Chicken Enchiladas

Enchiladas, a Mexican dish consisting of stuffed tortillas that are generally covered with a flavorful sauce and baked, are a relatively easy and versatile dish to make at home. I’ve made a few different variations of this dish in the home kitchen with a variety of different fillings and I’ve found that the version detailed below has yielded the best results. The real star here is the red chile sauce. I find that it’s best to have a relatively simple filling…something that can play well with that sauce as opposed to trying compete with it. I like to use chicken, shredded cheese and roasted red bell peppers for my filling but you can really use just about anything you’d like.

The first step is to cook the chicken.

I start with a whole chicken, which I debone into 8 pieces…2 breasts, 2 wings and 2 thighs, 2 legs. Place the chicken pieces (and the chicken carcass) in a large pot and cover them cold water. Place the pot over medium heat and bring the water up to a simmer. Once the water is simmering, reduce the heat to low and allow the chicken to cook through until it is fork-tender, which should take a few hours. During the first hour or so, I occasionally skim and discard the foam and scum from the water’s surface. After the first hour, add an onion, a few carrots, some celery (all roughly chopped), a few bay leaves, fresh thyme and parsley, oregano and a few black peppercorns.

Next, it’s time to prepare the red chile sauce, which will be used to cover the enchiladas. I use three ancho (dried poblano chiles) and two New Mexico (aka Anaheim) chiles. Both varieties are relatively mild when compared to something like a scotch bonnet (aka habanero) chile.

Remove the stems and the seeds from the chiles, then toast them briefly in a non-stick skillet, just to ‘wake them up’ a bit.

Prior to using the chiles in the sauce, they have to be re-hyrdrated. In order to do this, place them in a pot, cover them with water, bring the water up to a boil, then turn the heat off, cover the pot and allow the chiles to soften. Remove them from the water once they feel like real peppers again and save the water for later use.

While the chiles were rehydrating, slice up an onion and brown it, along with a few garlic cloves, in a grill pan.

I also like to include a tomato that has been cut into thick slices and grilled (not pictured). Roughly chop all of these ingredients. The re-hydrated chiles, grilled onions and garlic are now ready to meet their fate.

For additional flavor, I also roast a red bell pepper and a jalapeno pepper.

You can do this over an open flame, just be sure to keep a close eye on the peppers. You’ll want the skin to blacken and blister all over. Once this happens, place the peppers in a bowl and cover with plastic wrap for a few minutes. This step will ‘steam’ the peppers and make it very easy to remove the skins. Why go through this step? I think that roasting the peppers totally changes their flavor and aroma, bringing a nice smoky quality to the chile sauce. Remove the stems, seeds and the ribs from the peppers as well, then roughly chop them.

At this point, place the re-hydrated peppers, about 1/4 cup of the reserved pepper water, the grilled onion, garlic and tomato, the red pepper and jalapeno pepper, a chipotle pepper (and about 1 tbsp of the adobo sauce) into the blender (a food processor would also work here) and process the mixture until it is relatively smooth. Next, add about 1/2 cup of the chicken cooking liquid and one 14 1/2 oz can of tomato sauce and blend until the mixture is as pureed as it is going to get. Transfer this mixture to a sauce pot and simmer it over medium-low heat for about 30 min. You’ll want to taste the sauce at this point; if it’s too hot, add more tomato sauce. If it’s not hot enough, add another half of a chipotle pepper and/or some of the adobo sauce.

Feel free to skim away the foam that bubbles at the surface. After about 30 minutes of simmering, check the seasoning. At this point, I add salt and pepper to taste. Remove the sauce from the pot and set it aside.

The chicken is good to go once it has cooked through to the point that it literally falls to pieces when you try to remove it from the pot. Once this has been achieved, remove the chicken from the pot, allow it cool, then shred the meat with a pair of forks.

Once the chicken has been removed from the pot, strain the liquid that remains and you’ll be left with some homemade chicken stock that can be put into smaller containers, frozen and used to make countless different sauces and soups.

With all of the components ready, it’s time to assemble the enchiladas. Begin by spooning a thin layer of sauce on the bottom of a baking pan (to prevent the enchiladas from sticking).

It’s not traditional to do so, but I use flour tortillas. Place some of shredded chicken and grated cheese down the center of the tortilla. As a side note, I had an extra red bell pepper on hand…I roasted that, peeled and seeded it, sliced it into small strips and also added that along with the chicken and cheese. Once filled, roll the enchiladas up and place them in the baking pan, rolled-side down (so that they stay closed). Cover with as much of the red chile sauce and shredded cheese as you like. It’s also traditional to heat the tortillas individually a small skillet along with some of the chile sauce prior to filling them, but for simplicity sake, I chose to skip that step.

Once you’re done rolling out the enchiladas, cover the pan tightly with tin foil, then bake in a 350 degree oven until the cheese is melted and everything is nice and hot.

I served the enchiladas with some avocado slices and Spanish rice.

Whenever I make this recipe, I always wind up with more enchiladas than I can actually eat in one sitting. The great thing is that you can freeze whatever extra enchiladas you have, just do so before you bake them. Usually I prepare 2 baking pans worth of enchiladas; one goes right into the oven to be eaten that day and the second goes into the freezer for another day. When that day comes, just pop them into the oven until they’re completely warmed-through and the cheese is all melted and gooey.

Ingredients

For the chicken:

1 whole chicken – cut into 8 pieces (plus the carcass, for flavor)
1 onion – cut into 6-8 pieces
3 celery ribs – cut into 2 inch pieces
3 carrots – peeled and cut into 2 inch pieces
1 tbsp black peppercorns
3 bay leaves
a few sprigs of fresh thyme or 2 tsp dried thyme
a few sprigs of fresh Italian parsley or 2 tsp dried parsley
2 tsp dried oregano
6-8 cups cold water (or enough to cover all of the ingredients)

For the Red Chile Sauce:

3 ancho chiles – stems and seeds removed, re-hydrated, roughly chopped
2 New Mexico chiles – stems and seeds removed, re-hydrated, roughly chopped
1 onion – sliced and grilled
4 garlic cloves – grilled
1 red bell pepper – roasted, stems and seeds removed, roughly chopped
1 jalapeno pepper – roasted, stems and seeds removed, roughly chopped
1 tomato – cut into thick slices, grilled
1 chipotle pepper – I use the kind that comes packaged in small cans with adobo sauce…I like to use about 1 tbsp of the adobo sauce to add additional heat
1/2 cup chicken stock
1 14 1/2 oz can tomato sauce
salt and pepper to taste

Additional Ingredients:

Shredded cheese of your choice (I used a block of marble jack that I shredded myself)
Flour tortillas