Hatch green chile chicken enchiladas

Being that it’s hatch green chile season I thought I’d try to make enchiladas with a hatch green chile sauce. This is not a meal to make in a hurry.  It wasn’t that difficult and there wasn’t that much going on, but there was enough to do and enough mess being made that I have to take my time or I get rushed and screw things up.  I was not quite as pleased with the enchilada sauce as I was anticipating, but it wasn’t bad at all.  The next day it was actually quite a bit better so it may not be a bad idea to make the sauce the night before and let it sit.

1 ½ lb chicken breast

1 tbs cumin, ground

½ tsp salt

olive oil

16 hatch green chiles

1 small yellow onion, diced

1 roma tomato, diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

8 oz sour cream (fat free)

3 oz Manchego cheese, grated

12-16 corn tortillas

Lay the chiles out on a roasting pan and broil until the skin is blackened and bubbling away from the chiles.  Turn the chiles so that they are roasted all the way around.  Remove the chiles to a plastic or paper bag and allow them to steam for 20 minutes.   Open the bag or remove the chiles from the bag until they are cool enough to handle.  Peel off all of the skin, cut off the stem, seed and dice the chiles.

In a large skillet heat 1 turn of olive oil to medium heat.  Season the chicken breasts with cumin and salt and cook them in the skillet.  Once fully cooked remove the chicken and set aside to rest, at least 5 minutes.  The chicken will go into the oven eventually so err on the side of undercooked rather than fully cooked and dried out.  Cook the onion and the garlic in the chicken drippings until tender, not browned.  Add the diced chiles and tomato to the onion and stir.  Season the mixture with salt.  Transfer the salsa to a bowl and add the sour cream. 

Preheat the oven to 350.

To prepare the enchiladas, first slice the chicken thinly.  Warm the tortillas in the microwave for ~15 seconds so they are pliable.  Place a small handful of chicken in the center of a tortilla then a scoop of sauce alongside the chicken.  Roll the tortilla and set in a large baking dish with the seam on the side up against the wall of the dish.  Repeat with the remaining tortillas until all of the chicken and sauce is used up, laying each rolled tortilla sideways with the seam up against the last one in the dish.  Sprinkle the cheese on top of the enchiladas and bake until the cheese is melted and the chicken is reheated, about 10 minutes.  If you don’t put the enchiladas in the oven fairly quickly the tortillas will dry out and crack, no longer looking like pretty little rolls.   

This made 14 enchiladas for me and I had to use 1 large pan and 1 small pan. Serves 7, 417 calories, 16 g fat.

Machego is a Spanish sheep’s milk cheese and has a very distinct taste, kind of sweet and buttery, not real overpowering.  If you can’t find the cheese or are nervous about trying it you can always use Monterey Jack instead.

I was planning on making Spanish rice with this, but we may or may not have eaten a substantial amount of chips and salsa before dinner and decided to skip the rice and basically only ate the enchiladas because they were ready. Sad, I know.  But I do highly recommend the hatch chile salsa roja (or something like that, it's the red hatch green chile salsa) from HEB.  It is very good; I just wish I could figure out a way to eat it without having to eat so many chips.  I have considered a spoon but I just can’t bring myself to do that.