ENCHILADAS SABROSAS
Enchiladas with meat, black olives, and cheese
For many years, I've been involved in Latin American "solidarity work"
here in the San Francisco area, and as a result, I have learned some of its
culinary pleasures. This recipe originated from the back of a can of
enchilada sauce in Mexico, but was refined by a special Chilean refugee
friend who won a scholarship to the California Culinary Academy (in San
Francisco) and now cooks ever-so-lusciously.
Ingredients
(Serves 6-8)
- 2 lbs ground meat
(mixed ground beef and ground pork)
- 1 medium onion
- 1/2 green pepper
- 5 garlic cloves
- 1 bunch cilantro
- 1/2 tsp red pepper
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2-1 tsp cumin
- 1/2 cup wine or sherry
- 3/4 cup black olives
- 1 1/2 cups enchilada sauce
(1 can)
- 1/2 cup tomato sauce
(1 small can)
- 12 corn tortillas
- 1/2 lb monterey jack cheese
- 1/2 cup sour cream
(optional)
- oil
Procedure
-
Chop onion and garlic; place them in a frying pan with the ground
meats. Sautae them without adding fat.
-
When meat is brown, add the chopped green pepper and most of the
cilantro leaves and cook for another minute or
two (until green pepper is cooked bright green).
-
Drain well, then add
several tablespoons
of the enchilada sauce and cook for a few minutes longer.
Set aside.
-
Make the sauce:
into a saucepan, pour the remaining enchilada sauce (from the can).
Add the can of tomato sauce. Add the wine or sherry, cumin,
salt, red pepper, and cook for 10-30 minutes (depending on how compulsive
you are). The flavor should be smooth (not gritty) and spicy.
-
Collect together everything that you will need for assembling the
enchiladas. Grate the cheese onto wax paper. Have
the olives handy (you'll be cutting them in half). Lightly oil the baking
dish.
-
The frying pan from which you drained the meat mixture still has
some of its grease left in it. Take 4 tortillas from their package,
separate them from each other, then one-by-one, slide them over the
frying pan surface on each side, to moisten them slightly
with the grease. That done, stack them in the
frying pan and heat them until they are soft and pliable.
-
The final assembly requires a bit of manual dexterity and speed:
Take the tortillas, and place them (bumpy side out) in the oven
dish, curved into a "U" shape,
each right next to its neighbor. (At this point, start heating your
next 4 tortillas in the frying pan. I usually wind up preparing 10
tortillas in all.)
-
Place a small handful of cheese into the U of
each tortilla, followed by an appropriate amount of meat mixture,
and finally several olive halves. Then curl one end of the
tortilla around to tuck into the opposite end, and carefully rotate
it to conceal the seam. Each tortilla should be filled firmly (not
too loosely) but not overflowing the ends.
-
Once all the filling is used up and the enchiladas are now filled
tortillas, pour the sauce over the top, helping it run into all
the crevices. Sprinkle lightly with remaining cilantro leaves.
-
Cover with aluminum foil and bake for 20-30 minutes, just until the
tortillas are soft and the sauce is slightly bubbly.
Let sit for 5 minutes, then serve, topped with a dollop of
sour cream.
Notes
If you fail to drain the meat well enough, the enchiladas will be greasy.
If overbaked, it tastes all right, but the
tortillas lose their texture. In general, however, the recipe is
quite forgiving
in its proportions. Feel free to adjust the seasoning to your own
tolerance for hot spice. I like to assemble this recipe at least 3
hours before baking to give the flavors a chance to blend.
Left refrigerated for a day, the seasoning is even less aggressive.
Served with a salad (and some Mexican beer), it's a complete meal.
Rating
Difficulty:
moderate.
Time:
1 hour preparation, 30 minutes baking.
Precision:
Approximate measurement OK, but time the baking carefully.
Contributor
Karen Kerschen
EECS Department, University of California, Berkeley, Calif., USA
karen@silvia.Berkeley.EDU
Recipe last modified: 1 Aug 86
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Path: decwrl!recipes
From: karen@silvia.berkeley.edu (Karen Kerschen)
Newsgroups: mod.recipes
Subject: RECIPE: Enchiladas sabrosas
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Date: 14 Nov 86 02:12:38 GMT
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