I bought a can of this the other day, and I thought I’d check the website to see if they had any particularly scrumptious recipes for it. I was somewhat surprised to learn that despite its name, none of the recipes for enchiladas called for using it. Ortega sauce or salsa, yes. Las Palmas, no. I’ve looked at a couple of Spanish dictionaries online, and the translation for enchilada is indeed what I thought it was: filled tortilla. It doesn’t seem to mean a cooking sauce, which is the meaning implied when reading the website. I remain confused.
Oh well, it was too damned hot this evening to make the things anyway.
Update: Tonight it cooled down. I diced up one bunch of green onions (including tops), added a can of diced mild green chiles, about half-a-can of sliced olives, a cup-and-a-half of cheese (Cheddar/Jack mix), and a can of shredded crabmeat. Zapped some corn tortillas for a minute or so to soften, then put 2/3 of that filling inside ’em. Poured about 3/4 of the can of sauce over all that, then put the balance of the filling on top. Baked for 1/2 hour at 350 degrees. It was really good, but I might add more crabmeat next time; I think it got overwhelmed by the other flavors.
You do put a sauce on enchiladas. Generally you pour it over the whole mess of enchiladas and then stick ’em in the oven.
(she said, whilst eating homemade enchiladas for lunch…)
Well, yeah. The B&G site has about 20 recipes for enchiladas, all of them a variation on filling covered with sauce. What struck me as funny was calling it enchilada sauce but not using it in enchiladas.
I’d make ’em more often, but the quantities always mean leftovers, and we’re not good on leftovers. đ
You take the tortillas, put cheese and anything else you want in them. Roll and arrange artfully (or not — you call and/or talent skill — mine are never pretty!) Put more cheese over the top. Pour sauce (whatever you got on hand — Ortega, pace, that stuff, something you threw together!) over the top of that. More cheese. Bake. Eat.
Cuss because you burned your tongue on the hot cheese and can’t taste anything anymore! Very hard to screw up enchiladas.
Well, I learned something from reading the comments made to your post. Maybe I’ll try some of that stuff. I hope you let us know when and if you use the stuff.
Cas
Maybe you can make a milkshake with it?
I do something very weird, but tasty to make enchiladas — I brown grated potatoes and zucchini, ground turkey (or whatever I have around), onion, cilantro, and peppers(bell for the kids, hot stuff for Mom and Dad) and cumin and then put that on top of cheese in the tortillas, wrap ’em up, cover ’em in sauce and cheese and bake for about 20 minutes in the oven.
Ruby, the zucchini is new to me, but I’ve had some kind of Mexican dish which incorporated meat and potatoes in the tortilla. Or maybe it was some inspired cook like yourself. đ
The tacos I used to order at a restaurant in Houston had potatoes in it. The waiter always double checked that they were what I wanted because (they said) only Mexicans ordered them. Whatever. They were scrumptious.
The way I do enchiladas is easy: I layer the ingredients (cheese, onions, meat, etc.) and tortillas like a lasagne. I dip each tortilla in the sauce before layering and then pour the remaining sauce over the whole thing. Much easier. And hey, who cares what they look like as long as they taste good?