Mexican Cheese Enchiladas, Enchiladas de Queso

The night before making enchiladas I make a chicken broth. I use chicken backs or parts and giblets, half an onion, some sprigs of cilantro a few cloves garlic, salt and pepper and simmer for about 3 hours. I make enough chicken broth for at least 24 ounces. I refrigerate overnight and the next day I skim off the fat and use the broth the next day to make my enchilada sause. Nothing like homemade broth for enchilada sauce. You can opt to buy two large cans of store bought Swanson or College Inn chicken broth if you are not into making your own broth. Set broth aside. Clean your dried ancho and pasilla chile peppers, removing seeds and stems and core. Rinse cleaned dried chiles and put into a pot cover with cold water add half a large onion, and a little salt. Bring to a boil and lower flame when it begins to boil and simmer for 15 minutes. Shut off heat and let chiles soak for about one hour or more if possible. After soaking remove chiles into a seperate container with the onion.

In your blender add four of the boiled chiles, cooked onion, 1/2 teaspoon peanut butter, 2 cloves garlic, and half of the half tablet of Mexican chocolate. Add a little of the oregano, a little of the cumin powder, a little of the salt and a little of the black pepper. Take about 3 tablespoons of chicken broth and add that as well to the blender. Blend on high speed, Liquify, until everything is a paste. With a spatula remove blend to a seperate bowl. Next add the remaining four cooked chiles, and the remaining, peanut butter, cumin powder, oregano, salt, black pepper, two cloves of garlic, the remaining chocolate piece and the 1/4 tsp cayanne pepper. Add 3 more tablespoons chicken broth and process on high until all is a paste. Remove the remainder of this paste to the bowl with the rest of the liquified chile paste.

In a large skillet, heat your half cup oil. Add the half cup of flour. With the wisk begin making a roux until your flour is golden brown. Now add 2 cups of the chile paste and begin to mix in the roux until all is icorporated. The roux will get thick and look like a big lump of paste. Lower the heat and slowly begin to add cupfulls of the rich chiken broth with your wisk begin to stir real good until all of the paste turns into a sauce like gravy. Add more chicken broth until your sauce is the consistency of a soupy sauce. At this time I taste and add a little more salt, a little garlic powder, a little more cumin powder, If I want a little more heat I add a little more cayanne pepper. Just to make sure my sauce has a bit of a kick. Cover sauce and on the lowest heat point and let sauce simmer for a minute or two. Be very careful not to scorch the sauce or the whole dish will be ruined. After simmering for 2 minutes keep heat on lowest point and proceed with assembling enchiladas.

In a cast iron skillet, heat some more corn oil about a 1/4 cup and take one corn tortilla at a time and fry fast on each side. like thirty seconds on each side, remove with tongs and dip into the enchilada sauce, making sure the whole tortilla is emersed into the sauce and remove to a lage baking pan. Do all the corn tortillas like this you must work fast because the tortillas can only be in the hot oil for 30 seconds on each side. When all of the tortillas have been bathed in the sauce. Take each tortilla and add a tablespoon of diced onion, add a tablespoon of Shredded Mexican cheese blend and a tablespoon of the grated cotija cheese roll and put into a large baking pan that has about 1/4 cup of the enchilada sauce in the bottom of the pan. Do all of the tortillas like this rolling each one with the mixture of diced onion, and cheeses. When you have rolled all of your tortillas layer the entire pan with the rolled enchiladas. Add some more sauce on top and sprinkle the cheeses on top and put into a hot oven for 10 minutes. Not any longer or your enchiladas will dry out. I usually do two pans with tweleve in each pan. After baking for 10 minutes serve with some Mexican rice and a salad. Enjoy.