I woke up this morning having dreamt this. In the dream I was preparing for a party with a few other people and this was sitting there along with store-bought corn tortillas so I tore one and used it to scoop as a spoon even though that was not the intention whereupon I woke up. Then back in real life I go to myself, I go, "You need to make that." These are the components of a chicken enchilada except it is not rolled up, they are not fancy, and they're not baked as a casserole.
I do have milk although it is in a tin and it is evaporated.
I do have chicken broth although it is in a carton.
I do have cheese although they are the wrong types.
I have jalapeño both fresh and tinned.
I have chicken in the form of cooked thighs.
I have spices falling out of the cabinets.
I have masa harina to make tortilly-yahs.
and I have onion and garlic.
So. I made what I dreamt and ate it as I dreamt it, as an unmannered lout directly from the pan. It is everything I dreamt. More strongly flavored than your average enchilada.
This looks really good. What was your process to make it?
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ReplyDeleteShort answer: First a white sauce, + chiles, then torn chicken pieces, lastly cheese.
Long answer:
The chicken thighs were already made, shown in the previous post.
The sauce was made like a regular white sauce with roux. Even parts butter and flour (1 tablespoon each) Brown the flour. First milk, about half a cup while whisking, mine was evaporated but I'd prefer whole milk, and then sufficient chicken broth to loosen the mixture. I aimed for looser than normal because cheese will thicken it more later. Diced onion 1/2 small onion, and 2 cloves garlic smashed and finely diced. One whole jalapeño finely diced along with 1/3 tin jalapeño peppers that was saved in a plastic bag from a previous meal. If I didn't have that, then I would have added anything hot, cayenne powder, Tabasco sauce, habanero sauce, tinned chipotle, dried chiles, even curry, anything at all that has capsicum heat or any combination. Even with two jalapeño types, mine was not hot enough to suit me. Last, cheese added off the heat. Since cheese is already a prepared food, it tends to separate when heated too long. My cheese was the wrong type for this specific thing so it had a stronger stranger flavor that real Mexicans would object to. The cheese I used, was actually more expensive than regular white type farmers cheese and I do not recommend doing what I did. Velvita would even work Whatever your favorite cheese is, use that.
The orange bits you see in the photograph is sliced carrots that come in the tin of jalapeños.
Normally, a hefty amount of cooked chicken is rolled in a store-bought tortillas along with white sauce that includes chiles and cheese. The rolls are lined up in a casserole dish and more sauce poured over to cover. Then topped with more cheese and baked. The baked rolls are lifted out of the casserole with a spatula onto a plate to serve, a little tricky because they tend to bake together.
My first attempt at this I used Campbell's cream of mushroom soup as the base because I didn't know how to make a sauce. Some of the tortillas baked crispy because they were insufficiently coated with sauce. I proclaimed it a failure because of that but the people I was with said, "No! These are a success. You should be pleased. " That changed my attitude toward that first batch. But honestly, there is no point in rolling them and baking them, just dipping tortillas directly into the cheesy chickeny sauce is wonderful.
Your description sounds almost like a suiza sauce. I'll have to try this-- sounds delicious.
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