EatMx: Real Mexican food, at home and on the road

How to Make Enchiladas Suizas

Creamy, cheesy enchiladas suizas (Swiss enchiladas) are one of Mexico's great culinary contributions.

I knew they would be as good as they get in the hands of Marco Zapien, chef/owner of Zapien's Salsa Grill and Taquería in Pico Rivera (at the top).

Zapien's chile verde is one of the best--I wrote about it for The Los Angeles Times. (Click here to see that story.) His classic mole is superb too, as is anything else I have eaten at the Salsa Grill. 

The other day, Zapien left the restaurant to cook at Melissa's Produce in Vernon. His assignment was to show how to make enchiladas suizas, not with the usual corn tortillas but with specialty tortillas from La Tortilla Factory in Santa Rosa.

One tortilla blended wheat and corn, another was flavored with chipotle chile. The third was a flour tortilla, not what you usually use for enchiladas.

Making the enchilada sauce starts with cooking tomatillos, green chiles and other vegetables in chicken broth. Next, Zapien purees the mixture in a blender.

Then he returns the sauce to the pot and adds heavy cream and sour cream--the dairy products are what make the sauce "Swiss."

To assemble the enchiladas, Zapien covers the bottom of a baking dish with sauce.


Next, he rolls cooked chicken in each tortilla.

He lines these up in the baking dish and tops them with more sauce. 

And with shredded Cheddar cheese.

Then the dish goes into the oven until the cheese is melted and the enchiladas are hot, bubbly and irresistibly good.

Here is the recipe.  

MARCO ZAPIEN'S ENCHILADAS SUIZAS

1/2 pound tomatillos
1 clove garlic, chopped
1/2 yellow onion, diced
1/2 green bell pepper, diced
3 Hatch chiles, roasted, peeled and diced
1/2 bunch cilantro, coarsely chopped
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 1/2 cups chicken broth
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 cup sour cream
Salt, pepper
1 cup salad oil
18 tortillas
2 pounds chicken breast, grilled and diced
2 cups shredded Jack cheese

Remove the husks from the tomatillos. Prepare the garlic, onion, bell pepper, chiles and cilantro.

Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan. Add the tomatillos, garlic, onion, bell pepper, cilantro, chiles and chicken broth and cook until the vegetables are tender. 

Cool slightly, then puree in a blender. Return the pureed sauce to the saucepan and bring to a simmer. Add the cream and reduce for 5 minutes. Stir in the sour cream. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

There will be about 4 cups sauce. Keep warm while filling the enchiladas.

Heat the salad oil in a skillet. One at a time, fry the tortillas in the oil just until softened. Drain on paper towels.  Fill each with diced chicken and roll.

Place a layer of sauce in a baking dish. Place the enchiladas in a single layer in the dish. Cover with sauce and top with cheese. Use 2 baking dishes if necessary to hold all the enchiladas.

Bake at 350 degrees 10 minutes, or until the cheese is melted and the sauce is bubbly and heated through. Serve at once.

Makes 18 enchiladas. 

Note: If Hatch chiles are unavailable, substitute Anaheim chiles. 

Please Vote for My Taco Meat

Making great taco meat is so simple. It takes only 20 minutes to cook juicy, delicious beef that would draw a line at any taco stand. Dinner ready that fast? Sure. Just provide salsa and other condiments at the table. 

The secret is to start with a good base, like Del Real's Seasoned Shredded Beef. This is the product I worked with in order to enter the Del Real Foods blogger recipe challenge.

I would love to win, so please click here to vote for my Super Easy Taco Meat: http://ow.ly/zWNEO  #RealFlavor @delrealfoods. If you want to really help, vote once a day through Sept. 5.

You can get the Del Real beef in supermarkets. At first I thought it was pricey, only to find it was a good buy. When I stewed slightly more than a pound of raw beef, which took about 2 hours, I wound up with only 10 ounces of meat. Almost 7 ounces had cooked way. This made it more costly than the deceptively reasonable price, not to mention the time and effort required to prepare it.  

The Del Real beef, on the other hand, is 16 ounces of pure meat, no fat, gristle or waste of any kind. And it's fully cooked, which saves a Iot of time. The seasonings are so light that you can add any flavorings you like, which makes it very versatile.

Here's another look at my taco meat (above). The idea came from Zacatecas via a friend, Daniel Mejia. That makes it totally, traditionally Mexican, as good taco meat should be. 

SUPER EASY TACO MEAT

3 slices bacon, cut in half lengthwise and then crosswise in ½-inch slices
1 medium onion, peeled, quartered and thinly sliced
1 large garlic clove, minced
½ teaspoon cumin seeds
1 pound roma tomatoes (about 4), chopped
1 (16-ounce) package Del Real Seasoned Shredded Beef
Salt, optional
Freshly ground black pepper
16 warm corn tortillas
4 limes, quartered
Del Real Green or Red Salsa
8 or more cilantro sprigs

In a large heavy skillet, cook the bacon until lightly browned. Do not drain.

Add the onion, garlic and cumin seeds and cook until the onion is softened, about 5 minutes. Add the tomatoes and cook 5 minutes.

Add the Del Real Seasoned Shredded Beef and separate the shreds, then mix evenly with the ingredients in the skillet. Simmer 10 minutes, or until hot throughout. Taste and season with salt if needed and a generous dash of freshly ground pepper.

For each taco, place a spoonful of the meat mixture on a warm corn tortilla. Squeeze on a few drops of lime juice. Add Del Real salsa to taste and a cilantro sprig. Fold and eat.

Makes 8 servings. 

Chilaquiles--A Recipe from Zihuatanejo

I loved the chilaquiles that came on breakfast plates at La Quinta Troppo, where I stayed in Zihuatanejo.

The flavors were so fresh, blending the earthy corn taste of fried tortillas with tomatoes that had just been cut up and cooked along with green chile, onion, garlic and a sprig of epazote.

A handy way to use up leftover, dried out tortillas? True, chilaquiles serve this function. But in the hands of a good cook, the dish is so enticing that you would go out and buy tortillas just to make it.

This is what I wanted to do, but first I needed the recipe. And that is how I met María Olga Islas Sánchez (above), who cooks the breakfasts at La Quinta Troppo.

To make sure I understood the procedure, Olga invited me into her kitchen, where I learned that she fries the tortillas herself rather than using readymade chips.

The sauce is easy. Olga whirls the ingredients in a blender, then fries the mixture in a little oil, adding the epazote sprig. Then she puts in the tortillas, pressing them gently into the sauce with the back of a spoon. 

To keep the chilaquiles warm for serving, she places the pan in a skillet of hot water, a trick you can do at home if you need to work in advance. 

The last step is to turn the chilaquiles out onto a plate and add crema and crumbly cheese.  Instead of the usual cilantro, Olga decorates the plate with chopped parsley.

You can eat chilaquiles as a main dish, with a salad. Even better, have them for breakfast with Mexican style eggs, like the huevos revueltos a la Mexicana at La Quinta Troppo (above).

OLGA'S CHILAQUILES
From La Quinta Troppo, Zihuatanejo

6 corn tortillas
Oil 
3/4 pound roma tomatoes, cored and quartered
1/4 medium onion, coarsely chopped 
1 clove garlic
1 small serrano chile, stemmed and seeded
Salt
1 sprig epazote
Mexican crema
Crumbled cotija cheese
Chopped Italian parsley

Set the tortillas out to dry overnight. The next day, cut each into 6 to 8 wedges.  Heat oil for deep frying in a saucepan or skillet.  Add the tortilla wedges a few at a time and fry until lightly browned and crisp. Drain on paper towels.  

When ready to prepare the chilaquiles, combine the tomatoes, onion, garlic and the chile in a food processor or blender. Process until finely chopped.

Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a large saucepan. Add the sauce, bring to a boil and simmer 5 minutes. Season to taste with salt and add the epazote sprig.

Lower the heat. Add the fried tortilla wedges and press down into the sauce with the back of a spoon. Continue pressing until the tortillas are moistened with the sauce.

Turn the chilaquiles out onto a platter, or spoon out individual servings. Top with crema, then with cheese and sprinkle the plate with parsley.

Makes 2 main dish servings or about 4 side dish servings.