Beautiful plating!
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Gorgerous presentation.
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Thanks y’all. I made a lot of soup and wanted to keep it kinda’ plain and use the swirls to add different flavor profiles. Tonight’s was going to be Harissa but after that macha-pulco I decided to give our tummies a break… we ate it plain. 
Salsa macha is spicy and hot, but it shouldn’t be knock your socks off and curl your toes hot. A dab of honey sometimes (but not always) helps tame the heat a bit.
Oh great! I was thinking someone will inherit it, lol, because I won’t finish it in a lifetime! Honey sounds perfect. I’m already thinking of the possibility.
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Encacahuatado…also known as peanut mole.
I’ve had this recipe for a long time but haven’t made it in at least 6 or 7 years. I got it at a conference at the CIA San Antonio from chef Roberto Santibanez. I think there is a very similar recipe in his cookbook Truly Mexican.
Guajillos and chile de arbols are toasted (I did not deseed) and peanuts are fried until deep golden brown. They are soaked in chicken stock (which I used) or water along with black peppercorns, cloves, Mexican oregano and dried thyme. While those are soaking, roast some tomatoes and garlic and then put everything into a Vita-Mix and blend until ultra-smooth. Strain.
Heat some oil in a large saute pan and add the sauce, fry for a few minutes and then simmer for about an hour adding more liquid if it gets too thick, which it will. It’s finished with salt, sugar and white vinegar. I served this with chicken, rice and green beans.
In Mexico, it’s all about the sauce, not the center of the plate protein or the sides. I actually ended up adding more sauce to this plate. The sauce was velvety and silky as a mole should be. The flavor was balanced, nothing predominated, not even the peanuts, and muy rico…
Encacahuatado isn’t the most famous of the mole dishes and I always forget about it. It’s not hard to make and it’s way better than the sum of it’s parts.
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Anyone have a great red enchilada sauce recipe?
I have one. Not a great one.
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Oh yum… I love molé and I love peanuts.
This is a pretty easy enchilada sauce. It works best with cheese, chicken and, believe it or not, scrambled eggs.
Easy Red Enchilada Sauce
1 lb. Roma tomatoes, broiled (you do not need to peel the tomatoes)
1 garlic clove peeled (you can add 1 or 2 more if you like garlic)
2 Serrano chiles (seed them if you want a mild sauce, leave them in if you like heat)
2 Tbl of a neutral veg oil (like avocado oil)
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 Cup sour cream at room temperature
Put all the ingredients except the salt and sour cream in a blender and whirl until you get a smooth sauce. In a Vita-Mix it’ll take about 30 seconds or less. In my mother’s old Oster blender from the 60s it took about a minute and a half, maybe a little longer on the highest speed. To get a really smooth sauce strain the mixture into a bowl through a fine mesh strainer to remove any bits the blender missed.
Heat the veg oil in a skillet and add the tomato mixture. Cook for about 5 minutes or until the sauce has reduced and thickened up. Add the salt and set aside to cool.
When you are ready to dip and fill, add the sour cream and stir/whisk until it is very well combined and then gently heat. Do not let the sauce come to a boil after adding the sour cream as it tends to break.
Once the sauce is heated through and warm, you can fry, dip, fill and roll/fold.
This makes about 2 cups of enchilada sauce which is enough to cover 8 tortillas generously or 10-12 if you’re stingy with the sauce.
The sauce can be augmented or extended with a can of your favorite El Pato red sauce.
And, in the interest of full disclosure, this sauce recipe appeared as part of a larger recipe in Diana Kennedy’s first book the Cuisines of Mexico. I’ve been using only the enchilada sauce part of the reicpe off and on for years, in part because I liked the flavor but also because it’s easy, I don’t have to fuss with dried chiles, I can modify it to fit my mood, and doesn’t make a boatload of sauce; I can use up 1 batch of sauce with 1 small batch of enchiladas.
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This really is what a lot of Mexican families do! My mom still has cans of El Pato in the cupboard for doctoring up dishes.
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Las Palmas too for the Pozole…
I like my enchilada sauce to be more on the enchile side…
I toast up some de-seed dried chiles… about three guajillos and four pujas. Then on the same comal, take a quarter onion and three garlic gloves and get them nice and charry. I soak the chiles for about 20 minutes in hot water. Then, remove them and add them to the blender. Toss the soaking liquid. Blend them with the quarter onion, garlic cloves, sea salt and some mexican oregano. Add Chicken broth to get a nice saucy consistency (I usually just use my chicken poaching liquid. Poach one large chicken breast, skin in on with garlic, bay leaf, four whole peppercorns, sea salt and a smashed garlic clove). Should be about 2 cups. You can also add some ground cumin if that is your jam.
Then, I lightly fry my torilla in one skillet and add the enchilada sauce in another pan right next to it. As soon as the tortilla gets a crisp edge, dip in the enchilada sauce, roll up with your choice of filling, then arrange in a oven safe dish. Once they are all done, pour the remaining sauce over the completed enchiladas, sprinkle with mexican cheese and put in oven covered so that the cheese gets a little melty.
Serve with a drizzle of sour cream, freshly chopped WHITE onion and shredded lettuce. Chopped tomato and avocado if you wish as well
If you need more of a ‘guide’ this recipe from Diana Kennedy is pretty spot on, but a bit precious.
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I like all types of enchiladas (cheese filling being my favorite). But when I make them at home I do the jiffy version of @Dommy’s. Jiffy meaning the sauce is from granulated, dried or powdered chilis, garlic, onions, oregano, etc. I also do a hot oil bath in one pan then in enchilada sauce in a separate pan. Like @DiningDiva & @aaqjr I usually have a can of enchilada sauce in the cupboard to stretch it if needed, but it’s La Victoria or some other brand that doesn’t have tomato purée.
Maybe now that I don’t have impatient & hungry young dudes in the house I’ll reconstitute my neglected dried pods and do a proper sauce. 
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Whenever traveling in Arizona… pick some of this stuff up… It makes a great Enchilada sauce without the heat. I always keep it on hand because I have a few cousins that do not do chile (Don’t ask… PLEASE.) and they will only eat my Pozole and Barbacoa recipes because No pica…
https://santacruzchili.com/online-products/ols/products/chile-powder-mild-chl-pwd-mld1
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Looks great. As much as I like heat I’m not a big fan of spicy enchiladas. And my stepsons - who are Mexican-American with a mom & abuela who love lotsa’ heat - act like you’re trying to kill them if you make anything spicy. 
Bookmarking!
To further the Enchilada discussion… in Mexico my favorite enchiladas are the ones you find on the street. They are made in this special Enchilada comal and are just fried with sauce and folded with some cheese in the middle. Then they are topped with meats. It’s kinda like sloppy chilaquiles! So to my delight… Brenda from the spin off La Cocina en el Rancho just dropped a video on how to make these… Her enchilada sauce is also the same… just chiles… but for added freshness and brightness… she also tops it with a tomato based salsa once the dish is assembled. This was never to my taste, but lots of Mexicans, including my mom can not have any dish without some kinda ‘fresh’ salsa on top.
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Enchiladas Placeras!! Specialty of Michoacan. They are fantastic
If you are like me and LOOOOOVEEEE Cofax’s Salsa Verde… Noah is going to do a live stream of the components of the recipe tomorrow 1/11. He revealed that Cofax’s secret are that the Tomatatillos are smoked (Makes so much sense!) but that the salsa can be made by any number of ways… Boiling, which adds a nice smooth taste to the tomatillos, Roasting which adds sweetness and even fire grilled (My favorite way!)
If you miss the stream, he often puts them up in his stories 
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