Easy Chicken Enchiladas - Food Wishes
hello this is chef john from food wishescomm with easy chicken enchiladas that's
right we are stacking instead of rollingsince i thought that would make these
chicken enchiladas a little quicker andeasy but as it turns out it really does
and they basically took exactly the sameamount of time and by saying I actually
mean probably a little longer but forgetall that the real purpose of this video
is to show you how simple it is to makeyour own homemade enchilada sauce which
is going to be significantly moredelicious and anything you're gonna find
at the store and to get started withthat what we're gonna do is melt some
butter in some olive oil over mediumheat and by the way if you want to use
one or the other go ahead but I like touse both and once that's melted we'll go
ahead and toss in some roughly dicedonion along with a generous pinch of
salt and we will cook that for aboutfour or five minutes or until our
smallest pieces of onions just start toturn golden brown and basically we're
shooting for something that looks likethis and then what we'll do as soon as
that happens is make a roux but not justany roux a spiced roux which means we're
gonna toss in some flour as usual butthen we're also gonna add some chili
powder in my case ancho as well as someground cumin which in my opinion is one
of the most underrated spices in theworld but anyway we will continue on
with some chipotle as well as somefreshly ground black pepper plus a nice
big pinch of dry oregano and then ofcourse a few shakes of cayenne never
hurts and then finally last but notleast a technically optional but for me
critically important very small pinch ofcinnamon all right if you're scared
don't put it but I really do think itdoes wonderful things here and also
never cook scared okay it's a provenfact that food can sense fear but either
way we're gonna stir our flour andspices into our butter and onion mixture
and we'll go ahead and cook that forabout three or four minutes to not only
take that raw starchy edge off the flourbut also to kind of toast and wake up
our spices and then what we'll do oncewe think our roux is cook long enough
let's go ahead and toss in some finelyminced garlic as well as a few
tablespoons of tomato paste and we'll goahead and stir that in and fair warning
it is definitely gonna clump up butnothing to be concerned about
all right just go ahead and stir it insort of smearing and pressing it against
the bottom of the pan the best she canand while it would be a little easier to
have the tomato paste to the chickenstock we're about to add I really do
think it improves the flavor and maybeeven the color if we cook the tomato
paste first with the garlic at thispoint okay it just seems to bring out
more of that savory flavor so we will goahead and cook that for a few minutes
ignoring the appearance the whole timeat which point we can stop switch to a
whisk and go ahead and stir in a couplecups of cold chicken broth or stock and
by the way to avoid lumps it's veryimportant that this stuff is cold okay
as you may have heard me say before howtrue Kolak wood no lumps and that could
not be more true and then besideswhisking in our chicken broth we also
want to crank our heat up to highbecause we want to bring this up to a
simmer so that's exactly what I did andthen what we'll do once our mixture does
start to bubble is back our heat down tomedium-low and we will let this mixture
simmer stirring occasionally for just 10minutes okay you can go longer if you
want but I'd say 10 minutes is theminimum and believe it or not that's it
I'm gonna go ahead and give mine onemore stir before of course giving it the
mandatory taste and I decided to toss inone more pinch of salt but I should
mention some people like to put in alittle splash of vinegar or even a
squeeze of half a lime just to add alittle extra tang enos to the finish so
if that sounds like something you'd liketo do go ahead
I mean you are after all the boss ofyour sauce but personally I was thrilled
with how mine tasted including itsacidity so I didn't add anything else
and that's it once we've adjusted ourseasoning we are officially done
although I do like to do one optionalstep which is blitz this for a few
minutes with my immersion blender andwhat that's going to do mostly is puree
and all those onions which is going tomake the sauce smoother and also a
little bit sweeteralthough the trade-off is it does
lighten the color a little bit whichreally doesn't bother me and a lot of
that is from air bubbles it willdissipate and this will actually get
darker and deeper as it sits so like Isaid up to you but I do like to blend
this at which point the essential autosauce is now ready to use so we will go
ahead and set that aside and move on tothe rest of our components and of course
if we're makin entral eyes we're going
tosome tortillas preferably ones made from
corn and because I was going to stackthese I found some beautiful cute small
ones and one thing we're probably goingto want to do first
whether we're stacking or rolling hisbreast is very very likely with oil and
then toast them in a hot pan for about30 seconds per side okay we're not
trying to brown them or get them crispywe're just trying to heat them through
and make them nice and flexible and alsothat oil is going to insulate the
tortilla a little bit so it doesn't gettoo soft when we bake it with the sauce
and then besides some hot flexibletortillas we're also going to need some
cook shredded chicken and some kind ofcheese in my case pepper jack as well as
some chopped green onions and cilantroand by the way do us all a favor and
taste your chicken before you do theseand if it tastes bland or underseasoned
add a little bit of salt okay so checkthat out and then as far as assembly
goes we'll start by putting some saucedown and whatever we're gonna bake these
in then we'll place a tortilla over thetop at which point we'll pile on as much
chicken and cheese as we want and thenonce that tortilla has been chickened
and cheesed we will top that with somecilantro and green onions and then
finish that layer with a generousdrizzling of our sauce and that's it we
will place and gently press down onemore tortilla and repeat the entire
process and if you can't I think it'svery cool to cook these in their own
individual ramekin or pan like this butthese will also totally work if you do
like four or six individual stacks in abigger casserole dish and of course go
ahead and build these up as high as youwant okay I'm only doing two layers
which is three tortillas but I'mguessing you could easily do these like
five or six layers high and if you dosend me a picture but anyway I went
ahead and finish that off with my thirdtortilla which we will generously cover
with our sauce and then one last handfulof pepper jack cheese and that's it that
is now ready to finish in the center ofa 400 degree oven for about 10 to 15
minutes or until our cheese is meltedand everything is heated through in our
sauce is bubbling nicely and I was sotaken with how gorgeous this was that I
almost forgot one of our most importantrules if we take something out of the
oven it has a handle we have to place atowel over
nobody burns themselves and then as faras garnishing this for service I'm a fan
of a nice big dollop of sour cream aswell as a nice big spoon of guacamole
which I kind of tried to food style alittle bit but unfortunately I don't
know how but one thing I do know how todo is distract people with a shake of
cayenne as well as a sprig of cilantroand that's it my easy unrolled chicken
enchiladas were done so I got rid of thetowel so I could take a few pictures and
then as soon as I could went in for ataste and I'm not gonna lie I've had and
enjoyed and shalad is made with astore-bought sauce but this homemade
stuff even though it's a very quick andsimple recipe really is significantly
better tasting oh and I should mention afew years ago I was served chicken
enchiladas with a spoon and I reallyenjoyed the experience and I decided
from then on I was gonna use a spoon eatenchiladas with which up until this
point worked very well but for somereason mostly thanks to a long crooked
piece of chicken and I guess the shapeof the pan I could not successfully get
this bite on the spoon and in fairness Ishould be eating where the tripod is and
I do find the reach-around a little bitchallenging so I went ahead and switched
to a fork because of course with a forknothing can go wrong
whoops well that was unfortunate whoopsI just dropped it again but anyway clean
things up and really focused andeventually got the hang of it and the
point I really should be making is thatwhether you use a fork or a spoon or a
spork or whether these are rolled orstacked is that making your own homemade
enchilada sauce from scratch is reallyeasy relatively quick and will produce
some extraordinarily delicious chickenand cheese enchiladas and yes of course
feel free to use shredded beef or porkinstead but no matter what you use I
really do hope you give these a try soonso head over to food wishes dot-com for
all the ingredient amounts of more infoas usual and is all we
enjoy
you