Enchiladas with Poblano Sauce

I love enchiladas, it doesn't matter whether they are filled with chicken, cheese, beef, veggies, or whatever.  The thing that really makes a good enchilada is the sauce.  You've got to have a great sauce.  There is a restaurant near us called Azucar that does it right.  They have the most wonderful spinach enchiladas.  They are stuffed with fresh spinach and have this incredible light green creamy sauce. I have no idea what is in the sauce, but after searching high and low on the Internet, I found an enchilada recipe made with a poblano pepper sauce by Rick Bayless that seemed to be the place to start.

This recipe is fairly simple, but one of the things that put me off was blackening the peppers.  I don't know why, it's really very easy but something I never do.  Maybe it's because I don't have a gas stove or oven, so blackening without a real flame seems to be a challenge. When shopping for my ingredients I was really hoping to find some canned poblanos so I could skip it.  Fortunately, I did not find the canned poblanos and ended up blackening the fresh peppers on the broil setting in my electric oven.  It worked out just fine and now that I have had it, I think this sauce would have been compromised had I used canned instead of fresh.  Although, if this process will stop you from trying this recipe, I say go ahead a use canned peppers.

The original recipe is for chicken enchiladas, but my goal was to replicate the spinach enchiladas from Azucar.  I knew that spinch filled enchiladas would not go over big with my daughter, so I decided to make half the pan spinach, and then use some leftover roasted chicken to make the other half of the pan chicken.  You can do the same, or double either of the filling recipes for a whole pan of one type.

Enchiladas with Poblano Sauce

 

Enchilada Sauce

2 fresh poblano chilies

1 1/2 cups spinach leaves, chopped

2 cups milk

14 oz vegetable broth

6 tablespoons olive oil

3 garlic cloves, pressed

1/2 cup flour

2 teaspoons kosher salt

 

Spinach Filling

2-3 tablespoons olive oil
2 cloves garlic, pressed
large bag of spinach, washed and lightly chopped
shredded monterrey jack cheese

Chicken Filling
leftover roasted chicken (about 1/2 med. chicken), meat only shredded
1/2 - 3/4 cup sour cream
shredded four cheese mexican blend

12 corn tortillas

fresh salsa

 

Roast the poblanos on a baking sheet 4 inches below a broiler, until blackened and blistered all over. Remove from oven and cover with a damp paper towel until cooled. 

 

Once cool rub off the blackened skin and remove the stem and seeds. Rinse the pepper pieces, chop them in large pieces and place them in the food processor along with the 1 1/2 cups spinach.

 

Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the garlic and cook for a minute then whisk in the flour for another minute.  Add the veggie broth and then the milk and turn the heat up to medium-high. Whisk the mixture constantly until the sauce comes up to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer for 5 minutes. Remove from heat.

 

Pour about half the milk mixture into the food processor with the chilies and spinach and pulse until smooth. Pour the mixture back into the saucepan with the remaining sauce. Season with kosher salt and set aside.

 

In a large frying pan or wok, heat the olive oil for the spinach filling.  Add the garlic and saute for 1 minute, add the spinach and stir-fry until wilted. Set aside.

 

In a bowl mix the shredded chicken with enough sour cream to moisten. Set aside.

 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

 

Wrap the flour tortillas in damp paper towel and heat in the microwave for 1-3 minutes.

 

Spray 9x13 inch baking dish with PAM or other spray oil and ladle a small amount of the pepper sauce into the bottom.

 

Working with on tortilla at a time, sprinkle about 2 tablespoons of cheese down the center of the tortilla and then about 1/2 cup of the filling.  Roll the tortilla up and place seam side down in the pan.  This recipe should make 5-6 or each type.

 

Pour the remaining sauce over the enchiladas. Sprinkle with any remaining cheese and bake 25 - 30 minutes until hot and bubbly.

 

Serve with fresh salsa.