From the Stove #1: Chicken Enchiladas

Last weekend marked the endeavor of our first time in making homemade enchiladas, and the results were more delicious than I ever could’ve expected, making this a required monthly meal from now on.

The recipe was taken from the Food Network site, specifically the Tyler Florence recipe.  While we skipped the tomatillo salsa and avoided all uses of cilantro, the ingredients for the enchiladas — for the most part — included the following:

• Extra-virgin olive oil
• 1/2 medium onion, diced
• 3 garlic cloves, chopped
• 1 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 cups chicken stock, storebought
• 1 deli roasted chicken (about 3 pounds), boned, meat shredded
• Salt
• Freshly ground black pepper
• 10 large flour tortillas
• 1/2 pound Monterey Jack cheese, shredded

The key ingredient that I thought really made the whole meal work was the use of a deli roasted chicken, which I picked up from Safeway on a Friday when it was on sale.  Since I was already pretty hungry while preparing the meal, taking the skin and chicken off the bones led to multiple tasty tidbits while shredding the chicken, temporarily satiating the hunger.

As more ingredients were added to complete the enchilada mix, the smells continued to get better, while the cooking dish looked more and more tasty.  The tomatoes really helped to keep it moist, and another key ingredient that we added was sweet corn which just sweetened up the whole dish and balanced well with the spiciness of the peppers and enchilada sauce.

Then the chicken was added and the whole mix cooked for a little so the flavors and spices would soak into the chicken.

The tortillas were first dipped in the enchilada sauce, then the mix was added with liberal amounts of cheese, wrapped and added to the baking dish.  Once all the enchiladas were in the dish, more cheese was added, and the rest of the enchilada sauce drizzled over it all.  Then it was tossed into the oven for fifteen minutes to bake a little, melt the cheese, crispen the tortillas and make everything just right.

Finally, we heated up a batch of Amy’s black beans and cooked up some Mexican rice and the finished dish was ready:

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