Stacked Green Chile and Grilled Chicken Enchiladas

The Daring Cooks continue to keep us on our toes. Our hosts this month, Barbara of Barbara Bakes and Bunnee of Anna+Food have chosen a delicious Stacked Green Chile & Grilled Chicken Enchilada recipe in celebration of Cinco de Mayo! The recipe, featuring a homemade enchilada sauce was found on www.finecooking.com and written by Robb Walsh.

I think this might be my favorite challenge yet, and if not, it definitely ranks in the top 2. Of course, I could probably eat something like this everyday for the rest of my life and not lament the lack of variety.

The challenge required us to make a sauce from scratch, although we weren't limited to the sauce suggested by the hosts. Given our love for tomatillos, though, we decided this sounded too good not to try. Even better was the suggestion that the skins of the anaheim chiles be charred on the grill. And since I've got a husband who loves to show off his grilling skills, something I encourage at every opportunity, I knew this one was going to be a recipe worth keeping before we even had the ingredients.

Because we weren't experimenting with the sauce, Mike decided he would go an extra step with the chicken. For the first time ever, he added hickory chips to the grill, which created a lightly smoked flavor that really complemented the grilled flavor of the chiles. Having eaten these enchiladas that way once, I don't know if I could go without the hickory-smoked chicken.

The difference between this recipe and other enchilada recipes was that the ingredients were stacked as opposed to rolled inside a tortilla. While the presentation suffered a bit because of this technique, at least in our case because we did not use individual gratin dishes, the ease of the preparation more than compensated for the "comfort-food" look of the dish.

Already I'm thinking of the many sleepless nights I've got ahead of me, once ******** arrives, and thinking of how I can stock this away in my freezer, and how I can come up with other sauces that would be equally delicious. Nothing like a challenge that encourages further experimentation.

Thanks to our hosts for this seasonal and fun challenge!

Mike was quite proud of these action grill shots, which I have to say impressed me. My take on roasted peppers is forever changed!

Ingredients

1½ pounds Fresh Anaheim chiles (about eight 6 to 8 inch chiles)

24 ounces 678 grams - roast, peel, remove seeds, chop coarsely.

7-8 ounces Tomatillos (about 4-5 medium) - peel, remove stems

4 cups Chicken broth (32 ounces/920 grams)

1 clove Garlic, minced

2 teaspoons yellow onion, minced

1 teaspoon dried oregano

½ tsp Kosher salt (add more to taste)

¼ tsp Black Pepper (add more to taste)

2 tablespoons Cornstarch (dissolve in 2 tablespoons water, for thickening)

Hot sauce, your favorite, optional

2 Boneless chicken breasts (you can also use bone-in chicken breasts or thighs)

3 tablespoons Olive oil or other neutral vegetable oil (use more as needed)

Kosher salt and pepper

12 Small Corn tortillas (5-6 inch/13-15 cm)

6 ounces grated Monterey Jack, 170 grams

Cilantro for garnish, chopped and sprinkled optional

Directions

Roasting Fresh Chiles

1. Coat each chile with a little vegetable oil. If you are doing only a couple chiles, using the gas stove works. For larger batches (as in this recipe), grilling or broiling is faster.

2. Lay the oiled chiles on the grill or baking sheet (line pan with foil for simpler clean-up). Place the grill or broil close to the element, turning the chiles so they char evenly. They should be black and blistered.

3. As they are completely charred (they will probably not all be done at once), remove them to a bowl and cover with plastic, or close up in a paper bag. Let them rest until they are cool.

4. Pull on the stem and the seed core MAY pop out (it rarely does for me). Open the chile and remove the seeds. Turn the chile skin side up and with a paring knife, scrape away the skin. Sometimes it just pulls right off, sometimes you really have to scrape it.

5. DO NOT RINSE!

Green Chile Sauce

1. Put a medium saucepan of water on to boil and remove the papery outer skin from the tomatillos. Boil the tomatillos until soft, 5 to 10 minutes. You can also grill the tomatillos until soft.

2. Drain and puree in a blender or food processor.

3. Return the tomatillos to the saucepan along with the chicken broth, chopped green chiles, minced onion, oregano, garlic, salt and pepper.

4. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat and then reduce the heat and simmer for 10 minutes.

5. Add the cornstarch/water mixture and stir well. Simmer, stirring occasionally, until the sauce is thickened and reduced to 4-5 cups, another 10-15 minutes.

6. Adjust seasonings and add hot sauce if you want a little more heat.

Stacked Green Chile and Grilled Chicken Enchiladas

1. Heat a gas grill to medium high or build a medium-hot charcoal Coat the chicken with olive oil and season well with salt and pepper. Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

2. Grill the chicken until just cooked through, 4-5 minutes a side for boneless chicken breasts.

3. Cool and then slice into thin strips or shred.

4. In a small skillet, heat 3 tablespoons oil over medium-high heat until very hot. Dip the edge of a tortilla into the oil to check – it should sizzle immediately.

5. Using tongs, put a tortilla into the pan and cook until soft and lightly brown on each side, about 15-20 seconds per side (at the most).

6. Drain on paper towels.

7. Add oil as needed and continue until all 12 tortillas are done.

8. In a baking dish large enough to hold four separate stacks of tortillas, ladle a thin layer of sauce.

9. Lay four tortillas in the dish and ladle another ½ cup (4 ounces/112 grams) of sauce over the tortillas.

10. Divide half the chicken among the first layer of tortillas, top with another ½ cup of sauce and 1/3 of the grated cheese.

11. Stack another four tortillas, top with the rest of the chicken, more sauce and another third of the cheese.

12. Finish with the third tortilla, topped with the remaining sauce and cheese.

13. Bake until the sauce has thickened and the cheese melted, about 20 minutes. Let rest for 5-10 minutes.

14. To serve, transfer each stack to a plate. Spoon any leftover sauce over the stacks and sprinkle with cilantro, if you wish. The stacks may also be cooked in individual gratin dishes.

No Baozi Here

Oh, to have been a fly on your wall while you put together your baozi.

What we made more closely resembled enormous pot stickers than your "simple and delicious" baozi.


(shrimp baozi prior to steaming)


(post-steaming)

Our fillings were amazing, and had our little dumplings come out as they were supposed to, I think we would have had two serious successes on our hands. Our first mistake, as always, was leaving this challenge until we had no time to try to rectify our mistakes. For there were many.

We made two fillings: The first a combination of shrimp, mango, lime juice, garlic, and asian chile sauce; and the second a mixture of ground turkey, garlic, cilantro, lemongrass, and cabbage. Both were really, really delicious. The downfall was our dough. Had you been a fly on our wall, you likely would have had a hard time containing your laughter.


(turkey baozi, after steaming)

While we loved the free form nature of the challenge, I have to assume that we were at least a small disadvantage not having seen these made before. We had no idea how big to roll out each piece of dough, nor how much filling to place inside. The pictures on the reference blog looked to us to be about the size of tortillas, and that is where I am guessing we made our first mistake. I think our dough was much too thinly rolled. There was very little dough to rise, and as a result, we didn't have much "fluff" and nearly no "light and airy."

The second mistake was likely overstuffing. The amount of filling we put in probably contributed to the thinness of our dough. I would also take care not to allow excess liquid in the filling, as our shrimp-filled baozi turned out so badly that we declined to even take photos. The bottoms separated from the tops once we attempted to lift them.



I assume that the thinness of our dough also contributed to our steamer problems. We used a bamboo steamer and for the first group (shrimp) didn't put anything down in the basket to prevent sticking. That was a huge mistake. For the second batch, we placed cabbage leaves down, which prevented sticking, but contributed to sogginess on the bottom. I'm not sure how to fix that.

Our last mistake seemed to have been in the rising. While the recipe noted that the dough would rise very little, the ones we cooked last turned out the best, which was either a result of extra time to rise, or the fact that at the end we started rolling the dough a little less thinly.

I so wish we had not left this until so late because I would love to have had the opportunity to try to understand where exactly we went wrong before posting. Now, though, I'm determined to get this right. The possibilities are endless! I can think of a bau for everyone, and love the idea of the self-contained package.

Don't be surprised if in the near future you see another attempt at baozi!

This was a great challenge, and what cooking is all about. Despite our mistakes, I can see the beauty of these dumplings, and am eager to figure out how to create our own "surprisingly easy and quick" baozi.

It's 'Bau-Time!

I loved this challenge! Having only eaten these dumplings once before at a Chinese friend's home, the bar was set pretty high, and our expectations for success were moderately low given the loose recipe from online and our 'creativity' for the fillings...

We decided to try out a few different fillings to experiment with flavors. Some worked better than others. First was a 'traditional' mix of chopped pork and Asian veggies and flavors (by flavors I mean a concoction of the jars and bottles we have in our fridge). Second we tried an American-style pork bbq filling, and last but definitely not least was a sauteed banana filling (banana, lemon, cinnamon, butter, sugar) for dessert.


The dough was surprisingly simple enough to make, and seemed difficult to get wrong. It was super easy to work with too. We made different shapes to try and differentiate our different fillings and that turned out to maybe be our biggest mistake. Turns out round shapes fit much better into a round steamer than squares and triangles (go figure!). Not to mention, with the triangles you end up with all dough corners - so don't make our same mistake! We should have trusted the traditional shape a little more, given that the Chinese have been cooking these things for hundreds of years...


The results? The bread was incredibly soft and airy, with a slight sweetness to it - simple and delicious. As for the fillings - well, you can never go wrong with an asian-style pork filling, so that was our safe bet. The bbq pork tasted more like a sloppy joe, but not nearly as good as a real sloppy joe (could have used an actual recipe for this one...). But the REAL winner was the banana filling. Oh my goodness was that heaven in a white fluffy bun!? Dipped in peanut butter - oh wow.


It was so much fun to experiment and figure out what flavors worked best with these things. We will definitely be making Baozi sometime again in the near future (with more experimental fillings). Surprisingly easy and quick to make but they look so impressive!


(You like that title Mike?? I feel like I'm taking one out of your book.)