enchiladas!

Green Anheim Enchiladas


So I have a theory about Mexican restaurants and it has been tested over and over again. If you ever order off the combination menu at a Mexican restaurant the #1 is always: two enchiladas, one taco, choice of rice or beans and an extra charge for chicken. So when I go to order, I don’t even read the menu, order a #1 with chicken enchiladas, nod to the extra fee, and a beef taco, rice please. The theory has been tested in 6 of the 50 states and proven true. So why not bring the love for a chicken enchilada in to my own kitchen?

I decided that this summer I was going to master chicken enchiladas, and try a bunch of recipes. Recipe #1 came from an authentic Mexican cooking magazine bought for roughly $3.47 as in impulse buy in the grocery store check out. It has been collecting dust on top of the refrigerator for approx. 2 years ….

So, cooking Anheim and Poblano peppers from scratch was the first task. I understood the process of roasting, steaming, peeling, and de-seeding the peppers so off to market I went. The Tomato Vine is a great produce stand with a Mexican flare since it is on the out skirts of Berea(aka Little Mexico). I had my reference guide for peppers in the magazine and was able to find Pablano peppers without a problem. I asked one of the Mexican men shopping how to prepare them, and he explained the exact process I had read about so I thought I was good to go. I had another stop to make in search for the Anheim peppers – another supermercado next to a great panderia. As I entered the supermercado I realized this was an authentic Mexican grocery store, and hopefully things were labeled so I could read them. At first glance, there were no Anheim peppers, so I decided I would just ask the check out lady. With a blank stare, she turned to the customer behind me, and asked him in Spanish if he could help me. So back to the produce section I went with this older gentleman. I tried to explain what I wanted, referred to it as an Anheim pepper for enchiladas and roasting. He said Si Si, and pointed to a pepino. Now, this vegetable didn’t look like the picture in my magazine (which I left in the car) so I tried to ask again if this was a spicy pepper? And how do you cook it? As the man drew an ‘oven’ in the air as he searched for the English word, he convinced me that these were Anheim peppers used for enchiladas. Si Si. So 75 cents later I was out the door with 2 Anheim peppers.

When I got home I started to do some research, and went to trusy ol’ google. Peppers, Anheim Peppers, Pepinos …. Everything was checking out until I used the word Pepino. In Spanish Pepino means CUCUMBER! So I went to the fridge pulled them out, and took another look at them and sure enough these looked like the pepino on the computer screen with the English translation of cucumber. So the Mexican gentleman had convinced me they were peppers. I am still wondering if he is laughing at me since I had NO clue what I was buying. During my google search, I learned that Anheim peppers are more commonly known was green chiles. Awesome. The most common pepper and I couldn’t even find it at the Mexican grocery store. So off to Walmart I went where it was conveniently located in the produce section labeled Anheim Green Chile. I should have started there because they also had the pablano peppers but I would have missed out on a great shopping trip!

The rest of the recipe went as planned, with a little alterations. They were really yummy, and definitely a recipe I will use again! Not to spicy either - they passed the taste test of my roomie who doesn’t like spicy stuff at all!