Potato Enchiladas

I love enchiladas. This time I made Potato enchilada. You can make pinto beans or black beans, or portebello mushrooms enchiladas or enchiladas with any fillings following the same recipe. You can just substitute potatoes with mashed pinto beans or black beans or any desired filling.

I like flour tortilla, but if you like you may use corn tortillas instead of flour tortillas. Here is something I found very interesting about enchilada on wiki.

History:

An enchilada (play /ˌɛntʃɨˈlɑːdə/) is a corn or flour tortilla rolled around a filling and covered with a chili pepper sauce. Enchiladas can be filled with a variety of ingredients, including meat, cheese, beans, potatoes, vegetables, seafood or combination.

Enchiladas originated in Mexico, where the practice of rolling tortillas around other food dates back at least to Mayan times. The people living in the lake region of the Valley of Mexico traditionally ate corn tortillas folded or rolled around small fish.

Writing at the time of the Spanish conquistadors, Bernal Díaz del Castillo documented a feast enjoyed by Europeans hosted by Hernán Cortés in Coyoacán, which included foods served in corn tortillas. (Note that the native Nahuatl name for the flat corn bread used was tlaxcalli; the Spanish give it the name tortilla.

In the 19th century, as Mexican cuisine was being memorialized, enchiladas were mentioned in the first Mexican cookbook, El cocinero mexicano ("The Mexican Chef"), published in 1831, and in Mariano Galvan Rivera's Diccionario de Cocina, published in 1845.

Varieties:
In their original form as Mexican street food, enchiladas were simply corn tortillas dipped in chili sauce and eaten without fillings. They now have taken many varieties, which are distinguished primarily by their sauces, fillings and, in one instance, by their form. Various adjectives may be used to describe the recipe content or origin, e.g. enchilada tapatia would be a recipe from Jalisco.

In Costa Rica, the enchilada is a common, small, spicy pastry, made with puff pastry and filled with diced potatoes spiced with a common variation of tabasco sauce or other similar sauces.[citation needed] It is typically eaten in the afternoons in the coffee break, and available in almost every bakery in the country. Other variations include fillings made of spicy chicken or minced meat.

Here is my recipe:



Ingredients:



For filling:


4-5 potatoes boiled and mashed

2 onions chopped

6-8 garlic cloves chopped (optional or to taste)

2 jalapeno pepper chopped

2 tablespoon taco seasoning

2 teaspoons cumin power

1 bunch of cilantro leaves washed and chopped

1/4 cup of chopped pickled Jalapeno peppers

3 tablespoons of olive oil or any vegetable oil

2 teaspoons of cumin seeds



For Enchilada:


8 flour tortilla or corn tortilla.

2 cups of shredded cheddar cheese

1 cup of Monterrey jack cheese (I did not use it this time)

Cheese dip (optional)

1 cup corn dip (recipe on this blog) (optional)

2 cups of enchilada sauce ((You can make your own using sauting onions in 2 tbsp vegetable oil, adding, 2 tbsp flour, 2 tbsp chili powder, 1/2 tsp cumin, 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper, or to taste, two cups of water and 8 ounce can tomato paste, simmer on low heat) You may use green tomatillo sauce instead of enchilada sauce for a different taste.


For garnish and serving:

1 cup of sour cream

1 onion chopped

2 tomatoes chopped

2 cups of sliced iceberg lettuce

1/4 cup chopped cilantro leaves

Few slices of pickled Jalapeno peppers

Guacamole

Remaining filling that you did not use to fill tortilla.



Method:


Heat and slightly brown each individual tortilla on skillet on both side to bring out the flavor.

Stack the tortillas together in aluminum foil or insulated tortilla container, cover and set aside.

Heat oil in pan, add cumin seeds when they crackle add chopped onion, garlic and peppers.

Saute until light brown, add taco seasoning and cumin powder. (taco seasoning has salt so you don't need to add any salt to this)

Saute for few seconds.

Add mashed potatoes (or whatever filling you want to make the enchilada with)

Add chopped cilantro leaves, chopped pickled Jalapeno and mix well.

Place the filling and some cheddar cheese on each tortilla, roll the tortillas and arrange them in baking dish side by side.

Spread with the corn dip on the rolled tortillas. (if you don't have corn dip you can skip this step)

Sprinkle Cheddar and Monterrey Jack cheese. (I did not have Monterrey jack cheese so I only used cheddar)

Spread the cheese dip by adding few spoons on each enchilada. (this is optional)

Pour desired amount of enchilada sauce evenly on the rolled tortillas.

Bake at 350 F for 15-20 min.

Garnish with pickled Jalapeno slices, sour cream and Guacamole.

Serve with sliced iceberg lettuce, chopped onion and tomatoes with side of rice or remaining potato stuffing.





Information on Enchilada and its history source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enchilada
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_Creative_Commons_Attribution-ShareAlike_3.0_Unported_License


Recipe and Photographs by Surekha.