cook: enchiladas

I fondly remember enjoying Taco Bell enchiritos as a young adult and was wanting that same flavor and texture in my own version. Enchilada dinners when scratch-made as possible is pretty time-consuming though, and so this meal would be produced in stages over consecutive nights of eating leftovers for dinner. I started with quick pickling jalapeños on a Saturday morning.

And from there started grating carrots and slicing a jalapeño and red onion and half a head of white cabbage to make curtido.

This recipe called for pouring boiling water over the cabbage before adding the salt and sugar and white vinegar.

The refrigerator was crammed because of this head of savoy cabbage.

I’ve been cooking this cabbage with numerous dishes: cranberry bean and Italian sausage soup, pasta bake with cauliflower and broccoli (yet more harvesting from the garden) and braised with butter as a vegetable side for Friday night steak date at home dinner.

Instead of opening a can for Mexican dinner night, I toasted dried chile peppers in the cast iron: pasilla, guajillo, and New Mexican or arbol on a Saturday afternoon after canoe paddling. While the toasted peppers were soaking in hot water, I also grilled an onion, garlic cloves and Kumamoto tomatoes.

I also needed a spice and herb in this enchilada sauce: cumin and oregano. After grinding the cumin seeds, in it went with oregano, the grilled aromatics and tomatoes, and the softened chilies with their soaking water into the blender.

 

I skipped the step of simmering the enchiladas sauce in a slick of oil in the cast iron and instead simmered and then added a can of tomato sauce to the decanted jar to go into the fridge. And in a flurry on a Sunday early evening, I fried the corn tortillas until soft but not crispy and browned ground beef in taco seasoning. Next step was to slather scratch-made refried beans on the softened tortillas and then stuff with ground beef before rolling and pressing seam side down into enchilada sauce poured into a glass casserole dish and finally sprinkling lots of grated cheese, black olives and pickled jalapeños on top and baking in a 350 degree oven for 20 to 25 minutes or until the cheese is melted and slightly browned. Before serving, I scattered chopped cilantro and white onion atop.

 

T’was a delicious Mexican dinner night with leftovers for busy weeknights and no time to cook.