Chicken enchiladas
Sometime I crave simple casserole-type food. Macaroni and cheese, broccoli, rice, and cheese casserole, chicken enchiladas. Notice that these dishes all have a common component of cheese…melted, gooey, belly-warming cheese. Usually when I crave food like this it’s an indication that I’m stressed and I need to be comforted in every way possible. Yes I know, when you’re stressed you shouldn’t turn to food, or at least that’s what we’re told that by Oprah. But honestly, why wouldn’t you turn to food…it’s an elemental component of comfort and security…that and my favorite pillow, blanket, and hugs from my men can get me through any amount of chaos.
Thus on Friday I knew it was chicken enchiladas that would wipe the memory of the horrid week from our collective minds. In the past, when I made this I would turn to a can of enchilada sauce…but it always had a tinny, metallic flavor, and since I had some time I thought I should make my own.
Pay attention now…this is where I finally get kicked in the ass for not following the recipe…my chronic love of substituting. The sauce recipe I pulled off the interwebs called for 5 dried pasilla chiles, seeded and stemmed. But I didn’t have pasilla chilies, I had cascabel chilies, 7 of them with a scoville rating of 11,000. Without even considering what the scoville rating was on pasilla, I proceeded to make the sauce…I even threw in a couple of chipolte for fun. I should have been intelligent enough to notice that when I pushed the seeds and stems into the garbage disposal they triggered an asthma attack…but no, I just ignored it. Turns out the cascabel is 10x more pungent…so is the chipolte…in other words my sauce could be used to strip paint but not to make enchiladas.
At this point my hands felt like I’d soaked them overnight in tiger balm…but I kind of like that feeling. I pureed the sauce in the blender and put it back in the skillet to reduce. Finally I tasted it and instantly knew how badly I’d screwed up. How to fix this mistake…hmmm…I’d been hording red bell peppers and Hungarian peppers so I seeded and stemmed them, and tossed them in the chicken stock I’d poached the chicken in. I simmered them for about 10 minutes and then pureed them in the blender with a cup of the stock. Next I added the paint-stripper sauce and blended the two together…tasted it, and it was good…actually so good I wanted to eat it with a spoon…good thing too, because now I have two quarts of enchilada sauce.
The lesson here is to either follow the damn instructions or at least do the research. In the end I probably would have made the sauce in a similar fashion with similar technique and components…but I wouldn’t have used 9 chilis…maybe just 2 or 3.
My chicken filling is delicious…it’s shredded, poached chicken breast, plain yogurt, pepper-jack cheese, green onions, and cilantro. Tossed together and seasoned with salt and pepper it is a tasty, mellow filling.
Traditional enchilada recipes call for the corn tortillas to be dipped in hot oil or lard but I’ve always dipped the tortillas in the heated enchilada sauce. Then I fill them, roll them up, pile them in a well oiled pan, spoon more sauce over the top, and cover with more pepper-jack cheese.
No recipe for this one folks…just follow someone else’s lead for the sauce and use my filling. I’ve got enough sauce, now in my freezer, for three more batches.
Making plans with Nigel
I love Nigel Slater. As a writer I admire his voice and technique and as an eater I adore his food. I recently picked up The Kitchen Diaries and when I need inspiration I burrow about in the index, looking for entries dealing with whatever it is that I have to cook. For me, at least most of the time, what I cook is determined by what is fresh and good, either from the CSA box or the FM. Today I turned to the cheese entry in the index and there was an entry for baked eggplant with goat cheese. Ding, ding, ding, ding, we’ve got a winner since I have eggplant and goat cheese on hand.
Mr. Slater favors the rustic, soulful food that really makes us geeks happy, so I pretty much followed his lead on this. I slice the eggplant into thick rounds, brushed each side with olive oil, placed them on a baking sheet covered with parchment, tossed some salt and pepper on them, and put them into a 400F oven. Nigel dressed his eggplant with olive oil, feta, mint, and pine nuts but I used olive oil, garlic, chevre, basil, and pistachios…different flavor profile but same concept. Nigel served his with pita bread but I opted for fresh fettuccine that I whipped up as the eggplant roasted. It all came together in about 30 minutes and it was a bowlful of cheesy, aubergine love. Thanks for the inspiration Nigel…I’ll make my dinner plans with you any day.
One year ago I began this blog…what I thought might be a way to combine my love of food and writing and record some recipes for future use. Now I’ve written 184 posts and you’ve written 732 comments. I’ve learned a lot about cooking, writing, and blogging. I started with GH as my only reader and I’m now getting about 500 unique visits a day and that just seems incredible to me. Thanks for reading and stick around for another year…it’ll be delicious, I promise.
White chocolate peach torte
I was inspired by my success with the chocolate prune cake to experiment further with mixing fruit and chocolate together. My intention was to make a cake using apples, white chocolate, and calavados but life gave me peaches…30 pounds of exquisitely perfect, organically grown, Colorado peaches that were all ready to be used immediately. So I peeled, sliced, and bagged peaches for the freezer and then I began to make a new cake along the lines of what I was thinking of, except with peaches.
White chocolate presented its own problems; it isn’t really chocolate because it contains no cocoa solids and when melted and mixed with butter it must be handled gently or the emulsion will split and the fat will separate from the solids. After a bit of research on white chocolate I determined that I needed a high quality brand. But the local store only offered Bakers and Ghiradelli. So I bought both and planned on being flexible and making mistakes.
Like the prune cake, I melted the chocolate in the microwave and then worked in the room temperature butter. For this I used the Bakers white chocolate and it performed well, had a rich shine and gloss like a chocolate should and never, ever threaten to break. So far so good.
I diced the peaches, put them in a pan and cooked them down for 2 or 3 minutes. I added scant pinches of salt and spices and a 1/4 cup of armagnac and set it on fire. Actually it isn’t necessary to set it on fire, you could just cook it down…I just really like the fire part! Once the fire was out I continued to cook them down but still, I had a lot more liquid than I did last week with the prunes…but at least it was really tasty liquid.
After I mixed it all up I tasted the batter and became very, very excited. I love cake batter but this cake batter was nuanced…sweet, with just a hint of spice, and a intense peachiness…would the cake live up to the batter? I ultimately ended up baking the cake for about 26 minutes, and the cooled it in the pan for 10 minutes. When I popped it out of the pan it looked beautiful…like a buttery, golden disc of peachy goodness. I admit…it looked moist, but that might work in its favor.
Actually as it sat there on the counter it practically glistened and it smelled divine. No frosting or glaze was necessary but I thought perhaps a dollop of freshly whipped cream might be perfect…gilding the lily perhaps…but I’ve always embraced that concept. When I sliced the cake it made a squishy noise…and when I plated it it squished again, but it held its shape and didn’t ooze. GH and I bravely took a bite and it was…delicious (whew!!). The brandied peach flavor popped and the subtle flavors of pecans, spices, and butter melded together to create an unique but pleasant taste. The white chocolate didn’t stand out in any way and yet I think it united with the other flavors to create this intense, mellow, melange of flavor.
As I write this I just polished off a sliver of it to see if the flavors held up…and they do. It’s been in the refrigerator overnight and the rest and chill has perhaps improved it. It certainly isn’t a cake but it can easily pass as a torte with its rich, buttery, almost pudding-like interior. I can see making this again next year during peach season. Also it’s the perfect cake for a dinner party, it’s rustic good looks belies its sophisticated flavor.
So here’s my recipe…it was an fabulous success and GH gave it two thumbs way up.
White chocolate peach torte
3 peaches, peeled and diced
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1/8 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground ginger
1/8 teaspoon salt
¼ cup armagnac
1 teaspoon vanilla
7 oz white chocolate
4 oz. butter
3 large eggs, separated
2/3 cup sugar
2/3 cup finely ground pecans
1/3 cup all purpose flour
¼ teaspoon salt
Preheat to 350°F. Butter a round cake pan and dust it with flour. Fit the bottom of the pan with a round of parchment paper.
Put the peaches in a small saucepan, add the cloves, cinnamon, ginger and 1/8 teaspoon of salt and cook over medium heat until they soften and release their juices. Add the armagnac and light it on fire. Continue to cook down for 5 minutes or so in order to reduce. Stir frequently. Remove from the heat and add the vanilla.
Process the pecans, flour, and ¼ teaspoon of salt in the food processor until the pecans are finely ground.
Melt the chocolate in the microwave and add the butter. Stir well to combine and emulsify.
In a large bowl beat the egg yolks and sugar together until thick and pale. Stir the white chocolate mixture into the eggs, then add the nut/flour mixture, and then the peaches and their liquid. Stir after each addition to combine.
Beat the egg whites into firm peaks and gently fold them into the batter. Fill the pan with the batter and bake for 20 minutes in a convection oven at 350°F or 26 minutes in a normal oven at 375°F. The torte is done when its top is firm and the edges begin to pull away from the sides. A knife inserted in the middle should be streaky.
Let cool in the pan for 10 minutes then invert on a rack and remove the paper. Continue to cool fully.
Serve with whipped cream.
