The Daring Cooks May Challenge - Green Chile Chicken Enchiladas

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 finally invited my sister & husband over for a Daring Cooks Challenge recipe and they were in for a treat. I have made enchiladas before but never with my own homemade tortillas and enchilada sauce.
The end result was fabulous, really authentic and totally homemade (even the chicken stock). I got the recipe for homemade tortillas from Mangio da Sola, really easy to follow and great instructional video.  To put it all together I poured some of the green chile sauce in a casserole dish, then placed the tortilla, cover in sauce, monterey jack cheese, grilled chicken, cheese, sauce, another tortilla etc... till I had a stack four tortilla high.  Bake in oven at 450 degrees for 15-20 minutes.

I will definitely be making this again, it was just too delicious! 

I also enjoyed the challenge of actually not getting my enchilada sauce from a can. Tomatillos are something I pass by in the supermarket (this was the first time I have ever even picked one up) so it was great to take a crack at this never used vegetable.

 Making the enchilada sauce was actually pretty easy ... roasting the fresh chilies in our oven was quite the adventure. My birds let me know when they needed to be taken out by their squawking... boy the air in our house was spicy!  It was actually fun to burn something on purpose, this is something I can definitely do! Check out the before and after pictures:

After charring the chilies close in a paper bag till cooled, then scrape skins off with a knife.  I made sure I wore gloves to remove the skins, getting pepper in your eye is something you will always remember and never, hopefully, repeat. Discard the skins and seeds and you are left with flavorful chilies (do not rinse with water).

Green Chile Sauce

Ingredients:

• 1½ pounds Fresh Anaheim chiles (about eight 6 to 8 inch chiles), Charred & skins removed
• 4-6 Tomatillos, stems & outer papery skin removed 
• 4 cups Chicken broth
• 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) 
• Couple dashes of Hot sauce (optional)

1. Place tomatillos in a medium sauce pan with water and bring to a boil. Boil for 5-10 minutes till soft. Remove from water and puree in blender till smooth.  

2. Pour puree into saucepan with chicken stock, chopped green chilies, onion, oregano, garlic, salt & pepper. Adjust salt & pepper to your taste. Bring to a boil and then reduce heat to a simmer for 10 minutes.

3. Add the cornstarch that has been dissolved in water and simmer again for 10-15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add hot sauce if you want more heat.