Green Chicken

Regular readers will know that The Well-Filled Tortilla is a well-worn cookbook in Casa Hayes-Boh.  This volume by Victoria Wise and Susanna Hoffman is one of the first cookbooks we purchased, at a wonderful independent book store in Tucson over 20 years ago.

The contents are as varied as the taco genre itself. Some recipes -- such as one featuring squid and olives -- are never likely to emerge from our kitchen, but this book remains one that allows us to carry out the original mission of this blog: using the many unused pages of cookbooks that were already on our shelves.

Noticing that I had both a bit of spare time and a few tortillas available, I thumbed through this familiar volume and found a title I had not read carefully before: Red or Green Chicken.

¿Qué?

It turns out, the colors do not refer to the chicken, nor to nautical channel markings. Rather, the authors refer to salsa options within the recipe. I chose green, in the form of a commercial tomatillo salsa, because a decent homemade salsa verde is way out of season around here.

This was a fairly simple, if messy, recipe. I opted for working with boneless, skinless chicken, which I simply boiled until cooked through and then shredded. (To shred chicken Mexican-restaurant style, simpy place it in a bowl and tear at it with two ordinary forks until it is course or fine strands.) Meanwhile, I chopped a couple of onions and cooked them -- in our indispensable cast-iron skillet -- in olive oil with plenty of oregano and a little salt until soft and translucent. I then mixed in the shredded chicken thoroughly over low heat.

I then rolled about 1/3 cup of this mix into each tortilla. I followed the recipe's instruction to soften teach tortilla with a little oil on the griddle first. This made rolling them up rather more messy than need be, and a little painful. In future I'll revert to one of two other methods we use for softening tortillas: microwaving for 30 seconds while loosely wrapped in a paper towel or heating for a few seconds on a hot but dry griddle.

In any case, I placed the rolled-up tortillas (now known as enchiladas) into a baking pan. Six of them fit nicely. I then covered with a cup of the aforementioned salsa verde, followed by a generous cup (maybe close to two) of shredded cheese. I used (Monterrey) pepper jack with a little sharp cheddar, both from our favorite farmer-owned cheese company.  I baked at 350F for 12 minutes.

The result: mildly piquant, slightly complex, creamy, filling, and delicious. Not photogenic, but delicious. We will definitely be making this again!