Cooking on Day 1

Menu item? Chicken Enchiladas with Tomatillo Salsa (curtesy of Chef Tyler Florence)

Side? Spanish Yellow Rice

Estimated Time? 1 hour and 45 minutes

Actual Time? 3 hours

Monday dawned, and I knew that tonight I would be making dinner. I was not apprehensive or distraught. I was actually quite excited. I looked at the recipe and calculated the time I would need to have dinner ready by 6. I also factored in extra time because I'm slow whenever I'm cooking or baking. Then, I donned my Star Wars apron. Everybody should own a Star Wars apron. :D

My first task was to make the tomatillo salsa. I had to chop up the tomatillos, garlic, and put the jalapenos on a pan to roast in the oven. Then, I pulled the pan out after 14 minutes, and put it all, along with the juices of the onion, into the food processor. It was my first time using this appliance, and I liked very much pulsing everything and having it be so easy. The salsa was supposed to be combined well but still chunky. 

Around this time, I had to shred a whole deli chicken. Now, I've never shredded chicken before so it was quite an interesting experience. I'll let you know that your hands sure do feel nice and slimy afterwards. I didn't mind so much about ripping apart the rib cage and dismantling the legs. My issue mainly came with the jelly. You probably know what I mean, if you've eaten refrigerated deli chickens before. At the bottom of the tray or bag or whatever it's in, and often on the bottom of the chicken as well, is a nice browish colored jelly that consists of fat drippings and bone marrow juice. It's pretty nasty to just look at, but when you've got to plunge your fingers into the stuff and pull it from the meat, it gets a bit...not nice.  



After the chicken was shredded, my next step was to prepare the filling for the enchiladas. The first step of this was to dice an onion, which I've never done, and then carmelize it in a saute pan. I took the onion, it was actually just half, and poised my knife, remembering all my watchings of food network chefs dicing onions. I first cut it sideways, working my way up, but of course not going to the very end. Then, I cut down into the thin strips. Lastly, I chopped it the opposite way down, and voila, I had a not badly diced onion. That was the proudest moment for me. I had just diced an onion. It felt really cool! To the left is a picture of my nicely diced onion.

After carmelizing the onion, I added garlic to the pan, then cumin and flour, and then chicken stock. When the velout had thickened a lot, I added half of the tomatillo salsa and lastly, folded in the chicken. Next, the tortillas had to be filled.

Now, the recipe tells you to flash cook the tortillas on the stove top and then coat them in some of the remaining salsa. I tried it with one, and it had no affect on anything. So, I'd skip it entirely next time. I put the filling in the tortillas, sprinkled them with Monterery Jack cheese, and proceeded to roll them like a cigar. By the way, there was about half of the filling left, after all the tortillas were rolled. In the bottom of my pan, was a thin smearing of the salsa, so that nothing would stick. You put the tortillas down and then dump the rest of the salsa on top, as well as cover everything with a layer of cheese.

Getting all nice and melty

The enchiladas had to bake for 30 minutes, so that was just enough time to fix up the yellow rice. While everything finished cooking, I cleaned up the kitchen and had almost all the dishes loaded. I felt quite productive. Okay, now for the big question, how was it? They were good. They weren't stellar, but the flavor of everything was good, and the family all agreed on that point. I still prefer Mom's recipe, but, if we're wanting to make them a little different, this would be a good kind to make.

The recipe is here: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/tyler-florence/chicken-enchiladas-with-roasted-tomatillo-chile-salsa-recipe/index.html

So, my first cooking day was a success. And, I'm very pleased to say that. I was hoping for a good kick off. Also, while it did take nearly 3 hours, because I'm so slow, I never really got flustered, and I enjoyed myself. Ready for meal #2. Here's a final picture to leave you with how it looked coming out.