Mexican Cooking Class: Seafood Enchiladas baked with our tasty homemade Enchilada sauce.

Our recipe features fresh seafood, any favorite combination will do; scallops, shrimp, crab, or a mild whitefish, like halibut or rockfish. Try our version of red chile enchilada sauce for this dish or, if you really must, use canned or prepared sauce.

Spring 2011 021

A Cook With Us recipe
Seafood Enchilada / Enchilada Mariscos
Spring 2011 021 Pairing the best of two worlds……Baja’s abundance of seafood with the homey “peasant food” of the interior regions of Mexico.

• 12 corn tortillas, day old
• 2 cups, red chile enchilada sauce
• ¼ cup butter
• ¼ cup flour
• 1 cup of poaching broth from scallops, white fish, or crab
• 1 small onion finely chopped
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 16 oz. poached seafood, chunked
• 3 pitted green olives, chopped
• 2 roma tomatoes, seeded and diced
• 1 cup combined chile poblano and sweet red peppers, roasted, peeled, chopped
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 1 cup queso manchego cheese or Monterey jack cheese, grated or cubed
• 1/2 cup Mexican queso cotijo or Mexican hard cheese, crumbled
• 1/4 cup chopped cilantro for garnish

Prepare filling:
Heat butter in medium saucepan, sauté the onion and garlic, cook until soft but not brown. Whisk in the flour; cook and stir mixture over low heat until blended. (2-3 min.) Add 1 cup of cooled broth, stirring constantly until thickened. Add the seafood, olives, tomatoes and peppers and cook for 5 minutes until heated through.

Prepare enchilada:
Heat one cup of enchilada sauce in a sauté pan.

Lightly grease a Comal or skillet. Fry tortilla on each side until slightly crisp. Using tongs, place one tortilla at a time in the hot sauce. Hold 2-3 seconds until tortilla is softened. Flip over and repeat. Place on a cookie sheet.

Spoon filling onto each tortilla, roll up and place seam side down in ovenproof dish. Cover with grated or cubed queso manchego or Monterey jack cheese. Bake for 10 minutes uncovered in 350 degree oven.

Add remaining sauce to pan and quickly reheat, pour sauce over enchiladas, cover pan with foil and bake for another 10 minutes in a 350 degree oven. Remove foil and sprinkle enchiladas with queso anejo and chopped cilantro. Serve with Mexican crema drizzled over the top.

Serves 6

Enchilada Sauce / Enchilada Salsa
This is our version of the canned enchilada sauce found on supermarket shelves. It’s easy to make and much more flavorful than the store bought variety.

• 6 roma tomatoes, charred
• 2 serrano chiles, charred
• 4 cloves garlic, unpeeled, charred
• 2 cups chicken broth
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 tablespoon achiote paste*
• 1 tablespoon ancho chile powder*
• 1 teaspoon Mexican oregano
• ½ teaspoon cumin
• sea salt, to taste

Char the tomatoes, serranos, and unpeeled garlic on a hot dry comal or skillet. Remove tomatoes and serranos when softened and lightly blackened, place in a blender. Remove garlic when softened; cool, peel, and place in the blender. Add one cup of broth to blender and puree ingredients until smooth.

Heat the vegetable oil over medium high heat in a deep skillet. Strain the contents of blender into the skillet. Add the rest of the seasonings and remaining broth, cook over medium heat for approximately fifteen minutes or until sauce reduces and thickens somewhat. Adjust seasonings to taste.

Makes 2 cups

*ancho chile powder may be purchased at Mexican grocery stores.

*achiote seasoning paste is available at Mexican grocery stores.

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