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ENCHILADAS-2 - Enchiladas with meat, black olives, and
cheese
For many years, I've been involved in Latin American ``soli-
darity work'' here in the San Francisco area, and as a
result, I have learned some of its culinary pleasures. This
recipe originated from the back of a can of enchilada sauce
in Mexico, but was refined by a special Chilean refugee
friend who won a scholarship to the California Culinary
Academy (in San Francisco) and now cooks ever-so-lusciously.
800 g ground meat (mixed ground beef and ground pork)
1 medium onion
1/2 green pepper
5 garlic cloves
1 bunch cilantro
2.5 ml red pepper
2.5 ml salt
3-5 ml cumin
100 ml wine or sherry
90 g black olives
350 ml enchilada sauce (1 can)
100 ml tomato sauce (1 small can)
12 corn tortillas
200 g monterey jack cheese
125 ml sour cream (optional)
oil
(1) Chop onion and garlic; place them in a frying pan
with the ground meats. Saute them without adding
fat.
(2) When meat is brown, add the chopped green pepper
and most of the cilantro leaves and cook for
another minute or two (until green pepper is
cooked bright green).
(3) Drain well, then add about 50 ml of the enchilada
sauce and cook for a few minutes longer. Set
aside.
(4) Make the sauce: into a saucepan, pour the remain-
ing enchilada sauce (from the can). Add the can
of tomato sauce. Add the wine or sherry, cumin,
salt, red pepper, and cook for 10-30 minutes
(depending on how compulsive you are). The flavor
should be smooth (not gritty) and spicy.
(5) Collect together everything that you will need for
assembling the enchiladas. Grate the cheese onto
wax paper. Have the olives handy (you'll be cut-
ting them in half). Lightly oil the baking dish.
(6) The frying pan from which you drained the meat
mixture still has some of its grease left in it.
Take 4 tortillas from their package, separate them
from each other, then one-by-one, slide them over
the frying pan surface on each side, to moisten
them slightly with the grease. That done, stack
them in the frying pan and heat them until they
are soft and pliable.
(7) The final assembly requires a bit of manual dex-
terity and speed: Take the tortillas, and place
them (bumpy side out) in the oven dish, curved
into a ``U'' shape, each right next to its neigh-
bor. (At this point, start heating your next 4
tortillas in the frying pan. I usually wind up
preparing 10 tortillas in all.)
(8) Place a small handful of cheese into the U of each
tortilla, followed by an appropriate amount of
meat mixture, and finally several olive halves.
Then curl one end of the tortilla around to tuck
into the opposite end, and carefully rotate it to
conceal the seam. Each tortilla should be filled
firmly (not too loosely) but not overflowing the
ends.
(9) Once all the filling is used up and the enchiladas
are now filled tortillas, pour the sauce over the
top, helping it run into all the crevices. Sprin-
kle lightly with remaining cilantro leaves.
(10) Cover with aluminum foil and bake for 20 - 30
minutes, just until the tortillas are soft and the
sauce is slightly bubbly. Let sit for 5 minutes,
then serve, topped with a dollop of sour cream.
If you fail to drain the meat well enough, the enchiladas
will be greasy. If overbaked, it tastes all right, but the
tortillas lose their texture. In general, however, the
recipe is quite forgiving in its proportions. Feel free to
adjust the seasoning to your own tolerance for hot spice. I
like to assemble this recipe at least 3 hours before baking
to give the flavors a chance to blend. Left refrigerated for
a day, the seasoning is even less aggressive. Served with a
salad (and some Mexican beer), it's a complete meal.
Difficulty: moderate. Time: 1 hour preparation, 30 minutes
baking. Precision: Approximate measurement OK, but time the
baking carefully.
Karen Kerschen
EECS Department, University of California, Berkeley, Calif., USA
karen@silvia.Berkeley.EDU
| Last modified: 9 May 2006 | 11 hits in May 2012 |
