Good morning everyone. For you poor folks who can’t leave your house let this be a reminder that today is Sunday!

Goddamn, how can you even tell what day it is if you can’t leave the house?

Again, I feel fortunate to be working AT work but then again it’s scary as fuck just leaving the house.

Since this whole insanity started what about 4 weeks ago? Jesus Christ it feels like a year. Anyway since this started the only places I’ve gone are work, home and a weekly grocery store run. Yes I’m wearing gloves and fully masked when I go. It’s mandated in LA now.

This past weeks store run was pretty close to completely successful with the exception of fresh garlic – still.

Motherfuckers don’t be taking all of the garlic! Use that jar of garlic like you always have and leave the fresh stuff to the professionals!

Anyway. I was able to procure some fresh chicken, some fresh mushrooms, onion and even some tomato sauce. Since I still have a nice supply of masa harina on hand the inspiration for today’s meal was automatic.

What if we made some chicken enchiladas…from scratch?

I’m talking homemade tortillas AND homemade enchilada sauce!

Shit yes I am.

Got a bunch of photos and a bunch of recipe-ing to get to so without further ado.

Enchiladas from scratch!

First the sauce!

Enchilada sauce.

recipe inspiration from Allrecipes.com

1/4 cup of vegetable oil

1/4 cup of chile powder – that’s not a typo

2 tablespoons of flour

8 ounces of tomato sauce – that’s one of them small-ass cans

1 1/2 cups of water

1/2 teaspoon of cumin

1/4 teaspoon of garlic powder

1/4 teaspoon of onion powder

1/4 teaspoon of cayenne

Salt to taste.

In picture form:

This shit is so damn easy to make I’m kind of pissed at myself for not doing it my whole life and there is NO comparison to the watered down canned sauce. This leans closer to a mole sauce.

(Mo-lay for your phonetically inclined)

We start first by kind of making a roux.

Get the oil going in a medium sauce pan over medium heat. Next add in the chile powder and the flour.

Cook and stir for about 3-4 minutes until the roux starts to thicken and brown. Stir this fairly constantly.

Fuck yes this is going to be aromatic. Depending on the chile powder you use this will tickle the shit out of your nose hairs.

Next we add in the water, tomato sauce and remaining spices except the salt.

Reduce heat to medium/low and simmer for 10 minutes. It will reduce down and tighten up.

That’s the ticket. Taste for salt level and adjust accordingly.

Let this cool down and refrigerate. Yessir you can make this a day in advance. I made this the morning of prior to the rest of the shit I’m going to be tossing at you.

This stuff is fucking delicious! It’s dank and earthy and spicy. Shit yeah. I wouldn’t eat this like a soup since that could possibly lead to an overdose but goddamn, when you use this as a sauce?

Yeah.

Next let’s go ahead and get after our tortillas.

You should most definitely be experiencing a recency effect since we just made tortillas a couple of weeks ago.

That’s from our taco post.

Just going to hit the highlights since this shit is easy as hell if you have the right gear and some masa harina.

Start with 2 cups of masa harina.

I had – and still have – a shitload of masa harina on hand. I ordered on Amazon just prior to our current insanity and failed to notice that I purchased 4 fucking bags of this stuff.

That shit means you all may be seeing more tortillas in the future.

Here’s where I adapted the recipe. I added a pinch of salt along with 1/4 teaspoon each of cumin and chile powder to liven it up a bit. Mix together well.

Next we will add in UP TO 1 1/2 cups of water to the dry ingredients and make a dough.

The UP TO part came from a tortilla failure the week before. I just dumped the whole 1 1/2 cups of water to the masa and that shit was WAY too sticky. It basically was unusable. I’ve learned that you’re looking for the right texture here. You want the dough to stick together without being too dry or too wet and you may not need to add the full cup and a half of water. This was about 1 1/4 cup.

This is the texture we’re looking for.

Like this exactly. Let this rest for an hour.

Here’s another good look at texture.

There it is.

Remember the drill? Cut the dough into 4ths, then roll 3 tortilla balls from each section yielding 12.

Now we get to show off our tortilla press again.

There’s my baby. Take a piece of parchment paper and line the bottom section of the press then place a ball of dough on top.

Get another piece of parchment paper and place on top of the dough.

Now press.

Get a skillet over medium/high heat, brush it very lightly with some oil and get that tortilla in there.

Thirty seconds per side.

Repeat the process until you have…

A dozen homemade corn tortillas. Cover these with a clean kitchen towel and set aside for now. You don’t want to rest these for too long but they’ll be fine while we get after the filling.

Get some fresh boneless/skinless chicken breast and cut it into chunks. You can then use that same pan we cooked the tortillas in for the prep. Heat it up and add in the chicken.

Sprinkle on some salt, pepper, cumin and chile powder. Don’t get too heavy-handed with the spices. Now we’re going to cook for just a couple of minutes per side here. Just until the outside of the chicken is no longer pink. Flip the chicken over. Like this.

We don’t have to fully cook the chicken cuz this fucker is still going into the oven for half an hour.

Remove the chicken to a bowl and set aside.

Using the same damn pan add in about 1/2 of an onion chopped up.

Saute for a minute or two then add in some fresh mushrooms.

At this point I added in about 2 cloves of minced garlic, and a splash of white wine to deglaze the pan, then I seasoned with some salt and pepper. Reduce the veggies down for maybe 6-7 minutes.

Now it’s time to assemble.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Get out the enchilada sauce.

Grab yourself a baking dish and lube that bastard up proper! We’re then going to ladle in some of that sauce.

A quick point of parliamentary procedure: the tortillas we made today ain’t exactly of the rolling up type. They are a bit too brittle so today’s dish will be made in layers, casserole-style rather then rolled up in tubes.

Place some of the tortillas over the sauce.

Next we will add on the chicken and the mushroom mixture.

What do you think? Maybe a little jack cheese in there? Fuck yes.

Then we add another layer of our tortillas and cover that with some more sauce.

Toss on a final layer of cheese then cook uncovered in the oven for 30 minutes.

Now you’ve got yourself some enchiladas.

For the love of fuck, let this shit rest for at least five minutes before digging in or we’re talking skin grafts for the roof of your goddamn mouth.

Now what shall we have as a side?

How about some Mexican style rice?

Shit howdy!

Yes we’ve done this before, this is from June of 2018.

You can do this entire dish while the enchiladas are cooking/cooling thus allowing each dish to be ready at the same time.

Verbatim from that post:

1 cup of long grain rice. I used some jasmine rice since I still had some on hand.

1 small onion minced.

3 cloves of garlic minced.

4 ounces of tomato sauce.

1 3/4 cups of chicken stock.

1 teaspoon of cumin – freshly toasted and ground if you can.

1 teaspoon of chili powder.

1/2 teaspoon of turmeric – this gives the rice a really nice color and is cheaper than saffron.

1 tablespoon of oil – whatever you have on hand. Olive oil is nice here.

Some salt and pepper to taste.

Before getting started, this dish used up the very last of my fresh garlic and I haven’t been able to locate any since.

Motherfuckers.

Start by heating up a small skillet that has a lid. Add the oil and heat up.

Next in goes the onion and the rice.

Cook for a few minutes until the rice gets toasty and starts to brown.

Next gather your spices together.

Now add in the garlic and your spices and stir, stir, stir.

Let me tell you, you’ve been adding some serious aromatic action to your kitchen today. Damn.

Now in go the tomato sauce and chicken stock.

Stir well, reduce the flame to LOW, cover with a lid and let simmer undisturbed for 20 minutes.

When done?

Stir, stir, mix, mix and you’re ready to plate, Jasper!

Use the edge of a spatula to cut out a slab of the enchiladas.

Mother Machree!

Next a spoon of that rice?

Grab yourself a fork, a napkin and about 4 beers.

You know what to do now.

It’s spicy without being “hot” spicy, know what I mean? Look at the list of spices we used today for reference. Earthy, saucy, melty, rich, the combination of the deep spice from the homemade sauce along with the texture and taste of the homemade tortillas, then the chicken and the umami-ness from the mushrooms and all that melty cheese? Then that rice too?

I could seriously sell this shit, I ain’t lying.

There is no way a store bought corn tortilla will ever have the flavor and texture that these tortillas do. They not only stand up to the rest of the dish, they stand OUT.

Goddammit I’m positive I will never make enchiladas again with either canned sauce or bagged corn tortillas.

This is so worth the effort, people.

If you can’t see yourself going to the trouble to buy the tortilla press and the masa harina at least try the enchilada sauce and/or the rice.

They are that good.

Hope everyone is keeping their sanity out there.

Be safe and be well everyone. Wear your gloves and masks and keep your 6 feet distance. Please.

For everyone’s sake.

Let’s do this again next week alright?

PEACE!