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Enchiladas Sabrosas

Category: Misc

Author: The Savvybearcat

Date: 1/1/2007

Rating:

(3.0) by 1 users

Ingredients:

2 lb Ground meat (mixed ground beef and ground pork)
1 medium Onion
1/2 Green pepper
5 Garlic cloves
1 Cilantro bunch
1/2 tsp Red pepper
1/2 tsp Salt
1/2 tsp Cumin (or more)
1/2 cup Wine or sherry
3/4 cup Black olives
1 1/2 cup Enchilada sauce
1/2 cup Tomato sauce (1 small can)
12 Corn tortillas
1/2 lb Monterey jack cheese
1/2 cup Sour cream (optional)
Oil

Instructions:

Chop onion and garlic; place them in a frying pan with the ground
meats. Saute them without adding fat. When meat is brown, add the
chopped green pepper and most of the cilantro leaves and cook for
another minute or two (until green pepper is cooked bright green).
Drain well, then add (about) several tablespoons of the enchilada
sauce and cook for a few minutes longer. Set aside.

Make the sauce: into a saucepan, pour the remaining enchilada sauce
(from the can). Add the can of tomato sauce. Add the wine or sherry,
cumin, salt, red pepper, and cook for 10-30 minutes (depending on how
compulsive you are). The flavor should be smooth (not gritty) and
spicy.

Collect together everything that you will need for assembling the
enchiladas. Grate the cheese onto wax paper. Have the olives handy
(you'll be cutting them in half). Lightly oil the baking dish.

The frying pan from which you drained the meat mixture still has some
of its grease left in it. Take 4 tortillas from their package,
separate them from each other, then one-by-one, slide them over the
frying pan surface on each side, to moisten them slightly with the
grease. That done, stack them in the frying pan and heat them until
they are soft and pliable.

The final assembly requires a bit of manual dexterity and speed:
Take the tortillas, and place them (bumpy side out) in the oven dish,
curved into a "U" shape, each right next to its neighbor. (At this
point, start heating your next 4 tortillas in the frying pan. I
usually wind up preparing 10 tortillas in all.)

Place a small handful of cheese into the U of each tortilla, followed
by an appropriate amount of meat mixture, and finally several olive
halves. Then curl one end of the tortilla around to tuck into the
opposite end, and carefully rotate it to conceal the seam. Each
tortilla should be filled firmly (not too loosely) but not
overflowing the ends.

Once all the filling is used up and the enchiladas are now filled
tortillas, pour the sauce over the top, helping it run into all the
crevices. Sprinkle lightly with remaining cilantro leaves. 10 Cover
with aluminum foil and bake for 20-30 minutes, just until the
tortillas are soft and the sauce is slightly bubbly. Let sit for 5
minutes, then serve, topped with a dollop of sour cream. If you fail
to drain the meat well enough, the enchiladas will be greasy. If
over-baked, it tastes all right, but the tortillas lose their
texture. In general, however, the recipe is quite forgiving in its
proportions. Feel free to adjust the seasoning to your own tolerance
for hot spice. I like to assemble this recipe at least 3 hours before
baking to give the flavors a chance to blend. Left refrigerated for a
day, the seasoning is even less aggressive. Served with a salad (and
some Mexican beer), it's a complete meal.

NOTES:

* Enchiladas with meat, black olives and cheese -- For many years,
I've been involved in Latin American "solidarity work" here in the
San Francisco area, and as a result, I have learned some of its
culinary pleasures. This recipe originated from the back of a can of
enchilada sauce in Mexico, but was refined by a special Chilean
refugee friend who won a scholarship to the California Culinary
Academy (in San Francisco) and now cooks ever-so-lusciously. Yield:
Serves 6-8.

: Difficulty: moderate.
: Time: 1 hour preparation, 30 minutes baking.
: Precision: Approximate measurement OK, but time the baking
carefully.

: Karen Kerschen
: EECS Department, University of California, Berkeley, Calif., USA
: karen@silvia.Berkeley.EDU

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