Who has a GREAT enchilada recipe???

[dmann]

I am hosting a bridal shower next week and am looking for an outstanding enchilada or enchilada casserole recipe that can be adapted to serve about 15 people. We are serving a beef dish so a chicken or just cheese recipe would be perfect.

Have one you care to share??

DM

[michaelb]

This is mine, that I modified/made up from some other recipe I saw once. One of the best things I make and many people have said they love them. Actually frying the tortillas in oil is a lot work, but is the purist way to do it. I order El Pato sauce by the case from Mexgrocer.com. Adding the green chilis and the sour cream makes the sauce orange and not red, so the color is also unusual.

Recipes/Enchilidas Chicken Suizas
1 14 ounce can diced tomatoes
1 7 oz can El Pato Tomato Sauce (hot)
1 7 ounce can diced green chiles
1 medium onion, diced
2 - 3 cloves garlic, peeled and diced or pressed
1 cup sour cream
salt and pepper to taste

12 corn tortillas
1/2 cup corn or canola oil
3 boneless chicken breasts, cooked and cubed
1 lbs Monteray Jack cheese, grated
1/2 lb Chedder grated
1 bunch green onions, chopped
1 cup sour cream
Olive oil

Braise chicken in 1 inch water, med heat, 10 minutes. Set aside to cool. Dice.

Saute Onions and Garlic in oil. In food processor, blend together tomatoes, El Pato, chiles, onion, and garlic. Season to taste with salt and pepper and pour into a large saucepan. Simmer 20 minutes; add sour cream. Heat thoroughly.

Heat small amount of oil in skillet. Fry a tortilla lightly on both sides so it's still pliable. Using tongs, remove it from the pan. Dip it into the enchilada sauce and lay it inside a 9 x 14 pan. Stuff enchilada with chicken, cheese and green onions. Roll and place seam side down in the pan. Repeat for all 12 tortillas, reserving a small amount of cheese and onions.

When all enchiladas are made, place the pan in a 350 degree oven for about twenty minutes. Remove from oven, pour remaining enchilada sauce over enchiladas until almost covered. Cover with remaining cheese and onions. Broil for two minutes or until cheese is melted. Serve immediately, topped with dollops of sour cream.

Makes 2 pans total.

[I don't use the recipe, so now reading it, I can see lots of errors which now took 4 edits to get more or less right]

[Baby Tats]

I have one for chicken and one for potato/spinach. The both have cheese but they don't use any red sauce. Are you interested?

Oh, and very easy. No frying involved.

BT

[Carm]

From what I have seen. My mother do in the kitchen.
It is an easy dish. Any additional notes are from my cabesa.

Here is a recipe.

Following these instructions here. Simple just add the shredded chicken before placing in the oven.
http://www.elise.com/recipes/archives/00...iladas.php
You dont need the tomatoe paste or chopped tomatoes from receipe above unless you want all that extra crap on top . The receipe linked is for more of a cassorole without meat.


For the best flavor, use thighs or drumsticks even though its harder to remove the meat from the bone. I dont think breast meat is good in this receipe, unless you can get the meat really soft.

Just rinse the chicken and toss it in a pot with water, bones and skin, thighs is the easiest to peel the meat from the bone.
Boil a lot of chicken (cant give you an exact poundage, depends on what each person is going to eat,) with half an onion and salt for flavor.

To cook the tortillas.
Low heat. Just place a little canola oil in a frying pan, enough to cover the tortillas. Once soaked, about a minute or two on each side. Remove the "cooked" tortilla from the frying pan and place on a plate with paper towels to soak up any excess oil. You dont want the tortilla to get hard. You just want it soaked and a little cooked in the oil(still flexible).

Make burritos with the shredded chicken and the cooked tortillas. Place them in a pyrex or similar baking dish and make one layer as noted in the picture from recipe. Sprinkle with (whatever topping you want, onions, bell peppers, chopped tomatoes) sauce, shredded cheese on top and place in the oven. After cheese has melted remove from the oven and serve with chopped lettuce on top and some sour cream.

**Make your own green or red sauce(if you are in a hurry buy it premade). I like both. But most people prefer the red sauce.
This is what I have used for sauce, its ok.


The above recipe is simple. To make it even simpler, just layer the cooked tortillas, like if you where going to make lasagna (spelling?)

cooked tortilla, chicken, sauce, cheese, other toppings, tortilla chicken sauce cheese , other toppings. Bake to melt the cheese and you are done.

Good luck.

Carm

[BigGuynRusty]

Las Palmas is the best off the shelf stuff.
You have to make your own Red Chile out of New Mexico Red chile for the best.

It is El Patio, not El PATO, PATO is a Duck, Patio is Patio.

BGnR

[dmann]

These sound great! Baby Tats- I'd love to see your recipes.

DM

[michaelb]

It is El Pato. There is a picture of a duck on the can. It is very good and spicy.

http://www.mexgrocer.com/1276.html

Making hand rolled enchiladas for 15 people is a lot of work. That is 4 pans, or 45-60 enchiladas, or 4 packs of tortillas minimum. You will want some help. There is little economy of scale in the rolling. So if I was doing this for that many, I would probably skip the individual frying. To save time, you can spray them on both sides with cooking spray, put them a baking sheet, and bake them for save 5-10 minutes (I don't remember the temp for this, so I would either make something up like 350 or search for someone who does). Don't overlap them, so you will need several pans or do it in shifts, one per pan. Being fussy, I can tell the difference if the tortilla is actually fried first, but most people can't.

[Stephanie]

BGnR's right.

I think NM is the enchilada capitol of the world (our official state question is "green or red?").

Trader Joe's now offers Chicken Chile Verde or something like that...but it's based on traditional green chile here in NM.

It's not too bad.

Anyway, if you don't want to go that route, see if you can find a place that sells Bueno frozen green chile: http://www.buenofoods.com/

I would also trust the recipes on their site. http://www.buenofoods.com/gcc.htm is one I know a lot of people make. For that one, you could, in theory, use canned chopped green chiles but I know it wouldn't taste nearly as good as if you could get good frozen green chile.

For some variety, you could do both green & red chile enchiladas.

[michaelb]

I overlooked that you said enchilada casserole. That is much, much easier. I haven't done it though, since once I am in the process of making enchilidas I feel I might as well make them right. But the casserole would be much easier, and much more "durable" so you could prep it in advance and reheat. One trick I read recently that I was thinking of trying was to cut the tortillas up into strips. One issue I have with using whole round tortilla in a casserole is how hard it is to evenly lay them out in a rectangle pan (no one else may care about this though).

[Racer X]

cut the rounds in half, and have the flat side against the edge of the pan? And then fill in the center area?