Don't Mess With Tex-Mex

For some weeks now I've been craving enchiladas. Knowing full-well that I wouldn't get the specific enchiladas I wanted (there's a place in El Paso called Kiki's and it's literally the only non-academic thing I'm looking forward to about moving there because it serves the most incredible sour cream chicken enchiladas) I decided to experiment a bit and wound up with enough food to fill my refrigerator and freezer for what will probably be the next two weeks.

Greek Yogurt Chicken Enchiladas
Adapted from Learning to Live without A Microwave.

2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (or 4 half breasts, as they are usually packaged)
olive oil
salt
pepper
4 cloves of garlic, minced
3 Serrano chiles, diced
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp flour
2 cups chicken broth
2 cups Greek yogurt
1 tsp cumin
3/4 cup cilantro, chopped and divided
8 fresh tomatoes*
cayenne pepper
12 corn tortillas
canola oil
2 cups Monterey Jack and/or Cheddar and/or Pepper Jack cheese, shredded
1/2 large onion, diced
2 husks of fresh corn

1. Heat a cast iron skillet (or a regular skillet if you don't have cast iron) over medium heat and add olive oil. Generously season chicken breasts with salt and pepper. Cook the chicken breasts about three minutes on each side. They will not be cooked through but that's okay since they're about to go in the oven. In fact, if all the breasts fit in your skillet at once, you can place that baby directly in your oven and let it hang out for 30 minutes at 350 F. If size is an issue (tehe), transfer all breasts to a baking pan large enough to accommodate them and place that in the oven.

2. Once the chicken is in the oven melt butter in a medium saucepan. Add serranos and cook until they're soft, about 4 minutes. Add garlic and cook for a minute or so until you can smell it. Add flour and mix until you've got yourself something resembling paste. Pour the broth into the pot and whisk constantly until the sauce has thickened, about 14 minutes. (If you're all, "Fuck that, I'm not stirring for 14 minutes straight," the important thing is just that you don't let the bottom of the sauce burn. So if you need to do some sort of interval of 30 secs stirring, 30 secs rest, go ahead. But if stirring a thin sauce is really taking it out of you then you could probably count it as your cardio for the day, Sargent Lazypants.)

3. Stir yogurt, cumin, cayenne and 1/4 cup cilantro into the sauce. Remove from heat. Note: your chicken should be finished by now. Take it out of the oven and set it aside because you're going to want to let it cool as much as you can before you start shredding it. Maybe even pop it in the fridge.

4. Halve the tomatoes* (the original recipe calls for tomatillos but Whole Foods was out when I went; tomatoes made a fine substitution but my final result didn't have the same tang that it would have so this is a Your Call situation when you get to the produce section) and place them all on a foil-lined baking sheet, preferably one with a lip all around it. Move oven rack to the highest position and set the temperature to broil. Broil tomatoes until blackened, about 5 minutes. Turn the oven temp back down to 350 F when you're done because you're going to use it again.

5. In a blender, puree yogurt sauce and tomatoes to make the final sauce. Shred chicken with a fork. The corn is totally optional but if you're using it, you'll want to cut it off the cob now along with dicing your 1/2 onion if you haven't already done so.

6. Heat skillet over medium-low heat. Add just a little bit of canola oil and once it's hot, place one tortilla in at a time, warming on both sides. Yes, you're essentially lightly frying your tortillas. Yes, this is absolutely critical. And why are you arguing about frying something anyway? If you need to add more oil as you go, feel free to do so.

7. Assemble the enchiladas! I'm not going to give you measurements here as you know the size of the tortilla you're working with and I assume have some basic grasp of the ratio between the amount of filling you can use based on the size of the wrapper. If you don't, then perhaps achieving delicious enchiladas shouldn't be your priority right now. Place chicken, onions, corn, any other veggies you'd like to add, and a sprinkling of cheese on a tortilla. Roll as tightly as you can and place into a sauced baking dish. (By sauced I mean there should be a thin layer of the sauce covering the bottom of your cooking vessel.)

8. Continue assembling and rolling enchiladas until you have run out of tortillas and all of your rolls are tightly packed in baking dishes. Cover with the rest of the sauce (yes, all of it) and top enchiladas with whatever remaining cheese you have. If you have no remaining cheese, then find more. There's nothing wrong with adding more cheese. Ever. On anything. I ran out of room in my 9 X 11 pan so I ended up making the rest in a 9.5" pie dish and a 10" glass skillet. Big. Ass. Recipe. Bake in pre-heated oven until the top is browned and bubbling, about 25-30 minutes. Garnish with remaining cilantro.

Tips and Tricks
- You're probably pretty familiar with sour cream chicken enchiladas and that's what this recipe originally was, though as I've discussed before, Greek yogurt and sour cream taste nearly identical. I tend to prefer the yogurt because I usually have it on hand anyway and because it packs a substantial amount of protein that sour cream just doesn't.
- There's nothing wrong with cutting this recipe in half. In fact, it's probably smarter to do that unless you just love having leftovers for weeks/stocking your freezer.
- If you wanted to add a jalapeno or use those instead of Serranos, that would be fine. You can also leave out the cayenne if you're not a huge fan of spice but you should know that if you choose to do this, I've just lost at least half the respect I had for you.

Serving and Pricing info: If you think 12 tortillas means this has twelve servings then you're probably right unless you have some sort of super human appetite. This shit is filling. I bought everything for this except the yogurt, oils, salt, pepper, garlic and onion (all of which I had already) and it came out to about $3.25/serving. Keep in mind, though, I did my shopping for this at Whole Foods so if you don't care about where your chicken or produce comes from then you could probably whittle a dollar off of that figure per serving.

How was it? Filling and tasty. Not to mention a nice balm for my Texas-sickness.