The annoying thing about people who cook — people who cook out of habit, by feel — is they don’t always write down their recipes.
And once they’re no longer available for questioning, whoever remains is left to figure it out, to work from a collection of memories.
And memories are tricky little devils.
Last time I wrote about enchiladas, it was to provide general guidelines, a choose-your-own-adventure enchilada, as my mom called it. Today I’m getting a little more specific, but still encouraging room for adaptation. (Cooking is just adapting, anyway.)
Today it’s enchiladas with a green chile sauce. Because like I mentioned last time, we have a lot of green chiles stashed in our freezer.
Shortly before she died, my sister made a batch of enchiladas with a green chile sauce, filled with chicken. She didn’t use a recipe. She just did it. (I haven’t written that much about my sister, and today’s not the day for it either. I’m not sure I’ll ever want to explore grief in public.)
Eating is the last thing I or anyone else in the family wanted to do at the time, but Braeden, thankfully, forced us to. Someone slid the dish of enchiladas into the oven, someone took them out of the oven, and Braeden made a plate for me.
I’m not trying to make those enchiladas. First of all, today’s enchiladas are vegetarian; they could easily be vegan. Second of all, part of me wants those enchiladas to remain in the past. They were exactly what we needed in the moment, but I know I can’t recreate them. I find comfort in other foods I associate with my sister; in this case, I’d rather pay homage than replicate.
I used a mix of roasted and peeled green chiles (poblanos and moscos), blended with roasted tomatillos and onions and seasoned with toasted cumin, coriander, and Mexican oregano. (There are several types of Mexican oregano; I was trying to find Poliomintha longiflora — also called Oregano Indio — but the store only had Lippia graveolens, which is also the only type of plant I’ve seen at garden stores around here. If anyone knows where a person could get some seeds for the former, though, let me know? I grew it once and the flowers are delightfully fragrant and spicy and e x c e l l e n t on mezcal-based cocktails. In the meantime I’ll source the dried herbs from Rancho Gordo.)
You can fill enchiladas with whatever you want. Cubed or shredded cooked chicken, roasted squash, potatoes, and/or cactus would all be good; let the contents of your pantry/fridge lead the way. This batch was thick slices of button mushrooms sautéed with shredded sweet potato and radish greens, seasoned with a little smoked paprika and salt. Add beans if you want protein, or serve with beans on the side. I also made my mom’s rice (which is technically my great-grandma’s rice), which I’ll write more about next time.
Top with cheese if you feel like it — queso fresco is nice, but I used a dry, white cheese that I never knew the name of; got it from a tortillería. A drizzle of crema is always good!
Enchiladas verdes / green enchiladas
For the filling, I used about 20 ounces button mushrooms, sliced and cooked with one shredded sweet potato and one bunch’s worth of radish greens, seasoned with smoked paprika and salt. The filling doesn’t need to be complicated, since the salsa is really where the flavor comes from. Whatever you use, pre-cook it, as it’s only in the enchiladas long enough to warm through.
If you’re starting with fresh chiles, you can roast them with the tomatillos and onions (use a bigger sheet pan if needed); do your best to peel the skins off/take the seeds out, but you don’t have to be so precise — the sauce is getting blended anyway. If you’d rather sub with canned chiles, go for it, but reduce the salt. Canned enchilada sauce is pretty decent, too, if you don’t even feel like making the salsa.
A note on frying the tortillas: This adds flavor, makes the tortillas pliable (especially if they’re a little stale), and does not absorb that much oil — the tortillas bathe for a mere three to four seconds per side. If you’d rather not fry, you can warm the tortillas on a hot, dry skillet, keeping them stacked under a towel as you go, and the residual steam should soften them enough to roll without cracking. I suppose you can microwave them, but microwaving tortillas is against my religion, and we don’t have a microwave. If the tortillas do crack as you’re filling, it’s fine, the enchilada gods will not come for you. You’re smothering them (the tortillas, not the gods) in sauce later anyway.
I like to make enough to fill a 9x13-inch baking dish, so we get a few days of leftovers, but you can scale down or up as needed: use two to three tortillas per serving. In general I prefer to plan ahead and divvy up tasks (for cooking but also for life); it’s less overwhelming! Make the salsa one day, prepare the filling another day, then assemble, bake, and eat the next day.
For the tomatillo salsa:
1 pound tomatillos
1 small onion
2 tablespoons oil (I used olive, but whatever cooking oil you like works)
1 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 to 1 teaspoon coriander seeds (to taste), preferably toasted
1/2 to 1 teaspoon cumin seeds (to taste), preferably toasted
1/2 teaspoon dried Mexican oregano
2 roasted, peeled, and seeded poblano chiles
2 to 3 roasted, peeled, and seeded mosco chiles (or use another poblano)
Honey, agave, or maple syrup, if needed
Lime juice or vinegar, if needed
Make the salsa: preheat the oven to 375 F. Husk and wash the tomatillos, roughly chop the onion, then put both on a quarter sheet pan and drizzle with a teaspoon or so of the oil. Roast for 20 minutes, then turn on your broiler to high and broil for about 3 minutes, or until the tomatillos and onion have some char on them. (If you don’t have a broiler, you can roast for another 5 to 10 minutes.)
Scrape the tomatillo and onion into a blender, along with the remaining oil and the salt, coriander, cumin, oregano, and chiles. Blend until smooth. (I keep the salsa fairly thick at this point, because I thin it out later for the enchiladas and keep leftovers to eat with chips, etc.) Taste and adjust the salt and spices as needed; if you think it needs a little sweetness, add a dash of your sweetener of choice. If it would benefit from some acid, squeeze in a little lime juice or stir in a little vinegar (such as white or apple cider). I find tomatillos to be pretty acidic, so I don’t usually do this!
You’ll get about 3 1/2 to 4 cups of salsa; keep it refrigerated for up to a week or freeze for longer.
To assemble and serve:
About 4 cups filling (see above for suggestions)
2 cups tomatillo chile salsa from above, plus more as needed
About 1 cup vegetable, mushroom, or bean broth
Oil for trying the tortillas
12 to 14 six-inch corn tortillas
Queso fresco or another mild, white cheese, optional
Crema (can also use crème fraîche or sour cream), optional
Assemble the enchiladas: preheat the oven to 350 F. Prepare your assembly line: next to your stove, put a few paper towels on a plate, set another paper towel by it; set your filling behind the plate; set a 9-by-13-inch baking dish next to the plate.
Pour 2 cups of salsa into a liquid measuring cup, then stir in 1 cup of broth. The resulting sauce should be pourable but not watery; add more salsa if you need to. Use the back of a spoon to spread 1 cup of this sauce on the bottom of your baking dish.
Warm a thin layer of oil in a small skillet set over medium-high heat (use cast-iron if you have it, because then you’re basically also seasoning your pan). Pinch off a tiny piece of tortilla and drop it into the oil; if the oil bubbles immediately, it’s hot enough.
Slide 1 tortilla into the hot oil, fry for 3 seconds, flip with tongs, fry for 3 seconds, then lift out of the oil, give a few gentle shakes to let oil drip back into the pan, and transfer to the paper towel-lined plate. Blot with the spare paper towel. Put 3 to 4 tablespoons of filling into the center of the tortilla, then roll it up. (The tortilla will be hot! If your fingers aren’t used to such temperatures, it will hurt! Alternatively, fry all the tortillas at once, stacking them on top of each other, then flip the stack and start with the coolest tortilla.) Put the filled tortilla seam side down to the sauced baking dish.
Repeat with the remaining tortillas and filling. If the first tortilla cracked a bit, fry for a few seconds longer next time. Reduce the frying oil to medium heat if needed to maintain a consistent temperature.
Once the baking dish is full, pour the remaining 2 cups of sauce over top. Scatter cheese on top if you’re using it, then bake for 15 to 20 minutes, or until the sauce bubbles on the edges.
Serve drizzled with crema if you like crema!
Yield: About 6 servings
Next time: That rice I mentioned — pumped I figured out what turns out to be a very obvious trick to make it at high altitude. (It will work equally well at sea level.)