Cheese Enchiladas

What follows is an alternate recipe for the enchilada sauce used in Lometa's recipe. Lometa's recipe details solid enchilada technique, however, I think it could be improved by dipping the tortillas in the enchilada sauce prior to filling and rolling them up.

There are as many variations on enchilada sauce as their are families in Texas and Mexico combined. The one thing that most of them have in common is the use of cumin, oregano and chiles. Other than that, it just depends on what your abuela told you.

Ingredients

• 4 cups chicken stock
• 4 large ancho chiles, stemmed and seeded
• 4 tbsp. Corn oil
• 2 tbsp. flour
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 3 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped

Method

1. Add the stock and chiles to a medium pot, bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Once it has reached a boil, reduce heat to medium-low and simmer for roughly 10 minutes. Remove from the heat and let it rest.
2. Saute the onions in the 2 tbsp. corn oil until they begin to soften.
3. Put 1 cup of the cooking liquid, all of the chiles, the sauteed onions and the garlic into a blender. As an aside, the quality of a mexican kitchen is often judged upon the quality and number of the blenders it contains.
4. Puree them until they form a smooth paste, then set aside.
5. Next phase is the making of the sofrito, a critical element of mexican cooking.
6. Heat the remainder of the corn oil in a large skillet over medium heat, once it starts to shimmer, add the flour and cook for 2 minutes, make sure to stir the mixture constantly.
7. Add to the pan, the chile paste from the blender, cumin, oregano, and some salt and pepper. Let this cook for no more than a minute, 30 seconds on the quick side. This allows the flavor of the spices to bloom and integrate with that of the chiles.
8. Add the remaining chicken stock at this point and cook over medium-low heat for 30 minutes, until the sauce thickens.