New Mexico · Main
New Mexico Red Chile Enchiladas
- Intermediate
- 75 min
- roughly 1 of 4 for cost
Leads with richness that coats and comforts, an earthy, grounding base, on a slow, honest burn.
Ingredients
- 12 corn tortillas
- For the red sauce: 10 dried New Mexico red chiles, 4 garlic cloves, 1 tsp cumin, 1 tsp oregano, 500ml stock, salt
- 400g cheese (longhorn cheddar), grated
- 1 onion, diced
- 4 eggs (for stacked, fried on top)
- Shredded lettuce
Equipment
Grater / zester
The skills inside
Soaking dried goods back to life
Allergen screen
Found: gluten · dairy · egg
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Toast and soak the dried chiles, then blend with the garlic, cumin, oregano, stock, and salt into a smooth sauce. Simmer 15 min. 15 min
- Warm each tortilla in oil until pliable, then dip in the red sauce.
- New Mexico serves them stacked, not rolled: layer tortilla, cheese, onion, sauce, and repeat into a stack.
- Top the stack with more sauce and cheese and bake at 190C for 10 min until bubbling. 10 min
- Crown each stack with a fried egg and shredded lettuce.
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the technique it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Soaking dried goods back to life 69 recipes
- Fully submerged with room to swell: the level is well above everything at the start and still above it at the end.
- Given the full time, and judged by what is in the bowl rather than by the hours on the clock.
- Tested at the CENTRE of the largest piece, cut or pressed. Anything with a hard dry core will still have one after cooking, because the outside softens first and stops the water getting further in.
- The soaking water was dealt with on purpose: kept because it holds flavour, or thrown away because it holds what should not be eaten, but never simply left undecided.
- Drained before it is used, so the dish does not silently gain all the water that came with it.
Where it goes wrong Too little water, or too little time. The pieces swell until they are packed tight against each other and the ones in the middle never fully take up water; they will not soften later in the dish either, so the finished plate has hard pieces scattered through it.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Off-dry Riesling (Mosel Kabinett)
- Also Right
- Gewürztraminer or off-dry Chenin
- From the Taps
- Crisp lager or pilsner
- Zero-Proof
- Agua fresca or iced jasmine tea
Sugar, cold, and low alcohol are the fire code: sweetness tames capsaicin while acid resets the palate; tannin would fan the flames.
Saved on this device and kept across visits: export from My Menu to move them.