"Enchiladas" tultecas: not your abuela's enchiladas

Unless you come from Tamaulipas in the Fifties, you have probably never heard of this dish. It ain't what you normally get when you order enchiladas.

I could be missing something, but I think the name means "Toltec 'enchiladas'" (the inverted commas are necessary), though I'm sure I don't know why. Did the Toltecs really eat this?

Considering these are a kind of quesadilla, I'd have to guess "no". Cheese is a Spanish introduction and not found in prehispanic Mexican cuisine.

Even the Diana Kennedy recipe I took inspiration from, which is light on the cheese, includes Spanish-derived things like chorizo.

On the other hand, it's entirely possible some indigenous Mesoamericans worked chile paste into their tortillas, so who knows?

But enough teasing; let's talk about what these things are.

"Enchiladas" tultecas, as I have made them, are essentially a kind of quesadilla made from chile-infused tortilla dough.

A traditional enchilada is a corn tortilla dipped in chile sauce, fried, and stuffed with a delicious filling.

(Outside Mexico, an enchilada is usually a filled tortilla - corn or flour - covered in chile sauce and then baked in the oven.)

A quesadilla, as most of us know it, is a tortilla filled with cheese (and hopefully something else too), folded over and grilled on a comal or griddle.

But there is another way to make quesadillas. You make some corn tortillas, but before you cook them you fill them with cheese and fold them over. Then you can asar-roast them on the comal or fry them.

I have always wanted to try this, and "enchiladas" tultecas seemed like the perfect opportunity.

The first step is to make the "enchillied" tortilla dough.

Unfortunately, Kennedy is one of these masa purists who don't believe in using masa harina. So she just calls for some masa (that you presumably either ground yourself or bought from your local tortilla factory) "as dry as possible".

The fact that I got mine to work is down to an accident: my kitchen scales just broke. So when I tried measure out my usual 250 g of masa harina, I got somewhat more than that.

I remember thinking "That looks like quite a bit of masa harina. Oh well."

So when I added the 300 ml of hot water, the mixture never quite became a dough. It was just too dry.

Ordinarily I'd be fucked, but in this case it was a stroke of luck, because I had a rather wet chile paste to work into this dough.

Because my scales were broken I don't really know how much masa harina went in. To recreate this I would suggest adding 300 g of masa harina to 300 ml of hot water, then keep adding masa harina a tablespoon at a time until you can no longer incorporate it into the dough.

The chile paste is made from two dried ancho chiles. Anchos are dried chiles poblanos and a staple of Mexican cooking. They look like this:

I get my anchos from The Cool Chile Company

This is them, out of the bag.

If I had peso for every Mexican recipe I've read that calls for ancho chiles, I'd quit my job and open a restaurant. If you have only one kind of dried chile in your store cupboard, it should be chiles anchos.

They are also the main ingredient in enchilada sauce, so they are the classic flavour of enchiladas.

My recipe called for two chiles to be worked into the tortilla dough, plus I used one for the filling.

Ancho chile paste

Take the stems off two ancho chiles, then tear the chiles into flat pieces.

Put the chile pieces on a hot, dry frying pan and toast them for a few seconds on each side. As these are wrinkly-skinned chiles, you'll have to press down with your spatula.

After a few seconds they should release their aroma and you'll see the skin start to blister. The red colour of the flesh will be more apparent then before toasting.

(Some books call this a "tobacco colour" but I don't smoke. It looks pretty red to me.)

Once all the chiles are toasted, put them in a bowl, cover with just-boiled water, weigh them down with a plate, and let them soak for about ten minutes.

Remove the chiles with tongs and blend to a paste, adding a bit of the soaking water as necessary to keep the blades from sticking. I use a hand blender because two chiles doesn't make a lot of paste and you don't want it trapped in the bottom of your blender jar.

Now work this paste into your very dry tortilla dough. It magically becomes the consistency of normal tortilla dough.

Keep the chile soaking water handy (never pour it down the drain!), and if your masa is still too dry, add the water a spoonful at a time until it's right.

This is normal tortilla dough from masa harina:

And this is my "enchillied" tortilla dough:

Now you need a filling.

Kennedy's filling was quite complicated, calling for chorizo, chayote, and potatoes and chicken (both precooked), but I decided to simplify.

I crumbled some feta (as a substitute for queso fresco) and mixed in some Mexican oregano, olive oil, and the remaining ancho chile.

I tried to dice the chile, but it was so soft it turned into so paste anyway.

Ancho chile cheese

• 125 g feta cheese (or use ricotta, cottage cheese, or even mozzarella)
• 1 chile ancho
• 1 tsp dried Mexican oregano
• 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

Prepare the chile as for a normal chile paste.

Crumble the cheese into a mixing bowl.

Add the olive oil, oregano, and chile paste, and mix until fully combined. Use your hands!

Refrigerate until needed.

To finish the "enchiladas", begin the same way you would as if making tortillas, but before you cook the tortilla, put a dessert spoon of your filling on one half of it, fold it over, and press down to seal, sort of like an empanada:

Then you can cook them on a hot dry pan (asar-roasting on a comal) or shallow-fry them.

I tried both; I found the shape of the "enchiladas" made it hard to cook the tortillas through with just a dry pan.

As the "enchiladas" are dry, I served them with a bit of homemade guacamole.

It was blender guacamole, not molcajete guacamole, meaning I blitzed it to a smooth texture instead of mashing it to a traditional chunky texture.

Hey, I was in a hurry. It still tasted great.

We had a side salad too.

And about the enchiladas themselves...

The chile-infused tortillas: delicious.

The ancho-chile cheese filling. Also delicious. However a bit much all together. I think it would work better as a filling for a normal quesadilla.

Other observations: although everything tasted great, I'm not sure it was actually better than the easy way of making quesadillas, which is to take a ready-made tortilla, fill it with cheese and things, and grill it.

Similarly, I'm not sure this was an improvement on traditional enchiladas. In fact, I kind of missed the sauce (even with the guacamole, it was a pretty dry dish).

Still, I'm glad I made it. Now I know I don't need to feel guilty about quick-and-easy quesadillas, plus it was a successful first try at making flavoured tortillas.

I still don't get the "toltec" thing though.

Breakfast with MexiGeek: Quesadilla enchilada

I had some leftover "en-chillied" tortillas: tortillas which had ancho-chile paste worked into the dough.

I decided to make a quick quesadilla.

First I spread some chipotle paste over one tortilla.

Then I added the cheese. Ideally it would be queso fresco, something crumbly like feta, or maybe ricotta, but all I had left was white cheddar.

I topped it with some surprisingly good pickled red jalapenos.

Then I put another tortilla over it (instead of folding the tortilla over, which is the usual method).

I fried the quesadilla in butter, just to make it more healthy.

Typically you would fry your quesadilla in pork lard, but any oil would do. A flavourless one like sunflower or rapeseed works perfectly.

The chipotle and jalapenos really "made" this dish in terms of the filling. Both brought a beautiful mix of chile heat and sweetness to contrast the saltiness of the cheese.

But I also love these "en-chillied" tortillas. Ancho is the classic flavour of enchiladas, and it's running all through the tortilla dough.

Quite a faff to make, but so delicious!

(Traditional enchiladas are much easier.)

Enmoladas

First, a couple of hard truths.
1) My own mother does not read my blog. Thanks, mom. Though I guess we're even, because I don't follow her Native American spiritual updates.
2) I hate my mother's enchiladas. Since she doesn't read this blog, I can write that without hurting her feelings.
I love all my mother's food, bar three things: her enchiladas, her bolognese sauce, and her lasagne (which is made out of her leftover bolognese).
By the way, if you know my mom, please don't tell her this. If I get a teary phone call from her, I swear I will hunt you down and kill you.
Now, the thing about my mom's enchiladas are: they are usually enchiladas suizas (Swiss enchiladas, though there is nothing swiss about them), also called enchiladas verdes (green enchiladas). I don't like her green chile sauce and I didn't like spring onions back in the day. I like spring onions now, so maybe I should give them another try.
Mom would also make red enchiladas sometimes. I didn't like these either. Again, I didn't care for her sauce (which wasn't very spicy, despite the fact that enchilada means "infused with chiles"). Also, she always adds black olives, which are not native to Mexico and don't really belong in the dish.
However, this never stopped me ordering enchiladas at Mexican restaurants in the Southern California of my youth.
So it was a revelation to me when I read in Rick Bayless's book that enchiladas are not:
baked - in Mexico you dip the corn tortilla into the sauce and then quickly fry it
a sit-down meal - like most everything made with corn masa, real Mexican enchiladas are a snack food or antojito
even that popular in Mexico - although, in a bizarre example of back-migration, enchiladas suizas are catching on, tacos, tamales, etc are the mainstays.
However, the biggest revelation for me was that enchiladas have what Bayless calls parentes: relatives. Out seems you can dip tortillas in any sauce, not just the common red or green sauces.
In addition to enchiladas (dipped in chile sauce), there are also enfrijoladas (smothered in beans), entomatadas (dipped in tomato sauce), and enmoladas (dipped in any of the seven moles).
Now, this dish has got to be the weirdest "quick and easy" meal ever, because it's only quick and easy if you have the mole on hand. Which I did, because I spent four days making it after Christmas.
If I had really wanted to be authentic, I would have made my own corn tortillas, but I really was looking for something I wouldn't still be cooking at ten o'clock at night. Making homemade tortillas is great fun, and not difficult by any means, but it takes for-fucking-ever.
So I just used some store-bought flour tortillas. (My mother always used flour tortillas as well). And I baked them, mostly because I needed the enmoladas to be out of the way while I prepared a side dish.
To start, I poached two chicken breasts in water seasoned with salt and pepper, epazote, and Mexican oregano for twenty minutes. In case you haven't poached chicken before, here is a fuller description.
Poaching chicken breasts:
1) Place chicken breasts and seasonings in a pot.
2) Cover with water and bring to the boil.
3) Reduce heat and simmer until cooked.
4) If there is time, let the chicken cool in the broth.
Once the chicken had cooled, I removed it from the broth and shredded it. I then strained the broth and kept it on hand to use for the mole.
I reheated the mole in a wide non-stick pan, adding some of the broth (a little at a time) to keep the consistency from getting to thick.
When the more was warm (not hot), I dipped the tortillas in the sauce (one at a time) and placed them in a baking dish. I filled them with the shredded chicken and some chopped spring onion (ironically, inspired by enchiladas suizas), rolled them up, covered them with foil, and baked them for twenty minutes at 170° C. I have no idea how to cook in Fahrenheit, by the way.
In the meantime, I prepared my side dish.
I got this idea from an episode of Saturday Kitchen a few years ago. I cut some courgette (zucchini) into long, thin strips like over-sized linguine.
I blanched them in boiling water, drained them, and put them in chilled water to stop them over-cooking.
I happened to have some of my coriander pesto on hand, so I heated that in a pan, added some cherry tomatoes and the courgette linguine and stir-fried it all for a bit.
By this time the enmoladas were ready to come out. Before plating up I sprinkled them with more chopped spring onion and crumbled up feta cheese.
Why feta? Because all the Mexican cookbooks I have say that feta is the nearest thing you're likely to get to Mexican queso fresco (literally "fresh cheese"), which is the most common type of cheese in Mexico.
In America, any given Mexican dish probably comes covered in yellow "American" cheese and/or white Monterey Jack.
Those of you who used to watch King of the Hill may remember Peggy berating get niece during Cinco de Mayo:
"You can't use Swiss cheese. It's not Mehican. It's American. You have to use Monterey Jack."
And she pronounced "jack" with a Spanish j: "hack".
Monterey is a real Mexican placename (meaning "mountain of the king"), but "jack" sure as hell ain't Mexican, or even Spanish, nor is any word that has the letter k. Ths letter doesn't exist in Spanish. (It wouldn't exist in English either, if it hadn't been brought to England in the 10th century by the Norse, who got it from the Goths, who got out from the Greeks.)
It's not that there is no other type of cheese in Mexico. There's even one quite similar to Jack, but it's a regional product, whereas queso fresco is pan-Mexican.
But enough about cheese and orthography. Below are some photos of my main and side dish.
I had been slightly worried ray the feta wouldn't work with the mole poblano, but the acidity actually provided a nice contrast.
The courgette linguine, however, continued to release water even after they were chilled, which eventually diluted the flavour of the coriander pesto. So I have yet to perfect that idea.
So far this blog has had over 500 pageviews but zero comments. Perhaps one of my readers might comment with some advice on keeping the courgette from washing away the seasonings in the future.