Ingredients list
I was well on my way to actually making this last night (Tuesday), but I got a phone call that required me to leave the house for several hours. I ended up eating a Big Mac for dinner. The best laid mice, or something like that.
Tonight was the night though. I got everything laid out and ready to go. The recipes as written were not very specific on what kind of peppers to use for the sauce and the Cebolla con Rajas, so I bought some jalapenos for the former and a poblano for the later. For the cilantro issue, I happened to be in a small garden shop the other day, so I went ahead and bought a live cilantro plant. That had more than enough "sprigs" for me to use, plus I can put it in the garden outside and have some ready for the next time. It certainly didn't cost any more than an oversized bundle from the grocery store, most of which would have gone to waste, so I think that worked out well.
First up was the sauce. I started a large pot of salted water to boil, then peeled the papery husks off the tomatillos and washed them. When the water was boiling, I dumped in the tomatillos and let them cook for 10 minutes. The directions state specifically to cook "until easily pierced by a fork." In the meantime, I used my kitchen shears to cut my sprigs of cilantro, got two garlic cloves peeled and ready, and I opened up one of the jalapeno to remove the seeds and veins. I decided that one would be enough, so I put the other one aside.
I also had time to cut two limes in half and juice them, for use with the steak. I also cut the steak into thin slices, across the grain. These slices were then pounded a bit and set aside.
Once the tomatillos were done, I put them in my colander which was placed over a large bowl, and smushed 'em up good so as to remove the skins and get the rest to flow down into the bowl. I hope it was OK to include the seeds. When I had gotten as much juice as I could, I put the skins aside and put the juice, cilantro, jalapeno and garlic into the blender and pureed it until smooth. In a saucepan, I melted some shortening (the recipe said lard, but I'm not down with that), then tossed in the puree. When it was heated, I added the water and salt. And here was this week's oops. I was halving the recipe, but I forgot and used a full cup of water. So I had to let everything cook down for a nice long time, instead of the 10 minutes called for.
No rest for the wicked with this set of recipes. With the sauce doing it's thing, it was time to "sprinkle" the meat with lime juice and salt liberally. Yeah, right, sprinkle. I got out my Tupperware marinader, put the sliced steak in there and dumped all the lime juice on top. Then I used the sea salt grinder I'd gotten for the soft pretzels from a couple weeks ago and let loose. I put the top on the marinader and gave everything a good shake. I continued to give the container a good shake every 10 minutes or so while I waited for the sauce to cook down.
This gave me some time to get the onions and pepper ready for the Cebolla con Rajas. I cut the poblano into strips (oops, I was supposed to peel it), and attempted to make something like rings from one of the large onions. That didn't work out too well - the onion was so large that there were two inner cores, so to speak. I just cut up as much as I thought I'd need and figured it would all come out in the fry pan.
Things were reaching critical mass now. I had one fry pan with a bit of olive oil in it to saute the onions and peppers (again, skipping the lard, and even the shortening this time). I had another with a small bit of oil in it to soften up the tortillas for the enchiladas (we're getting to that), and I had the sauce on a third burner.
I turned on the oven to 375. Then I heated up the pan for the CcR and got that going. Then I heated the pan for the tortillas. The process went like this - toss a tortilla in the pan to soften up. Bathe it in green sauce. Fill it with diced onion (did I mention dicing the onions yet? Yeah, that happened somewhere along the way) Fold up and place seam side down in a baking dish. There were three tortillas to take care of. Once these were ready, they got topped with more sauce and the parmesan cheese. I had a handful of colby-jack in the fridge, so I tossed that on, as well, because who ever heard of enchiladas made with Parmesan, anyway?
Into the oven for a bit - "until the cheese is melted". Finally it was time to cook up the steak. The directions called for it to be broiled for a minute or two on each side, but I re-used the CcR pan instead. See below.
And then suddenly, everything was ready. I pulled the enchiladas from the oven and placed a couple on my plate. I drained some of the carne on paper towels and then moved it to the plate. In between, I placed the Cebolla con Rajas, and on the side of the plate, a spoonful of guacamole.
Oh, OK, I couldn't go without a drizzle of salsa for some color.
Verdict:
I'm am nearly positive that I've never had an enchilada stuffed with nothing but onions, but here they were. ANd they were really good. On the other hand, this whole meal had a whole lot of onions. The carne itself was fantastic. As a meal, it all went together really well.
On the other hand, in the end, I think making all of this stuff at the same time would have been ambitious even on a weekend day. I really think that this full slate of recipes would require a commercial kitchen. Here I am with the enchiladas in the oven, but the carne is supposed to be broiled. Yeah, maybe if I had a salamander. But I just have the basic suburban kitchen with an electric range. As noted, I used a hot cast iron skillet for the carne and that worked out well enough.
I'll definitely make some carne asada again. The whole sauce, enchiladas, and so on? Yeah, not so much.
Lessons Learned - nothing new this week.
Tools needed - nothing new this week.
Skills needed - I think I know about cutting meat "against the grain" now. I'll have to get a professional opinion.
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