Annalena cooks Mexican - sort of . "Fill as you like" enchiladas

There is a decided dearth of recipes in this blog outside of the canon of "Italian" or "Mediterranean" cooking. Yes, there are American dishes, but if you look at them, they all speak of a mediterranean origin, more or less.
When Annalena was a much younger cook, s/he tried to master all genres. Stir fries. Sushi (the less said of that one the better). Indian food including a five hour stint cooking a gallon of milk down to a cup, with constant stirring all along the way, and a fire in the kitchen when making pooris. And Mexican. Now, when I say Mexican, I do NOT mean "tex mex," which is a valid cuisine in its own right. No, I mean TRUE Mexican. I mean toasting avocado leaves (don't ask where I got them), and adding them to beans, with kidney lard (I said don't ask), to make true Oaxacan beans. I mean spending five hours making mole from scratch. I mean making my own tortillas. Guy put down his foot when I wanted to combine dried corn with slaked lime and let it cook for two days to get the masa harina done, but you get the point.
Bottom line? I cook what I know. These are cuisines where I am just not comfortable. So I leave them alone.

Except for once in a while. This is a dish I make in deep summer, when local farms grow tomatillos, those green tomato looking things that are covered with what looks like paper. I love them. They have a miraculous tartness that just tempts me to eat them by the bag full, raw.

DON'T. Trust me on this. But when I see them, as I did today, I make this dish. Truly, it's not Mexican. I think of it more as tex/mex/california, because enchiladas really are tex/mex, more than "mex," but I learned the basic recipe from a California chef, Deborah Madison.

When I make it, the filling always changes, but the smoked cheese is always there. It adds a "something" to the dish that works against the green sauce wonderfully. The vegetables change. I've made it with corn and squash, just corn, just squash, greens and squash blossoms, anything. My buddy Liz Torres, the Long Island Jew who is the head chef at our favorite Mexican restaurant (in NY, all things are possible), told me about one of the farmers market stands where she buys her beans for her restaurant. I visited, and came away with beans, bicolored polenta, and wheat flour. FINALLY A LOCAL FLOUR MILL YAY. So, beans will be on the menu this week, in the dish. I'll tell you how I make them, but really, all you need is the sauce, some smoked cheese and tortillas, and you're on your way.

To the sauce. You need a pound of tomatillos, a half pound of green peppers, a handful of hot peppers , and a bunch of cilantro, plus an onion, and a few cloves of garlic. How hot the pepers are is up to you, as is whether or not you remove the veins and seeds. Chop up the peppers, the hot peppers, the onion and the garlic. Put the cilantro to the side. Peel the tomatillos. Put everything in a big pot, with about a third of a cup of water. Turn on the heat to medium . When the water comes to a boil, lower the heat, cover the pot, and go read a book or something for ten or fifteen minutes, until everything is really soft. When it cools down, puree it in a food processor, and then correct the seasonings by adding salt and whatever you like. Also, while you're pureeing it, put the cilantro in, if you like it. You don't have to.

This recipe doubles beautifully and it freezes well. Do a double batch, put some away, and have a nice dip in the winter.

Okay, to enchilada construction. I'm giving an example. Don't use it as Biblical. Play with the filling as you like. Grate half a pound of smoked cheese: cheddar, gouda, monterey jack, anything you like. Put that aside. Then, use a cup of very well cooked, soft beans, that you've mashed a bit, and a pound of sauteed squash. I usually add some Mexican oregano to the squash when I'm cooking it. (I did leave out instructions on how to cook the beans and squash. I am assuming you know how to do it. If you don't, do it with something you do know how to cook.

Now, spread a few spoons of that green sauce on the bottom of a 9x13 baking sheet. Get a tortilla. If it's not soft, lay it down on a hot, ungreased frying pan for a few seconds to a side. That will soften it up real quick. Put a tablespoon of beans, a few pieces of squash, and about a tablespoon of cheese on the tortilla, and roll it up, lengthwise. Keep on doing this until you've filled the pan. You can probably make about a dozen tortillas with this recipe. Then cover them with more green sauce, and sprinkle cheese over the whole thing. Put this in an oven, preheated to 400, for about 30 minutes. Sometimes I cover it with tin foil, and sometimes I don't. After thirty mintues, it's nice and hot and bubbly and you're good to go. You COULD run it under the broiler for a minute or two, but that's really not necessary.

In my full carb days, I would serve this with saffron rice, but these days, I just make a vegetable different than what's in the filling. I really like serving garlicky greens with these enchiladas, but you should pick what you like.

OLE!