Jan: It's Cinco de Mayo. I'm about to skip the whole video thing and go straight for
the tequila, because nothing I've touched today has turned out right. This is actually
my third attempt at this. I'm attempting to make chicken enchiladas, only because this
is so super-easy, really simple, and extra-loaded with butterfat. [inaudible: 00:30] Deep breath.
In my skillet, over medium-high heat, I have a couple of cloves of garlic; actually, I
have about 4 cloves are garlic that are all minced up. I have one of those little cans
of chilies, and you can get however much hot you want. I have 1 jalapeno pepper that I
took the seeds and the membrane out, and I minced up. If you like it hotter . . . and
this is going to be the creamy version of an enchilada. The cream, the cheesy, and the
[inaudible: 00:59] cheese and all the other stuff, it's going to cut the heat like crazy.
If you want yours spicier, you can use pepper jack cheese instead of the Monterey Jack that
I have. You can use Serrano peppers, you can add more jalapenos; you can do all kinds of
stuff. I have a couple kids that pitch fits if I get it too spicy. Was that you on camera?
Male: Yes. I'm also the one that complained about it being spicy.
Jan: Can you at least say 'excuse me'?
Male: I'm sorry, guys. Excuse me.
Jan: I have 8 ounces of cream cheese. I happen to buy cream cheese . . . put that Hershey
bar back young lady. I buy cream cheese in giant blocks at the warehouse store, so mine
looks a little odd. You would simply buy one of the regular, human-size versions. It looks
a bit odd as well, because I've let it sit out to come to room temperature because we
want it to melt and get silky in our sauce. 8 ounces of cream cheese.
When you're doing this, this is the not-fun part and I'll probably just cut the camera;
you just smush it. One final thing I'm going to do real quick and then I'm going to let
it all simmer together and get silky: We're going to add about 4 cups of chicken to this.
Earlier, I poached off some boneless, skinless chicken thighs. I've got the strained poaching
liquid from that. You can use chicken broth; you can use the poaching liquid. I don't use
water, it would be yucky.
Male: What's the difference between poaching and . . .
Jan: Chicken broth?
Male: Yeah.
Jan: Not a whole lot, really. Except in this case, I simply add a little salt, little pepper,
and chicken. Normally if you're making broth, you also add carrot, onion, celery, peppercorns
and some other stuff. This is going to give us the chickeny flavor, and it's going to
make our sauce nice and loose. [inaudible: 02:49] We only want about ½ cup.
Female: [inaudible: 02:53]
Jan: I'm going to smack around on my kids. I am going to let my cream cheese melt. I'm
going to let all of this come together in one nice silky package. I'll show you what
it looks like next.
Male: And help me finish my paper on Odysseus.
Jan: Your paper on Odysseus, right.
Here we go. Everything's all melted together. [inaudible: 03:16] It's not beautiful, but
that's exactly what you want it to look like. I've turned the heat off because we're going
to add about a . . . throw it all over the place. I think when I wrote the recipe, I
did it for 2 cups. I'm pretty sure I've got twice that amount of cheese. I cannot tell
you how many possible things I've screwed up.
This is Monterey Jack. Like I said, you can use pepper jack if you like to. I actually
used a Mexican blend; they sell those in the stores, it's pre-shredded. I don't buy those
very often, but this time it was on sale.
I have about 4 cups of chicken. If you got leftover chicken, leftover turkey, or leftover
pulled pork, that's really good, you go ahead and use that. In this case, I have about 6
boneless, skinless chicken thighs. You can also do a chicken breast, but you're going
to pay a lot more money, unless you pull it off the . . . pull the skin off and bone it
yourself. This just simply gets stirred together. Oh yeah, nice and stringy. Love it. Give me
just a second and I'm going to show you how to start rolling your tortillas up. Then we're
just going to slather the whole thing with cream, because we can.
Normally, you want to use a 9x13 dish. Of course, this happens to be the week when I
took all 4 of my 9x13 dishes to work, and that's apparently where I left them. We have
a little dish, but that's okay because I'm going to show you the trick. Take your tortillas.
I've found the wheat tortillas. The spinach tortillas, which really have about that much
spinach, so you're not really going to get them for the health reasons, but they're pretty.
They also taste good, so you might want to think about this. I'm just taking my tortilla
stack and I'm cutting one end off. That's because I'm going to saute these up. Put a
little oil and I'm going to make little tortilla crispies to go on something, because I can.
I think that's my mantra tonight. I'm going to show you how to do the first one. Then
I'll roll up the second and show you the next step.
You just want a nice, big, fat spoonful . . . drippy cheese, right down the middle. Can you see
that? Right down the middle. Don't worry. I was having an argument with my nephew about
it. These are not the kind of thing that you're going to roll up and then pick up. This is
a casserole and you're going to simply transfer them just like that. You could do the whole
tuck-the-end-under, which is what happens with a burrito, so that you can pick it up
and eat it that way. That's really good. Anyway, but you don't have to do the tuck-and-roll
thing; it doesn't make any sense with this one. I'm going to get these rolled up and
all laid out for you, and I'll show you the next step.
I cannot believe this came out as easy as it did. Maybe my luck is changing. Because
I have a smaller casserole dish; this is 8½x11 over here; I'm having to squish and make do
with my little baby. I use that back when I was a married person and there was just
two of us. I'm just going to shut up.
The rest of your cheese . . . actually no, I'm not going to do that. I take the cream;
you can use evaporated milk if you want to. You're not going to use absolute tons. You're
going to use maybe . . . in a 9x13 dish, you actually only use about ½ cup. You want maybe
½ cup to 2/3 with these two dishes. You're just giving something that's going to help
form the sauce. You're going to cover these in cheese and they're going to go in a 350°
oven. You know the drill. We'll be back.
We've had half an hour at 350°. The last couple of minutes, all I did was I moved these
guys up to the top rack and I turned on the broiler. The casserole itself was already
bubbling all the way through. I just want to give it that final hint of golden brown
across the top. Those are perfect. That's my dishwasher. Hang on. That's loud
and stupid. I swear [inaudible: 08:07]
I'm going to show y'all what these look like. In an ideal world which we don't live in,
we'd let these rest for just a few minutes. It helps everything go . . . and stick together,
and what have you. I know from experience that because I have hungry children stalking
me, if I don't get these out of here . . . I'll show you what they look like. Wow. Cheesy.
That was just fun. Back here, just a bit of cilantro, which I didn't put in the recipe,
but knock yourself out. It's one of the iconic flavors of Latin American cuisines. I feel
like it's okay [inaudible: 09:03].
Because I love you and I can't experiment on you . . . see what we did. Oh, yeah. Run
it under the broiler for just a minute or two; it gives a nice little crunch to the
edges of your tortillas, which is a great contrast with the little creamy thing. I'm
going to burn my mouth; it's like eating that bite of pizza. That's worth a burning mouth
for.
Creamy chicken enchiladas. Try this. You saw how easy it is. You'll like me . . . you'll
love me for it.