The best chicken enchilada I have eaten came on a paper plate in a courtyard in Puebla, somewhere around ten at night in the middle of September. Someone’s uncle was setting off rockets two streets over and nobody looked up.
I was not even supposed to be at that dinner.
I had come to see Marisol, and Marisol decided that seeing her meant eating at her neighbours’ house during the fiestas. That is how the recipe I now make most often in my own kitchen arrived in my life, sideways, while I was holding a plastic cup of jamaica.
Puebla in September, and Marisol’s Street
Marisol Cabañas teaches chemistry at a secondary school in Puebla and has the patience of someone who explains the same thing forty times a day. I met her years ago, back when I still worked as a travel agent and she called me three separate times about her sister’s honeymoon layover in Mexico City.
We stayed in touch the way you do now, voice notes that go unanswered for three weeks and then get answered at length. When I finally visited during the September celebrations, she walked me four doors down to her neighbours’ place, where the courtyard had paper flags strung corner to corner and a folding table that kept getting longer.
Doña Estela, Beto’s mother, was at the stove with a blackened comal and a bowl of red sauce the colour of brick. She was frying corn tortillas one at a time in lard, five seconds a side, stacking them like laundry. I asked why she did not just put the whole thing in the oven and she laughed at me in a kind way.
What a Chicken Enchilada Actually Is
She explained, with Marisol filling in the words I missed, that the name comes from enchilar, to dress with chile. The tortilla has to be bathed in the sauce. A tortilla that is only stuffed and baked is something else entirely, and not what anyone in that courtyard would have called an enchilada.
The idea is far older than the Spanish name. In the Valley of Mexico people were already wrapping tortillas around small fish and dressing them with chile and pureed tomato long before the conquest, a dish the Mexica called chillapizzali in Nahuatl. Chicken, cream and European cheese came later, and by the time Mexico’s first cookbook was printed in 1831 enchiladas were already a fixture of homes, markets and fondas.
Which also means there are hundreds of versions, each state with its own chiles and cheeses and garnishes. Doña Estela’s were rojas, guajillo and ancho, more fruity than hot. Pickled jalapenos sat on the table so anybody who wanted fire could go find it themselves.
Two things she said that night have stuck with me. Nothing yellow goes on top, and nobody assembles these in advance.
What I Used
- Bone-in chicken thighs, poached with half a white onion and a couple of garlic cloves
- Six dried guajillo chiles and two anchos, stemmed and seeded
- Two ripe tomatoes, roasted on the comal until blistered and black in spots
- Garlic, ground cumin and dried Mexican oregano, crumbled between my palms
- The reserved poaching broth, about a cup and a half
- Lard, for frying the sauce and the tortillas
- Twelve small corn tortillas, as fresh as I can find them
- Crema mexicana
- Queso fresco, crumbled
- A small white onion, sliced into rings, and a handful of cilantro leaves
Making Chicken Enchiladas in My Own Kitchen
I buy the chiles at a Mexican grocery two blocks from my apartment, where they come in paper sacks and the guajillos still bend instead of snapping. Brittle chiles are old chiles. If they crack like a crisp when you fold one, leave them.
The poaching is the quiet part. Chicken, onion, garlic and salt in my big saucepan, barely simmering for half an hour, and after ten minutes the whole place smells like somebody’s grandmother is coming over. I skim the foam because I like a clean broth, and then I shred the meat by hand into thick strands rather than fine threads, which hold the sauce better.
Then the comal, which in my case is the cast iron skillet I have had longer than my current passport. Five to ten seconds per side, pressing the opened chiles flat, and they go from leathery to fragrant and smell faintly of raisins and tobacco. The first time I made this I let a guajillo sit a few seconds too long, saw a wisp of smoke, shrugged, and ended up with a sauce so bitter I poured the whole batch down the sink. Do not shrug.
Soak, blend for a full two minutes, then push it all through a fine mesh strainer. The skins left behind look like nothing and matter enormously.
The best smell in the whole process is frying the strained sauce in hot lard. It spatters, it darkens, it thickens, and at some point around minute eight the raw chile smell just leaves the room and something rounder takes its place. I had the cumbia playlist Marisol sent me going the first time I got this right, loud, windows open, late afternoon light on the wooden table.
Then the tortillas, one at a time, five seconds a side, just soft and flexible and never crisp. I almost skipped this step once to save time. Do not skip it, because that thin barrier of fat is the only thing standing between you and a platter of red mush. I always use lard here. Except when I am out of lard, which happens more than I would like to admit, and then neutral oil does the job without complaint.
Variations, and What I Leave Alone
Swap the guajillo and ancho for tomatillos and you are making verdes. Stir cream into the sauce and you are heading toward suizas. Queso Oaxaca instead of queso fresco if you want the pull rather than the salt.
I almost added a chipotle the second time for heat. Actually no, the guajillos carry enough on their own and I would rather keep extra salsa and pickled jalapenos on the table so everyone sorts themselves out.
If you want the cheese melted, fifteen minutes in a 350 F oven and not a minute longer. The rice goes on the plate beside them, with refried beans and sliced avocado, never inside the roll. And these go to the table immediately, because an enchilada left to sit becomes a casserole, and a casserole is a different dish with a different name.
Marisol still sends voice notes. Last month it was forty seconds of her complaining about exam marking and then, at the end, asking whether I had got the sauce right yet.
I told her I had, mostly. The part I cannot recreate is the rockets going off two streets over.
Chicken Enchilada
Ingredients
Equipment
Method
- Put the chicken in a saucepan with the half onion, 2 whole garlic cloves and 2 teaspoons salt. Cover with 6 cups cold water, bring to a bare simmer and cook uncovered 25 to 30 minutes, until the meat pulls easily from the bone. Skim any foam as it rises.
- Lift the chicken out and let it cool enough to handle. Strain the broth and reserve 1.5 cups for the sauce. Pull the meat off the bones and shred it by hand into thick strands, not fine threads. Season with a pinch of salt and keep warm.
- Heat a dry comal or cast iron skillet over medium. Press the opened guajillo and ancho chiles flat against the hot surface for 5 to 10 seconds per side, just until they smell toasty and turn fragrant. Do not let them smoke or darken, or the sauce will be bitter.
- Transfer the toasted chiles to a bowl, cover with hot water and soak 15 minutes until fully pliable. Meanwhile, roast the tomatoes on the same comal, turning, until blistered and blackened in spots, about 8 minutes.
- Drain the chiles and put them in the blender with the roasted tomatoes, remaining 2 garlic cloves, cumin, oregano, 1 teaspoon salt and 1 cup of the reserved broth. Blend 2 full minutes until completely smooth, then pass through a fine mesh strainer, pushing with a spoon and discarding the skins left behind.
- Heat 2 tablespoons of the lard in a skillet over medium-high until it shimmers. Pour in the strained sauce all at once, standing back as it spatters. Fry 8 to 10 minutes, stirring often, until it darkens, thickens and the raw chile smell is gone. Loosen with the remaining broth to the consistency of heavy cream and taste for salt. Pour into a wide shallow bowl and keep warm.
- Wipe the skillet and heat the remaining lard over medium-high. Slide in one tortilla at a time and fry 5 to 8 seconds per side, just until soft and flexible but not crisp. Drain on paper towels and stack them. This fat barrier is what keeps the tortillas from falling apart.
- Working one at a time, dip a tortilla fully through the warm sauce, lay it on a plate, put a generous line of shredded chicken down the center and roll it up. Place seam side down on the serving platter. Repeat with all 12 tortillas, snugging them against each other.
- Ladle the remaining warm sauce over the rolled enchiladas and scatter the queso fresco on top. If you want the cheese melted, slide the dish into a 350 F oven for 15 minutes, no longer.
- Finish with drizzled crema, rings of raw white onion and chopped cilantro. Bring to the table at once and eat while the tortillas still have structure.