Yucatecan style chicken enchiladas

[LarsTheo]

As requested, here is more info on how I make Yucatecan style enchiladas. It's not based on any existing recipes - just a combination of flavors that I like and that remind me of Mérida.

Yucatecan Style Chicken Enchiladas

Ingredients:

3/4 pound cooked (preferably poached) chicken or turkey meat, chopped

2 tbsp chicken fat (or combination of chicken fat, butter, olive oil)

1/4 cup flour

1/2 onion, finely chopped

2-3 serrano peppers, minced (some seeds removed)

1 can Ro-Tel tomatoes

2 tbsp cumin

2 tbsp chili powder

2 tsp dried oregano

1 tsp vegetable soup base

1 tsp chicken soup base

2 tbsp achiote paste (ground annato seeds)

1/2 – 1 cup chicken stock (or water), as needed

12 corn tortillas

Directions:

If you have poached your chicken meat, you will have a nice broth to use for thinning the sauce later, and you will probably have chicken fat that you can use for the roux. I poach the chicken the day before and save the broth separately and extract the fat from the top of the broth. Chop the meat and set aside. If you have bones, you can add them to the broth and simmer for an hour or so.

Melt the fat (or butter and oil) in a large saucepan, and add the flour to make a roux. When the roux is a pale brown, add the minced onion and cook a bit more so that the onion will become soft and the roux turns a light brown. Then add the peppers and stir to combine. Add the canned tomatoes, including all the liquid, and blend. Add the cumin, chili powder, oregano, soup bases (in place of salt), and achiote paste. Stir until blended. Reduce the heat and add sufficient chicken stock or water to make a thick sauce. Using a stick blender, purée until fairly smooth, or at least until tomato pieces are fully incorporated – you may have some onion pieces that do not get puréed, but this is okay. Remove about 1/3 of the sauce to reserve and add the chopped chicken or turkey meat to the rest of the sauce.

Spoon about 2-3 tbsp of the reserved sauce into a 6”x10” (or similar size) baking dish, and spread fairly evenly, along the bottom and sides. Heat the tortillas on a covered plate in the microwave, 20 seconds at a time, turning them and restacking them so that the center ones are top and bottom. I do this about three times to get them soft enough for folding, but it will depend on how fresh they are. Once they are soft, spoon a bit of chicken filling into a single tortilla, roll it into shape, and place it in the baking dish. You can stack them tightly or else make two loose layers. If you make two layers, put a bit of reserved sauce in between the layers. At the end, add all remaining sauce to the top and spread evenly.

Cover the pan with foil and bake at 350° for 15-20 minutes, or until they are hot.

Yield: 12 enchiladas, or about 4 servings

*Note: I usually poach the chicken with garlic, onion, celery, and chili powder, in a method similar to Ropa Vieja, except with chicken.

[ludja]

Thanks LarsTheo... It sounds great, like there would be a great chicken flavor to the dish. I haven't used achiote paste yet, which I guess is a typical Yucatan ingredient.

I don’t know that much about Yucatan cooking but flavors/foods I associate with the area are:

achiote

citrus (orange and lime),

habanero chiles

raw onions?

fish

[LarsTheo]

When I poach the chicken, I add orange and lemon slices to the broth, and this helps with getting the citrus flavor. Last night I defrosted a batch of these enchiladas that I had made before, and they reheated well. If you haven't started using achiote, you are missing out on a fantastic treat!

I have a reasonably large orange tree in my back yard, and so I have more oranges than I can use. My lemon tree is smaller, and I manage to use all my lemons, and I'm still waiting for my lime tree to get bigger, although I get excellent lime - just not enough of them yet.

Here's how I poach my chicken

Poached Chicken

Ingredients:

1 chicken

4-6 cups water (enough to almost cover the chicken)

2 lemons, sliced

2 oranges, sliced (optional)

1 onion, coarsely choped

8 cloves garlic

3-4 stalks of celery, coarsely chopped

2-3 Serrano peppers (optional), coarsely chopped, seeds removed

3 tbsp chili powder

1 tbsp oregano

Directions:

Wash the chicken and leave whole. Place the some lemon and orange slices inside the chicken cavity and place in stockpot. Add the rest of the ingredients, except for the oregano, and bring to a boil on high heat. Put the oregano in a teaball or bouquet garni and add to the pot. Reduce the heat to simmer and allow to cook covered for one hour.

After one hour, turn off heat and allow the pot to stand covered for about 30 minutes more while the chicken continues to cook. Strain off the liquid and reserve.

When the chicken is cool enough (you can refrigerate it at this point), remove all the meat for future use. Save the bones and discard all the rest. The bones can be returned to the stock and boiled for another hour with a new onion and more celery, if desired, to intensify the flavor. I generally cut the large bones in half before doing this.

Edited February 11, 2005 by LarsTheo (log)

[sladeums]

In regards to the achiote paste mentioned in the ingredients, are you talking an actual prepared paste (recado) - which I equate with a store/market-bought or homemade paste including ground annato and other flavorings or just simply ground annato?

I would guess my confusion comes with the manner in which the ingredient is listed:

2 tbsp achiote paste (ground annato seeds)

Which I understand as two separate things.

Also for the soup base - you're talking Knorr/Maggi, right?

Not nitpicking at all - just wanting to be clear.

The recipe sounds quite good...

In case you have not been welcomed, then: "WELCOME!".

We definitely can use some more Mex-centric posters like yourself.

[LarsTheo]

Actually, I use the prepared Achiote paste, which does have ingredients other than annato seeds. I buy "La Perla" brand, and it seems to be mostly annato.

As for the soup base, I generally buy the "Better than bouillon" brand or else something at the restaurant supply store. I try to avoid the dry cubes, although I do like Telma kosher cubes. Knorr makes some soup bases - I use their crab soup base.

I'm not really Mex-centric - I'm just on this kick at the moment, possibly because I'm going to Mexico City on March 5, and so I'm watching the local Spanish tv channels (we have about 5 or 6) and have been practicing on some of my Mexican-inspired recipes. I'm hoping to get some new inspiration in D.F., and I also hope to get some good photos! I used to go to Mexico every year, but that was when I lived in San Francisco, where the winters are cold and wet. Here (L.A.) the winters are pretty much identical to D.F., and so I don't notice much difference going between here and there. Also, you can get by in L.A. with only Spanish.

Thanks for the welcome!!

[sladeums]

Excellent.

That clears it up for me.

...and if you're taking pictures, dude, be sure to return with them!

I'm not gonna dig up the Diana Kennedy thread, but I noticed you'd mentioned having some cookbooks on the way, and you had expressed a yen for good pictures...if you are looking for a few solid cookbooks in this genre with better pics you might want to check out (if you haven't already) : 'Mexico The Beautiful' and 'The Mexican Gourmet'.

Also, if you are just looking for a great collection of recipes I really found Marge Poore's '1001 Mexican Recipes' top-damn-notch. A huge amount of preps to deal with, but no pics - a great cookbook, I feel, for someone at least slightly well-versed with the ins and outs of the Mexican table.

[LarsTheo]

Thanks for the cookbook recommendations - the Marge Poore book looks like one I would be interested in getting.

Here's a link to pictures from my last trip to Mexico City and Oaxaca, but unfortunately there are no food pics. I stayed at a B&B in Tlalixtoc, and so I had breakfast there every day (I was in Oaxaca for about a week). Some days I would go to Teotitlan to shop for rugs and on other days I revisited Monte Alban, and I visit Yagul for the first time. When I got there, I was the only person there, except for the guard, and so it was a bit spooky. I took digital video of the grave entrances, and when I viewed the video, there appeared to be a veil in the front of some of the graves, composed of orbs of various sizes that floated up from the ground at varying rates. Some of the graves had stronger veils than others, but I don't remember seeing this veil in person - it only showed up on the video. I generally took a torta with me to the ruins and a can or two of juice - usually mango or guanabana. I'd like to find a recipe for guanabana sorbet - I can get fresh guanabana here without a problem.

I'll definitely post new pictures when I get back and will make a point to take pictures of food!