sauce pan on high heat and add canola oil. Add a little flour at a time and whisk into hot oil. Make sure the color stays light brown. Once all the flour is whisked, slowly add half the stock and stir. Stir in the remaining ingredients, then the rest of the stock.
Continue at a steady boil until the sauce is reduced to a 1½ cups. Make sure the sauce isn’t too thick as it will bake with the enchiladas.
Preheat oven to 300 degrees.
Heat a cast iron skillet or griddle with a rim and add enough oil to cover the bottom thoroughly.
Have a paper plate or paper-lined plate ready plus a 9 by 12 baking dish.
With a pair of tongs or a heat-resistant spatula, put a tortilla in the hot oil. Flip after 1-2 seconds, just long enough to make it limp. Drain and set on paper plate. Do the same with two more tortillas.
Using the first tortilla you cooked, place a two heaping spoonfuls of the cheese mixture on one side and roll up, making sure the mixture is evenly dispersed inside. Place the enchilada seam-side down in the dish.
Repeat until your supply of tortillas is exhausted, adding oil as needed. Reserve any remaining cheese, onion and chile.
Pour sauce over enchiladas, top with any remaining cheese mixture and bake for about 10 minutes, or until cheese is bubbling.
*To do the sauce justice, use whole black and white peppercorns and cumin seed. Toast them in a hot cast iron for about four minutes and grind into powder in a spice grinder or mortar and pestle. It sounds like a lot of trouble, but it’s really pretty simple and the difference is dramatic.
Congrats to OKC’s chef Rick Bayless
Rick Bayless, an Oklahoma City native, advanced in the Top Chef Masters competition.
Chef Rick did us all proud, winning last night’s Top Chef Masters challenge and advancing to the next round.
Bayless has made his fortune as a chef specializing in the flavors of Mexico in Chicago with Frontera Grill and Topolobampo.
He also has a long-running television show on PBS, Mexico One Plate at a Time. His Frontera line of food products are available at local grocery stores and gourmet shops.
In last night’s show, he gave a shout out to Oklahoma City, where he went to Northwest Classen High School and learned to cook in his parents’ barbecue restaurant, The Hick’ry Pit.
This and more was discussed in today’s Top Chef podcast.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Lunch of the Week, Lunch of the Weak
Atif Asal and his olives at Mediterranean Imports & Deli
Lunch of the Week: Mediterranean Deli.
Yes, this place gets a lot of love and it’s deserved.
Today, meeting with friends Chad Previch, Lindsay Laird and Lisa Janssen of Saxum PR, I let go of my love affair with their falafel, meat pie and tabouleh to try the grilled kafta, which was on special.
No regrets. Despite better-than-average lunch banter that included descriptions of shirtlessness in a wedding setting, the general love life updates and a nice contact for a potential consult for my landscaping needs, the kafta covered in a sweet-savory sauce and served over rice was the star. Perfectly cooked the portion was just right. Atif and friends use great ingredients and do things right. Now, if we can just figure out how to Saxum is going to survive once the predominantly female staff starts procreating. Congrats Adrienne, but let’s make sure you don’t talk up the whole motherhood thing to strongly and start a baby pandemic at the Waterford.
One suggestion: Fans of the Med-Deli should unite, though, to pay for a soft drink dispenser. Canned drinks should be left at home like breakfast in your underwear and air guitaring the “Freebird” guitar solo.
Lunch of the Weak: Burger King.
In a word: gross
It could be argued that the weakness lies with me since I’m the one that chose fast food for lunch. I won’t argue that. But it was late, I hadn’t eaten and I did have a morbid curiousity involving the BK burger shot.
So, I caved.
For that I am sorry. But not nearly as sorry as I was when I took a bite. I’m 41 years old, and I can confidently say I’ve never been more disgusted by a bite of food I dropped money for. All you need to know is it’s a poor man’s version of the White Castle burger. Even drunks know how bad White Castle is, but their pickled brains compel them to eat them anyway. I feel safe in saying, the BK burger shot could bring someone blowing 1.3 down to a 0.8, meaning you’re still not road-legal and no longer raising the roof. This is bad. No matter how comically sardonic the Plastic Burger King commercials might I’d rather take a shot of penicillin than another BK burger shot.
Crawfish Festival this weekend
A Taste of Louisiana will be available along the Chisholm Trail this weekend with a Crawfish Festival from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday at Kirkpatrick Family Farm and Historical Park, 1001 Garth Brooks Blvd.
There will be a crawfish race and a crawfish eating contest.
Admission is free. For more information, call 350-8937.
