Cinco de Mayo: Celebrate with Enchiladas

Cinco de Mayo... it's not Mexican Independence Day (which is September 16).  In fact, it's actually the celebration of an underdog victory against the French at the Battle of Puebla.

Did you know that the holiday isn't even celebrated widely in Mexico?

Nonetheless, we do love a good excuse to celebrate with food.  And so we're hauling out our bottle of tequila and getting ready for a celebration of sorts.   Think of it as a tribute to all the great cuisines of Mexico -- and the cultures and influences that have changed our way of eating here in the U.S. forever.

It seems fitting to offer up a variety of Burp! fare for this event.  So, since enchiladas originated in Mexico, we thought we'd share a round-up of our favorites.  Maybe they'll serve as inspiration for you as you contemplate your own Cinco de Mayo celebration.

Caramelized Onion & Poblano Enchiladas

Goat Cheese Enchiladas with Red Mole

Seafood Enchiladas

King Ranch Casserole ("stacked" enchiladas)

 

©BURP! Where Food Happens
Want more? Read Lo's latest ruminations at FOODCrush, her Milwaukee Magazine blog.

Never the Same Dish Twice: Caramelized Onion & Poblano Enchiladas

There's just something about a cheese enchilada.

It's not complicated. Or fancy. If you're honest, you'll probably even admit that it's really not even all that interesting.  But, there's something about a deliciously soft tortilla that's filled with cheese and covered in sauce that seems to capture the imagination. 

Of course, if you're like me, you're always trying to play with perfection... tweaking a little bit here, adjusting there. Making things better (hopefully)... or at least different.  Keeping the spirit of the experimentation alive.

This dish has been a perennial favorite in the Burp! kitchen. In fact, the recipe goes way back -- to the beginnings of the blog.

It was one of our very first blog posts -- published toward the end of June in 2007.  At the point it was written, we weren't cognizant that we had an audience.  In fact, we were pretty sure that we didn't. You'll notice there's no pretty photo of our meal. No story about where we got the idea for the recipe. In fact, there's not much of anything interesting about the post at all, except maybe the recipe itself (and that's probably somewhat debatable).

The fact of the matter is, the idea stemmed from a recipe for cheese and caramelized onion enchiladas that we found in Jack Bishop's A Year in a Vegetarian Kitchen.   We loved the concept of using sweet caramelized onions in an enchilada, but I wasn't completely satisfied with the recipe on its own.  So, we started tweaking.

Rather than using pickled jalapeno peppers, I decided to sub in slices of roasted poblano chiles. To add a bit of delightful creaminess, we added a few ounces of cream cheese to the filling. We neglected to use Bishop's sauce.  And suddenly, we had a brand new dish.

Years later, I'd venture a guess that we've made this dish at least 10-15 times. And it's likely to have been different every go-round. We've used various sauces (a mole, a red chile sauce, and a roasted tomatillo sauce). We've substituted roasted red peppers and fresh jalapenos for the poblanos. We've added goat cheese to the mix, rather than cream cheese.  And every time, it's been a completely new kind of fabulous.

But, that's exactly what I love about cooking. And blogging.  It's never the same twice. Ingredients change. Trends come and go. We approach the same dishes with different perspectives. And recipes have this miraculous way of morphing into new experiences right before our very eyes.

Every single time we step into the kitchen, we learn something new. And we find something unexpected.

So, go ahead -- tweak that recipe. See what it becomes for you.
Caramelized Onion & Poblano Enchiladas


And don't forget -- in celebration of our Burp-Day, we'll be giving away at least THREE (3) Burp! t-shirts during the month of June. Visit Burp! Blog on Facebook to find out how to win!


©BURP! Where Food Happens

Daring Cooks May: Goat Cheese Enchiladas with Homemade Red Mole

Wow, how time flies! It's time again for the May edition of the Daring Cooks Challenge.  Our hosts this month, Barbara of Barbara Bakes and Bunnee of Anna+Food have chosen a delicious Stacked Green Chile & Grilled Chicken Enchilada recipe in celebration of Cinco de Mayo! The recipe, featuring a homemade enchilada sauce, was found on www.finecooking.com and written by Robb Walsh. 
 
We thank Barbara and Anna for coming up with an exceedingly DELICIOUS challenge -- but also for allowing us the chance to stretch our culinary muscles a bit.  They gave us lots of freedom with this one, and I'm pleased to say that we really took the opportunity to run with it.  While we didn't make our own tortillas (which would have been great, if we'd had the time), and we didn't make the green chile sauce (since we've already had a lot of practice making our own roasted tomatillo sauce, that would have been akin to cheating), we did manage to come up with our very own recipe for mole -- an accomplishment, I dare say, that we wouldn't have tackled had it not been for the inspiration the challenge provided.

I'll admit that we approached this month's project with a bit of trepidation.  It wasn't so much that we were frightened by the thought of making our own enchilada sauce.  But, we were pretty sure that we wouldn't have the TIME.  Usually we set aside an entire weekend to devote to our DC challenges.  But, this month, we didn't have that luxury.  We'd have to complete the challenge on a weeknight. After work. And I was planning to make homemade mole -- that Mexican sauce infamous for being... well, a bit time consuming.

But, we're not the sort of people who give up easily.  No sirree. So, we decided we were gonna tackle this thing. Inspired by the approach taken by my good friend, Rebecca, over at Cakewalk, we decided to tackle the challenge in parts. We'd divide up the work over multiple evenings. We'd set aside all else to make the challenge happen. And we'd make a grand attempt at taking half-decent photos at 8:00pm.  We'd persist, and that was all there was to it.

Well, we managed.  And we're here to tell about it.
So, sit right down and we'll attempt to serve you up a little bit of mole...

It all started with our mise en place.  I decided to improvise on the ingredient list -- putting everything I knew about mole together in one place.  I collected my ancho chiles, tomatillos, a few cherry tomatoes (not pictured), garlic, sweet onion, sesame seeds, pumpkin seeds (pepitas), raisins, and a bit of Ibarra Mexican chocolate.  I also gathered together an arsenal of wonderful spices -- cracked anise seeds, cinnamon, ground cloves, black pepper, Mexican oregano, and smoky chipotle powder.

There were quite a few ingredients. But, that didn't stop us.  We got right to business --  sauteeing and roasting.  I decided to roast the tomatillos and cherry tomatoes to mellow out their acids and give them a slighly smoky flavor.  They would then be pureed with sauteed onions, garlic, and spices, and seared in a hot pan full of oil to bring out the best in their flavors.

Just get a load of that delicious looking chocolate. Mexican chocolate is made from dark, bitter chocolate mixed with sugar, cinnamon, and sometimes nuts. The end result is a "grainy" and less smooth product than the chocolate to which we're accustomed in the States. But, if you ask me, it's just as delicious -- especially for mole.

We cooked the sauce for 30-40 minutes, until all the flavors were blended.   At the end, we tasted for seasonings, and packed the sauce away for another day.  The good thing about that is that it gave the flavors a chance to meld even more in the refrigerator.


The next day, we got to work on the enchilada filling.  We combined fresh soft goat cheese, sauteed onions & garlic, raisins, grilled corn, toasted pine nuts, and plenty of cilantro.

We used my favorite technique for prepping the sprouted corn tortillas for filling.  We sprayed them with a bit of coconut oil and placed them in a hot oven for 4-5 minutes, just until they were pliable.  And then we stacked them on top of one another and started filling the enchiladas.

 

We filled each tortilla with about a 1/4 cup of filling, rolled them in the traditional manner, and laid them in a baking dish side by side.

When all of the enchiladas were prepared, we spooned over a bit of the reheated mole sauce.

After adding a bit of chihuahua cheese, everything was ready to go into the oven.   After about 20 minutes, we were greeted by a pan filled with amazingly fragrant enchiladas.

 You may never have thought to fill an enchilada with goat cheese and corn, but you'd be surprised what a delicious filling it makes -- particularly when paired with the sweet and smoky flavor of the red mole.  We owe this idea to Deborah Madison, who features a version of this dish in her book, Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone.   The first time we tried her recipe, we accomplished it with the help of a bit of mole paste from our local Mexican grocer.  But, this time around, the flavor was even more profound.  The fresh mole -- while turning out quite similar to other moles we've tried -- was definitively more fresh, more vibrant.  The chocolate flavor mingled with the smoky tang of the ancho chiles, and the spices muddled into a wonderfully sweet and spicy serenade of flavor -- the perfect foil for the tangy goat cheese.

Goat Cheese Enchiladas with Homemade Red Mole


©BURP! Where Food Happens

Seafood Enchiladas

I started cooking seriously while I was in college. Sure, I did my share of playing with ramen noodles and making boxed macaroni and cheese... but, most of the time I was trying to come up with good food that met a couple of basic criteria:

1. It was something I could afford.
2. It didn't take too terribly long to make.

If I could accomplish both of the above, and make something that was also a bit inventive, I felt like I'd really accomplished something. So, I made that a primary goal.

Some of the staples I always seemed to keep around my tiny apartment kitchen were milk, tortillas, and mushrooms (I happened to really LIKE mushrooms. They were relatively affordable, and they subbed in for meat fairly easily in most recipes.) I also kept a bag of flour around, just in case I had the urge to bake cookies or brownies or something. But, I also had a tendency to keep a box of imitation crab meat around.

I'm not really sure where I acquired my affinity for imitation crab. But, it seemed to elevate my cooking (at the time) to a level not previously achieved. So, I started to stockpile packages of it when it went on sale. Suddenly, I had a box of "crab" in the freezer at almost any given moment... and it led me to a bit of new-found inspiration.

Combining a bit of the "crab" meat with a few mushrooms, some corn, and a few select seasonings, I found that it made a decent filling for enchiladas.
So, I started wrapping a bit of the filling in flour tortillas.
Cloaking the delicious bundles in a bit of spicy bechemel sauce seemed intuitive, so I tried that.
And adding a bit of cheese (and a sprinkling of cayenne pepper) as a topping, and baking the whole mess in the oven for 20-25 minutes granted me a dish that was rich, creamy, and satisfying.
I started making my "seafood" enchiladas on a fairly regular basis. They were a dish that "christened" every new apartment into which I moved... and I started making them regularly for friends when they moved into THEIR apartments. And soon, the dish caught on and became a bit like a signature dish.
These days, making seafood enchiladas is a practice that not only takes me WAY back... but it also fulfills one of my most basic comfort food cravings as the autumn weather begins to encroach. I've started adding embellishments here and there -- a bit of cilantro, a few salad shrimp, and often some sweet bell peppers to add a bit of additional flavor and some color. This particular version happened to contain a couple of Holy Mole peppers from the garden, which added a nice bit of depth. But, no matter how much the dish evolves, it always carries with it a bit of that original inventive spirit.

I can't possibly package up all the good memories that this dish brings with it. But, I am more than willing to share the recipe that made them all possible. So, here goes.

Seafood Enchiladas


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