chicken_enchiladas

Mom's Chicken Enchiladas

INGREDIENTS
2 small onions, chopped (about a cup and a half)
Vegetable oil - grapeseed or olive
3 small cloves garlic, minced
2 14.5-ounce cans tomatoes, preferably fire-roasted if you can get it
4 Tbsp red chili powder
2 teaspoon sugar
1-2 cups water
12 corn tortillas
Grapeseed oil, peanut oil or canola oil - a high smoke point vegetable oil
2-3 cups of cooked chicken, shredded or chopped
Salt
2 cups grated cheese (about 1/3 lb)

METHOD
1 Preheat the oven to 350 degrees
2 Prepare the sauce. Coat a large skillet with oil and saute the onions on
medium heat until translucent, a few minutes. Add the garlic for a minute more.
While the onions are cooking, puree the canned tomatoes in a blender. Add the
tomatoes to the onions and garlic. Bring to a low simmer. Start adding the
chili powder, one teaspoon at a time, tasting after each addition, until you
get to the desired level of heat and chili flavor. For us that's around 2 Tbsp.
But it depends on your taste and how strong the chili powder is that you are
using. Note that the tortillas and chicken will absorb some of the heat, so
allow for that and let it be a little bit spicier than what you want in the
finished dish. Add 1-2 teaspoons of sugar if necessary to cut down on the acid
from the tomatoes. You want more of the taste of the chili and less of the
tomatoes for this sauce. As the sauce simmers, dilute it with water to keep it
from getting to thick as it simmers. Remove from heat.
3 Mix in 1/4 cup of the sauce with the cooked chicken, and a 1/4 cup of the
cheese. Sprinkle with a little salt. Set aside.
4 Prepare the tortillas. There are 2 basic ways to prepare the tortillas -
the traditional way of dipping them in the sauce and heating them individually,
and my mom's way when she is trying to cut down on the fat.
First the traditional way. Heat a small light skillet on med-high heat. Add a
teaspoon of oil (high smoke point oil as indicated above, we use grapeseed oil)
to coat the pan. Dip a tortilla in the sauce to coat the tortilla with sauce on
both sides. Place the tortilla in the skillet and heat for a few seconds, until
the tortilla begin to show some air bubbles. Use a metal spatula to flip to the
other side for a few more seconds. Set aside on a plate. Repeat with remaining
tortillas. Proceed to the step 5.
For my mom's low-fat method of heating up the tortillas, she places a small
amount of oil in the skillet to coat the pan. Add a tortilla, flip it to its
other side. Then add another tortilla on top of the first to soak up some of
the excess oil. Flip them both together and add yet another tortilla. Keep
adding them wherever there seems to be some excess oil. The idea is to heat the
tortillas and soften them with the minimum amount of oil. As the tortillas
become soft and heated, remove them to a paper towel to soak up even more
excess oil. If you find you need more oil in the pan, add it. With this method,
you do NOT get the chili flavor infused in the tortillas. It is a matter of
preference. I prefer the first method, excess oil or not, because it has a much
richer and spicier flavor. But as my mom says, "Anything goes. This is just a
guideline; do what you want."
Note that because we made this batch the low-fat way, the following photos
show tortillas not coated in chili sauce, but the method is the same for if
you did.
5 Assemble the enchiladas. Use an 8x12 inch pyrex baking dish. Place a couple
spoonfuls of the chicken mixture in the center of a tortilla and roll it up.
Place in the baking dish and repeat until all dozen of your tortillas are
neatly placed in rows in the casserole dish. Cover the tortillas rolls with
the remaining sauce. Sprinkle with the remaining grated cheese. Note that I
recall often eating these chicken enchiladas with very little cheese on them.
Instead we had probably 2/3 cup of chopped fresh onion that had been soaked in
vinegar sprinkled over the top. (My mom, bless her soul, has no recollection of
the chicken enchiladas without the sprinkled cheese. But she's in her 70s and
sometimes doesn't remember these things. Or she remembers later and doesn't
remember that she ever forgot them in the first place. But heck, I'm in my 40s
and my memory isn't what it used to be either.)
6 Place in the oven and cook for 10 minutes, or until cheese is bubbly.
Use a metal spatula to serve.
Serve with thinly sliced iceberg lettuce that has been seasoned with vinegar
and salt (no oil), guacamole or avocado slices, and sour cream. Garnish with
cilantro.
Serves 4.