The Arizona Specialty Nightmare

Too bad our friends in the southwest can't just embrace their neighbors below the border.  I don't know if it's a fear of mixed breeding, pinto beans or the idea of four foot tall men raping their children and pillaging their cities.  They should certainly just take a cue from my fair city and let our dear friends move themselves in crime ridden and city wide neglected neighborhoods while the rest of us laugh our way into a long line at one of Rick Bayless's restaurants.  Where on earth did he get that recipe for guacamole?

So, I offer you The Arizona Nightmare; a great assortment of south of the border ingredients mixed into a delicious plate of food.  Sometimes also referred to as Enchiladas Verde (enchilads green, in AZ).

Let's do this one for Phoenix.

ENCHILADAS VERDE


Here's what you'll need to make 8 steamy enchiladas


For the tortillas (normally which should be corn, but I like to use flour sometimes too, because I said so)


1 cup flour (white or wheat, you choose how healthy you feel today)
A dash of salt
2 tbsp warm olive oil or melted butter (read above)
1/2 cup water


For the salsa verde:


4 tomatillos
2 jalapenos
1/2 red onion, diced
1/4 cup fresh cilantro
4 cloves garlic, chopped
1 cup water
Salt


For the filling:


Now, the filling can pretty much be anything.  I have a VERY secret recipe for my black bean filling that I have trouble giving away.  So, because it's my blog, I've decided to not give it away just yet.  Tough luck. 


So, let's just make it CHEESE.  So....


2 cups sliced/shredded fresh chihuahua cheese


Beautiful.

To mix things up a little in this blog, I'm going to show you the result FIRST:

If your school says they are bad for you or your children, they're probably right.

Start with your tortillas.  You will need to let them sit for about 30 minutes, which works out great since you have to get all your other things going too and by the time they are ready these will be ready too.

It's pretty simple, just mix your flour and your salt in a bowl.  Add the oil and stir around until it becomes clumpy.  Add your water, stir for a minute and then knead for another minute or two.  What you're looking for is a dough that is stretchy and pliable, but not sticky.  Like any bread or bread like thing, make sure you don't over-knead.  If you are a master of pizza dough--though I doubt you are since you are reading this....-then you'll know to look for something similar to that.

This is what is should ultimately look like:

Even if you mess it up, it'll probably look like that.  So, just FYE, this picture is actually meaningless.  I just don't know what to put in a food blog.

Cover this with a damp towel.  It will look like this:

Haha.  Sorry.

Set this aside somewhere nice and warm and forget about it.

You'll want to start your salsa verde.  You're going to need a sauce pan and a food processor/blender.  I use the food processor.  I actually don't have a blender.  I went to Target with one of my previous awful roommates and my boyfriend and happening upon some blenders, my boyfriend suggested we invest in one.  My awful roommate convinced me not to by saying "oh, you don't need a blender, I have a food processor" in his very matter-of-fact hipsters-only-use-processors tone.  Needless to say, smoothies don't turn out very well in food processors and I am sans a blender and a happy boyfriend.

What you do is this:  husk those puppies and cut them in halves.  Toss them into the pan with all of the ingredients including the water.  Bring to a boil for a minute and then let simmer and cover until the tomatillos are soft.  This is how it should look:

Titillating, I know.

 When it boils, put all of the stuff in the food processor, while leaving some of the water out.  Blend everything together and add water as needed to get a nice runny, but not TOO runny texture.  Add some salt to taste.

Now, when I say throw everything in the sauce pan, I mean you don't have to cut everything up in tiny pieces and throw it in there.  If you so chose, you can slice your jalapenos, but you don't have to.  You don't have to really chop anything if you don't want to, though I at least recommend the garlic and onion.

So, this will probably take you about 25 minutes all together.  Let your salsa verde cool down a bit in the food processor/blender and move on back to your tortillas.  Now, you're going to need to take a small ball from the big ball (hahah, what? I'm not feeling very eloquent tonight) and roll it out like you would a small pie dough.  You do not need to flour any surface, these will peel right off.

While you're doing this, have a pan heating up on medium heat. You do not need to grease the pan or do anything to it.  Just heat it.

When you're rolling out the first one, figure out what works best for you, because each dough rolls differently.  You might find yourself getting the hang of it and then the next time you make it you'll have to figure out a new technique.  THOSE TRICKY MEXICANS.

This may not always be the case if you're a perfectionist, but I am not.

When it's rolled out, peal it off the counter or wherever you are rolling it and toss it into the pan, like so:

You only need to cook it on each side for about 15 seconds, so while each one is cooking roll out another one.  When they are done in the pan, they should look like this:

Store bought?  You will never know.

You can go ahead and fill these suckers with some cheese and roll them like a cigarette.  If you don't know how to roll a cigarette, I suggest you look that up on youtube.  Or you can look up how to roll an enchilada.  I don't care.  Either way, roll 'em up and stick them in a casserole dish.  Do this until the casserole dish is all squished up with enchiladas and poor enough salsa verde until you have gotten all of the tortillas covered.  You don't need to fill the dish and drown your lil' guys, though.  You don't want them all mushy and nasty.

Something like this:

That's them cookin' away!

Oh yeah, did I again forget to mention the oven temperature?  Put it around 350.  You don't need to preheat it, but you can if you want to.  I usually don't because I'm lazy and I don't care and my boyfriend will eat it regardless.

I was not particularly satisfied with this recipe--not because the recipe was flawed, though, but because the tomatillos weren't ripe.  It ended up tasting a little off.  Don't be dismayed, though.  That's why I keep a jar of something powerful near by in case I want to pour something on top of it to forget the last hour I spent cooking.  Some may call this a gin and tonic, I call it garnish.

Getting in the spirit of mexican food night I don't like to get too fancy, so I usually just grab a bag of chips and make some guacamole.  The trick to good guacamole?  Lots of garlic.  So good.

There you have it, friends.  The Arizona Wet Dream Night Terror.

Scare 'em good.