Enchil Lady

Hello and welcome to our first official blog post. In typical Big Chef/Little Chef fashion, this post comes about 8 months after our initial idea to blog. I know, the anticipation was killing you...

Tonight, we're coming to you sprawled out on our couch in a slight food coma. What brought on this coma you ask?

The answer: Enchil-ladies (or enchiladas for those of you who don't find the word lady inherently amusing).

The recipe comes from Cooks Illustrated Magazine. Although it looked somewhat intimidating at first glance, it was actually not too difficult and ended up being incredibly delicious. It did take about 1.5 hrs to make, so maybe not the best recipe if you're starving or short on time.

I (Laura) took on the role of big chef tonight. I was a little worried about poaching the chicken, since I had never used this technique before. I did end up drying it out a bit since someone (ahem, Jamie) managed to break our instant read thermometer this afternoon making coffee, so I couldn't measure the internal temperature. BTW, this brings the number of broken thermometers in our house to 4, but that's a story for another day. I thought about making another batch of the chicken, but decided against it because of time. It ended up being the right decision because the cheese and delicious sauce managed to cover up my mistakes.


Here is our version of the recipe. The cooks illustrated version called for making your own sauce with tomatillos, but since they are not in season we created a makeshift sauce out of salsa verde and poblano peppers. The original cooks illustrated recipe can be found here.

Ingredients

		vegetable oil
	1	medium onion , chopped medium (about 1 cup)
	1	medium garlic clove , minced or pressed
	1/2	teaspoon ground cumin
	1 1/2	cups low-sodium chicken broth (we used 1 bouillon cube and 1.5 cups water)
	2	boneless, skinless chicken breasts
	2	Cups of Salsa Verde (we bought the Goya brand)
	3	medium poblano chiles , halved lengthwise, stemmed, and seeded
	1 - 2 1/2	teaspoons sugar
		Table salt
		Ground black pepper
	1/2	cup coarsely chopped fresh cilantro leaves or 2 Tbsp dried
2	12	cups shredded "Mexican style" cheese (6-inch) corn tortillas

Instructions

1. Saute onions in a medium sauce pan until brown. Add garlic and cumin, stir for 30 seconds and then add chicken broth. Add chicken breasts and cover. Let simmer until center of chicken reaches 160 degrees (about 15 to 20 minutes, flipping chicken halfway through cooking). Remove 1/4 cup liquid from saucepan to put in the enchilada sauce later.
   

2. Broil poblanos in the oven until they blacken and start to soften (5 to 10 minutes). Cool and remove skin from poblanos. Transfer to food processor and add salsa verde.
   

3. Add 1 teaspoon sugar and reserved liquid from saucepan to food processor. Pulse mixture and season to taste. We also added a squeeze of lime juice.
   

4. Shred the chicken and add in cilantro and 1 1/2 cups cheese

5. Coat the bottom of 13- by 9-inch baking dish with 3/4 cup of the sauce. Fill tortillas with chicken mixture, roll and place in baking dish. Pour remaining tomatillo sauce over the top. Sprinkle cheese and cover with foil to bake.

6. Bake at 450 F for 15 to 20 minutes (until cheese melts). Serve immediately.

They were absolutely delicious, and we both ate too many. Luckily there is enough left over for me to take for lunch tomorrow. Sorry little chef, but the big chef always gets the leftovers.


Lessons learned:
1. Invest in a good instant read thermometer (and if they break, keep investing...)
2. Simmering is different than boiling, and when you put a lid on, things start to boil pretty quickly and can get dried out.
3. Even if you dry out the chicken a bit, the recipe will still be delicious
4. Take pictures before you start eating. I decided to blog about this after we had dug in and am too embarrassed to post a picture of what it looks like now. Let's just say we struggled a bit with portion control.

Anyway I hope this was useful. Let us know if you make these!

Laura