Friday, June 20, 2008

Enchiladas with Sital's Special Sauce --- Dish 1 of the Mexican Dinner

We (my mom - who is visiting me and I) had invited Dhrumil's parents and sister, who are visiting from India over for dinner yesterday. My mom was suggesting Indian food cos, she wasn't sure if they would like any other cuisines.. Normally, I would be up for that, but I've had too much Indian food last week, so, I wanted to cook something else.. Now, the closest thing (in my mind) that comes to Indian food and is also easy to cook is Mexican food.. So, I decided to just make Cheese and Onion Enchiladas (Generic Recipe with Sital's Special Sauce), Mexican Rice (Medhakaki's Recipe) and Warm Corn and Zucchini Salad (My Recipe). We served all this with Fruit Punch and Ginger Ale (Mom's Recipe). And for Appetizers, I made Guacamole (Raja's Recipe) and served it with Tortilla Chips. And then for dessert, we had Strawberry Rhubarb Pie (Shaw's Recipe ;-)). All the food was amazing and everyone loved it.. Dhrumil's dad said that he generally doesn't like foods other than Indian food, but, he loved this.. Yea!! Here is the recipe for the Cheese and Onion Enchilada with Sital's Special Sauce..

Ingredients:
15 Flour Tortillas Soft Taco Size
1 Tsp Butter to grease baking pan
1 Large Yellow Onion Diced
2 8oz Packets of Mexican Flavored Shredded Cheese
3 Cans of Refried Beans (Your favorite flavor, we used a mixture of Ranchero and Original)
1 Red Onion Diced
1 Green Pepper Diced
1 Red Pepper Diced
1 Can of Tomato Puree
1/2 Cup water
1 Tsp of Red Chilli powder or 2 Jalapenos finely chopped
Salt to taste
1/2 Cup Corn Oil
1/2 Cup Sour Cream

Method:
Sital's Special Sauce:
1. In a sauce pan heat up about 2 Tbsp of Corn oil on high heat.
2. Once the oil is hot, sauteé the onions till they are translucent
3. Next add the peppers and sauteé them for a few minutes
4. Now add the tomato Puree and mix well
5. Then add the Chilly power or Jalapenos and add some salt to taste
6. Next add about 1/2 cup of water
7. Reduce the heat to medium low and let this sauce cook till you are ready to top the enchilads

Tortillas (This step should be done when you are almost ready for filling):
1. Start Pre-Heating your oven to 350F
2. Add the rest of the corn oil in a frying pan and heat this up till its at frying temperature
3. Take 1 tortilla at a time and fry this for 2 - 3 seconds on each side till they start puffing up just a little
4. Remove it from the frying pan and lay it on paper towels to drain the excess oil

Filling + Baking + Serving
1. In a microwave safe bowl, heat up the refried beans for about 2 minutes

2. Next form a little assembly line on your counter as shown in the picture
3. Grease your baking sheet with butter.
4. Take 1 fried tortilla, lay it on your assembly plate
5. Lay about 4 Tbsps of refried beans in a line in the center of the tortilla
6. Sprinkle the beans with about 2 tbsp of onions and 2 tbsps of cheese
7. Fold the left half of tortilla half way till it covers the beans
8. Fold the right half of the tortilla over this.
9. Hold this folded tortilla with 2 hands between your thumb and 2 fingers with the thumb at the bottom and fingers holding the tortilla shut
10. Now flip the tortilla such that your thumb is on the top taking care that the tortilla remains shut
11. Lay this inverted tortilla on your baking sheet
12. Repeat Steps 4 through 11 for the rest of the tortillas.
13. Pour the Enchilada sauce over the tortillas (About 1 medium ladle full for each tortilla) such that they are completely covered in sauce
14. Sprinkle the rest for the cheese on the sauce
15. Bake this in the pre-heated oven for 10-15 minutes or untill the cheese starts to bubble
16. Remove it from the oven and let it sit for couple minutes
17. Serve this fairly hot with couple dollops of sour cream and enjoy!

5 comments:

Unknown said...

I loved it and I am sure she will make it for me again when ever I tell her because I am so nice to her. Also I loved Guacamole (Thanks to Raja).

deepa said...

OMG...I'm sooo craving mexican food now!! Tanvi like you I've gotten tired of having so much Indian food lately. The whole menu sounded really good. I loved the assembly line diagram! I'm glad you don't have pictures of the food cause I really don't think I could have handled it.
Hey, I've heard Sital makes a pretty good chimichanga...jus giving you ideas for next time;-)
BTW, if you have any left overs eat some for me.

Maver1ck said...

the gaucomole and enchiladas were wonderful - and that Corn 'thingee' was good too!!! too bad there are no leftovers!!!

Tanvi said...

Hmm.. Chimichangas sound good.. You should come over and enjoy them too...

rhythm fadia-maniar said...

hi........nice illustrations...and of course the recipe is good...will make indian variation of it with whatevr i get here sometime soon and let u know how it turned out.....overall the menu sounds yummy...cant wait for remaining recipes