True story.
I wrote my menu for this week without a thought for Cinco de Mayo. Somehow, Beef Enchiladas with Homemade Enchilada Sauce (from The Chunky Chef) on a bed of Cilantro Lime Rice (from Add a Pinch) was scheduled for dinner tonight.
In my twenty-five years of marriage, I’ve only had enchiladas while eating out. This past March, I decided it was about time to add them to our menu. This is only my second go at making them.
The first time we made them, they turned out good. We didn’t have enough cheese and we didn’t make enough sauce. We also managed to burn the spices in the hot oil while making the sauce, giving it a strange color.
This time, not only were we prepared with more cheese, but my Grad‘s boyfriend was over and he makes enchiladas regularly. There was no way it wasn’t going to be great.
This was everyone’s first time making cilantro lime rice, but it’s a very simple recipe so the only question is whether or not it goes well with the enchiladas.
I’m serving side salad for a vegetable tonight.
We used bakery fresh flour tortillas from HEB because they taste (almost) like homemade.
Our alterations:
Tonight, we doubled the sauce recipe but didn’t double the meat. We still ended up needing to make one more batch of sauce, for a total of THREE TIMES the amount of sauce called for in the recipe.
Baker only put about half the chili powder in the first batch of sauce. We all agreed the second batch, where she used about two-thirds the amount of chili powder called for in the recipe, nailed the flavor.
When making the sauce, we added all the seasonings to some oil and mixed that well before adding it to the hot oil. This preserved the color and infused the flavor of the seasonings into the oil.
We used 29 tortillas.
Grad’s boyfriend assembled the enchiladas (gotta have this guy over more often), putting cheese inside before rolling them. When they were all in the pan, he topped them with cheese, sauce, and more cheese.
Results:
The enchilada sauce had great flavor, especially the second batch, and beautiful color. The enchiladas were nice and cheesy. The cilantro lime rice paired up well with them and had a good, subtle lime flavor.
They were amazing!
Happy Cinco de Mayo everyone.
10 Texas Transplants 