hello this is chef john from food wishes comm with easy chicken enchiladas that's
right we are stacking instead of rolling since i thought that would make these
chicken enchiladas a little quicker and easy but as it turns out it really does
and they basically took exactly the same amount of time and by saying I actually
mean probably a little longer but forget all that the real purpose of this video
is to show you how simple it is to make your own homemade enchilada sauce which
is going to be significantly more delicious and anything you're gonna find
at the store and to get started with that what we're gonna do is melt some
butter in some olive oil over medium heat and by the way if you want to use
one or the other go ahead but I like to use both and once that's melted we'll go
ahead and toss in some roughly diced onion along with a generous pinch of
salt and we will cook that for about four or five minutes or until our
smallest pieces of onions just start to turn golden brown and basically we're
shooting for something that looks like this and then what we'll do as soon as
that happens is make a roux but not just any roux a spiced roux which means we're
gonna toss in some flour as usual but then we're also gonna add some chili
powder in my case ancho as well as some ground cumin which in my opinion is one
of the most underrated spices in the world but anyway we will continue on
with some chipotle as well as some freshly ground black pepper plus a nice
big pinch of dry oregano and then of course a few shakes of cayenne never
hurts and then finally last but not least a technically optional but for me
critically important very small pinch of cinnamon all right if you're scared
don't put it but I really do think it does wonderful things here and also
never cook scared okay it's a proven fact that food can sense fear but either
way we're gonna stir our flour and spices into our butter and onion mixture
and we'll go ahead and cook that for about three or four minutes to not only
take that raw starchy edge off the flour but also to kind of toast and wake up
our spices and then what we'll do once we think our roux is cook long enough
let's go ahead and toss in some finely minced garlic as well as a few
tablespoons of tomato paste and we'll go ahead and stir that in and fair warning
it is definitely gonna clump up but nothing to be concerned about
all right just go ahead and stir it in sort of smearing and pressing it against
the bottom of the pan the best she can and while it would be a little easier to
have the tomato paste to the chicken stock we're about to add I really do
think it improves the flavor and maybe even the color if we cook the tomato
paste first with the garlic at this point okay it just seems to bring out
more of that savory flavor so we will go ahead and cook that for a few minutes
ignoring the appearance the whole time at which point we can stop switch to a
whisk and go ahead and stir in a couple cups of cold chicken broth or stock and
by the way to avoid lumps it's very important that this stuff is cold okay
as you may have heard me say before how true Kolak wood no lumps and that could
not be more true and then besides whisking in our chicken broth we also
want to crank our heat up to high because we want to bring this up to a
simmer so that's exactly what I did and then what we'll do once our mixture does
start to bubble is back our heat down to medium-low and we will let this mixture
simmer stirring occasionally for just 10 minutes okay you can go longer if you
want but I'd say 10 minutes is the minimum and believe it or not that's it
I'm gonna go ahead and give mine one more stir before of course giving it the
mandatory taste and I decided to toss in one more pinch of salt but I should
mention some people like to put in a little splash of vinegar or even a
squeeze of half a lime just to add a little extra tang enos to the finish so
if that sounds like something you'd like to do go ahead
I mean you are after all the boss of your sauce but personally I was thrilled
with how mine tasted including its acidity so I didn't add anything else
and that's it once we've adjusted our seasoning we are officially done
although I do like to do one optional step which is blitz this for a few
minutes with my immersion blender and what that's going to do mostly is puree
and all those onions which is going to make the sauce smoother and also a
little bit sweeter although the trade-off is it does
lighten the color a little bit which really doesn't bother me and a lot of
that is from air bubbles it will dissipate and this will actually get
darker and deeper as it sits so like I said up to you but I do like to blend
this at which point the essential auto sauce is now ready to use so we will go
ahead and set that aside and move on to the rest of our components and of course
if we're makin entral eyes we're going
to some tortillas preferably ones made from
corn and because I was going to stack these I found some beautiful cute small
ones and one thing we're probably going to want to do first
whether we're stacking or rolling his breast is very very likely with oil and
then toast them in a hot pan for about 30 seconds per side okay we're not
trying to brown them or get them crispy we're just trying to heat them through
and make them nice and flexible and also that oil is going to insulate the
tortilla a little bit so it doesn't get too soft when we bake it with the sauce
and then besides some hot flexible tortillas we're also going to need some
cook shredded chicken and some kind of cheese in my case pepper jack as well as
some chopped green onions and cilantro and by the way do us all a favor and
taste your chicken before you do these and if it tastes bland or underseasoned
add a little bit of salt okay so check that out and then as far as assembly
goes we'll start by putting some sauce down and whatever we're gonna bake these
in then we'll place a tortilla over the top at which point we'll pile on as much
chicken and cheese as we want and then once that tortilla has been chickened
and cheesed we will top that with some cilantro and green onions and then
finish that layer with a generous drizzling of our sauce and that's it we
will place and gently press down one more tortilla and repeat the entire
process and if you can't I think it's very cool to cook these in their own
individual ramekin or pan like this but these will also totally work if you do
like four or six individual stacks in a bigger casserole dish and of course go
ahead and build these up as high as you want okay I'm only doing two layers
which is three tortillas but I'm guessing you could easily do these like
five or six layers high and if you do send me a picture but anyway I went
ahead and finish that off with my third tortilla which we will generously cover
with our sauce and then one last handful of pepper jack cheese and that's it that
is now ready to finish in the center of a 400 degree oven for about 10 to 15
minutes or until our cheese is melted and everything is heated through in our
sauce is bubbling nicely and I was so taken with how gorgeous this was that I
almost forgot one of our most important rules if we take something out of the
oven it has a handle we have to place a towel over
nobody burns themselves and then as far as garnishing this for service I'm a fan
of a nice big dollop of sour cream as well as a nice big spoon of guacamole
which I kind of tried to food style a little bit but unfortunately I don't
know how but one thing I do know how to do is distract people with a shake of
cayenne as well as a sprig of cilantro and that's it my easy unrolled chicken
enchiladas were done so I got rid of the towel so I could take a few pictures and
then as soon as I could went in for a taste and I'm not gonna lie I've had and
enjoyed and shalad is made with a store-bought sauce but this homemade
stuff even though it's a very quick and simple recipe really is significantly
better tasting oh and I should mention a few years ago I was served chicken
enchiladas with a spoon and I really enjoyed the experience and I decided
from then on I was gonna use a spoon eat enchiladas with which up until this
point worked very well but for some reason mostly thanks to a long crooked
piece of chicken and I guess the shape of the pan I could not successfully get
this bite on the spoon and in fairness I should be eating where the tripod is and
I do find the reach-around a little bit challenging so I went ahead and switched
to a fork because of course with a fork nothing can go wrong
whoops well that was unfortunate whoops I just dropped it again but anyway clean
things up and really focused and eventually got the hang of it and the
point I really should be making is that whether you use a fork or a spoon or a
spork or whether these are rolled or stacked is that making your own homemade
enchilada sauce from scratch is really easy relatively quick and will produce
some extraordinarily delicious chicken and cheese enchiladas and yes of course
feel free to use shredded beef or pork instead but no matter what you use I
really do hope you give these a try soon so head over to food wishes dot-com for
all the ingredient amounts of more info as usual and is all we
enjoy
you