Smokey Chicken Enchiladas with Crema Verde
A ton of super simple, inexpensive ingredients come together to feed a crowd (or feed you all week)
Enchiladas can be a bit of a labor of love when made from scratch, but the resulting symphony of flavors is beyond worth it.
Ingredients
Enchilada sauce
Can of San Marzano whole peeled tomatoes
Can of chiles in adobo sauce
2 tbsp tomato paste
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tbsp red pepper flakes (to taste)
1 tsp coriander
1 tsp cumin
Crema verde
Bunch cilantro
1 ripe avocado
Juice of 1 lime
1 can hatch green chiles
1 tsp coriander
Assembly
About 1 lb chicken breasts (about 3)
10 soft flour tortillas (medium size)
2 cups pepper jack cheese
2 bell peppers
Handful cotija cheese
Instructions
Get the tomato paste into a large skillet on medium-low heat and spread it around a little, letting it toast for a minute or so. Then, sprinkle in the cinnamon, cumin, and coriander. After that’s all mixed up, pour in the contents of the can of red chiles. Start to combine this mixture and break up the chiles a little with your spoon. After a few minutes, pour in the contents of your can of tomatoes, carefully and gently squeezing each tomato with your hand before they go in the skillet (this can be very messy).
After a few minutes of stirring, the mixture should be lightly bubbling. Take a small taste of the sauce to check the heat level. If you are a spice weenie, it may be just right here. If you like a bigger kick, shake in some red pepper flakes at this point. This will need to simmer for 30-45 minutes, stirring occasionally.
While it’s simmering, heavily salt a pot of water and place in your chicken thighs. Bring the pot up to a boil. Once boiling, turn down to a low simmer and let go for about 30 minutes.
While that is boiling, rinse and slice your bell peppers and get them into a skillet set to low heat, cover, and let them go, stirring occasionally, for about 20 minutes, until they are soft.
While those are going, put your cilantro (stems too!), coriander, juice from the lime, avocado, and can of chiles into a blender with a pinch of salt. Blend on low, slowly streaming water into the hole in the blender cap until it is very smooth (probably will be about 3-4 tbsp of water). These green chiles are not very spicy at all, so it gives this crema a nice smokey pairing for the red sauce, but it acts as a foil for the spice level. Pour the crema into a small bowl and rinse your blender.
Drain the water from your chicken pot and, using two forks, shred the chicken into strippy chunks. (this liquid is now chicken broth, so drain it into a tupperware and freeze it to use in this pasta dish next week!)
Pour half of the simmering red sauce into the blender and blend until smooth. Return it to the skillet and mix to combine.
*why are we doing this? – the sauce should be smoother than it was in the pan, because no one wants to bite into a whole chili, but I like to leave some texture.
Scoop about 1/4 of the red sauce into the chicken pot and mix to coat the chicken.
Now it’s time to assemble. Preheat your oven to 350º. Using tongs, grab some sauced chicken, some bell pepper strips, and a handful of pepper jack into a tortilla. Roll it tightly and place it, seam-side down, into a large pan. Repeat this to fill the pan. This filling makes about 10 enchiladas, and they fit perfectly into my 9’x16’ pan. Smother the roll-ups with the remaining red sauce, and top with tons of p jack.
Plate with a schmear of crema and some cilantro & cotija.
