Authentic Enchiladas - In the ZONE

This is a recipe for Chicken enchiladas that have few ingredients but taste terrific. I counted everything up and this recipe will yield 1.2-1.3 blocks of each protien, carbs and fat per enchilada. 

Ingredients:

Either 1 whole chicken, cut up - or a pack of chicken breasts with shin and bones.

2 onions

1 large clove garlic

some fresh cilantro

1 jalepeno raw - more if you like it spicy

1 large can of Tomatillos or 12-14 raw ones but alot more trouble

Chicken stock - made from boiling your chicken, no need to buy it

1 pack of Corn Tortillas

1 tbl canola oil

2 tbl sour cream

1-2 ounces of Cotija Cheese (mexican parmesean) or regular parm will work fine.

Boil all of your chicken in a large stock pot. Throw a cut up onion in with it as well as a little salt and pepper to give the broth some flavor. Do not over boil the chicken, a whole chicken cut up shouldn't take more than 10 minutes. Secret to boiling chicken is letting it cool in the pot, this will make it much more juicy. Boil for 10 minutes then let it come to room temp. Pull all the skin off the chicken and shred it up with your fingers by pulling it apart. You will need around 10 ounces of this chicken. Save the broth for later. Add 2 tablespoons of Sour cream to the bowl of chicken and dice up half of an onion and throw that too. Mix well and set in fridge till needed.

Next open your can of Tomatillos and dump all of them in a blender. Add 1/2 of an onion, the clove of garlic, the jalepeno pepper (seeds removed) and 4-6 sprigs of the cilantro (you can't really overdo this so don't worry about what a sprig is). Puree all of this for around 20 seconds, nothing should ever be blended for more than 20 seconds. Now take a frying pan and get a tablespoon of your oil hot enough to make a drop of the puree sizzle when it hit the pan. When its hot pour all of the puree in the pan. Continue to cook this until the color darkens slightly and thickens, around 4-8 minutes, you wll have to keep it stirred. Next add 2 cups of the stock you boiled the chicken in. Continue to stir and cook until it thickens enough to stick to the back of a spoon - around 8-10 minutes.

Preheat your oven to 400. At this time get your tortillas ready by getting a flat pan piping hot on the stove - no oil. I used 9 tortillas for this and it came out close enough for my blocks. Place each tortilla in the hot pan for a few seconds on each side. remove and stack on a plate. All you are doing here is heating them up and making them pliable so they wont break when you roll them up.

Get a small casserole dish ready, you don't need to grease it. Get a small plate loaded with a little of the green sauce. Take each tortilla a dip in the sauce on both sides, I just lay it on the plate and then flip it over back into the sauce, you are just coating it with a little of the sauce. Next do your best spooning enough of the chicken mixture into the tortilla so you will run out of chicken when you run out of tortillas. Roll each tortilla up and lay in the casserole dish. 9 fit perfectly in my little dish. Take all the remaining sauce and pour it over everything. Finally top it off with the cheese, sprinkle over the entire dish. Cook in the oven for probably 12-18 minutes but keep and eye on it. Take it out when it is bubbling around the edges.

Your done, this is one of my favorite meals ever full of healthy ingredients. I know the tortillas are not the best carb source but they are better than flour and the Onions, tomatillos, garlic and pepper are great for you.

Enjoy