Chicken Enchiladas

from The Best Light Recipe by ATK

• 1 medium onion, chopped fine
• 1/2 teaspoon vegetable oil
• Salt
• 3 medium garlic cloves, minced or pressed through a garlic press (about 1 tablespoon)
• 3 tablespoons chili powder [Made my own according to Mark Bittman's recipe in HTCE]
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 2 (8-ounce) cans tomato sauce
• 1 cup water
• 1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts (about 2 large breasts), trimmed of excess fat
• Ground black pepper
• 8 ounces 50 percent light cheddar cheese shredded (2 cups) [Used some pre-shredded 4-cheese Mexican blend.  Full fat, y'all.]
• 1 (4-ounce) can pickled jalapeno chiles, drained and chopped
• 12 (6-inch) soft corn tortillas
• Vegetable oil spray
• 1 lime, cut into wedges (for serving)

Couldn't locate a 4-ounce can of pickled jalapenos, but I found an 11-ounce can.  I was surprised to find it contained carrots as well.

I suppose a 4-ounce can, drained, would contain even fewer jalapenos than the can I bought, but I thought it was worth noting that the total weight came out to be 2.3 ounces.

Mise en place.

Sweating the onions in 1/2 teaspoon of oil with a 1/2 teaspoon of salt.

Add garlic, chili powder, cumin, and sugar.  Cook until fragrant.

Stir in tomato sauce and water, bring to a simmer, and cook until slightly thickened.

Nestle chicken into sauce and cook until thickest part registers 160 degrees on thermometer.  Set aside to cool and shred.

 
Strain sauce through medium-mesh strainer.  The sauce was crazy spicy at this point since I used chile de arbol in the chili powder rather than "mild" chiles.  I hoped the heat would even out later, and it did.

I guess you're supposed to toss the chicken, 1 cup cheddar, jalapenos, and cilantro with a 1/2 cup of the sauce, but I kind of flaked and threw it all in there.  Pouring out as much sauce as I could later.

Wrap tortillas in plastic wrap and microwave until warm and pliable.

Place a 1/3 cup of filling evenly down center of each tortilla.  Tightly roll and set seam side down in baking dish.  I only managed to use 9 of them.
Then you're supposed to spray the tops (I guess this uses less oil, but my spray has expired and I didn't have a new one.), but i just brush them with vegetable oil.  Pour 1 cup of sauce over the top and sprinkle cheese evenly.  Bake for 20 to 25 minutes covered with foil at 400 degrees and then uncovered for 5 minutes to brown the cheese.

 

Pretty serviceable enchiladas.  Not crazy greasy.  Certainly not terrible.  Sour cream and store-bought salsa picante to accompany them.

Rendang (BRW)

• 2 hot dried red chiles [I got a big ass bag of chile de arbol. Plus I used 5 of them.  If Bittman says he's being conservative, I thought I might as well double that plus one.  I could've used more.]
• 3 garlic cloves, peeled
• 3 shallots, peeled
• One 1-inch piece fresh ginger or galangal, peeled and roughly chopped [I'm not fancy enough to have galangal lying around]
• 1 teaspoon ground turmeric [I did see fresh turmeric at Market Basket last weekend and I'm intrigued especially since Modernist Cuisine at Home give a good metric to sub for the powdered stuff.  Alas, not this time around.]
• 1 teaspoon cumin seeds
• 1 teaspoon coriander seeds
• 2 tablespoons tamarind paste, or the juice and zest of 2 limes [I'm also sadly not fancy enough for tamarind paste either]
• 2 tablespoons corn, grapeseed, or other neutral oil
• 1 pound boneless beef, preferably chuck, cut into 1-inch cubes
• 1 cup coconut milk, homemade [right...] or canned
• Salt to taste

Process the first 8 ingredients until everything is minced.  I guess if you were adding tamarind paste, you'd hold off until everything else was processed.

Mise en place.

Heat oil over medium-high heat.  Add spice paste and cook until fragrant.

Add beef and cook until browned and covered with the sauce.  However,  I'll own up to probably not getting much browning action going on.

Pour in coconut milk, cover, and simmer until the sauce dries out, about 1 hour.

The sauce really wasn't all the dry by the time I stopped.  I don't know if I stopped because I was hungry or merely because I was running out of time.
I've heard people rave about rendang on Top Chef, but I didn't find this dish to be all that distinctive from any old curry.  Obviously, I will have to find a way more complex, bitching recipe for this someday.

Chili Powder (HCE)

Reading How to Cook Everything (one of my earliest experiences being brainwashed by this whole food thing) instilled in me a strong distrust in store-bought spice blends. Unless a substance is truly hard to find (lavender in Herbes de Provence or sumac in Za'atar), it's always about a million times better to toast and grind your own spice blends. Especially when it comes to the usually sodium-laden store-bought Chili Powders. Yuck, and other preservatives and anti-caking agents as well.
Mark Bittman would probably have me grind whole spices every time I cooked and toss open spices after a year... But I have my limits.

• 2 tablespoons ground ancho, New Mexico, or other mild dried chile [I used Chile de Arbol since I have a big cheap bag of them. To counter this, I omitted the next ingredient.]
• 1/2 teaspoon cayenne, or to taste [I can always dose whatever dish I'm cooking with this.]
• 1/2 teaspoon black peppercorns
• 2 teaspoons cumin seeds
• 2 teaspoons coriander seeds
• 1 tablespoon dried Mexican oregano

Toast over medium heat until fragrant.





Grind in a spice grinder.