Chicken Enchiladas in Spicy Red Sauce by Lucy Burdette #giveaway

LUCY BURDETTE: we love Mexican food in our household, though it’s not that easy to get in our small town in Connecticut. Luckily for my food critic character, Hayley Snow, there is a hole in the wall Mexican restaurant in Key West where she gets a delicious meal just the right moment. (I’ve included a little snippet from the upcoming A DELICIOUS DECEPTION at the end of the recipe—to whet your whistle!)

Today’s recipe is based on one for beef enchiladas that I’ve made a number of times from Once Upon a Chef. In the past, I’ve made chicken enchiladas with a green sauce, but I couldn’t see why this amazing red sauce wouldn’t work just as well. And it did! Next time around, I would also add at least a cup of cooked beans – these could be black beans or kidney beans or whatever is available.

Ingredients.

2 cups cooked shredded chicken (I had roasted a chicken a day or two earlier thinking of this dish)

One medium onion, red or white, your choice

Two cloves garlic, finally chopped

3 tablespoons chili powder

1 teaspoon ground cumin,

1/2 teaspoon dried oregano

3 tablespoons all-purpose flour

8 ounces tomato sauce

2 cups chicken broth

Eight large flour tortillas

2 to 3 cups shredded Mexican cheese blend

(Jenn Siegel at once upon a chef also adds a chopped jalapeño, but I found our chili pepper was spicy enough for our taste. Cook’s choice!)

Chop the onion and the garlic and sauté in olive oil until soft but not brown. And the chili powder, cumin, oregano, and flour and cook this all together for another minute or two. Gradually stir in the tomato sauce and chicken broth to make a sauce.

Add the chicken, and simmer for 10 minutes.

Next put a cup or so of sauce in a greased 9 x 11 pan. Assemble the tortillas by spreading a tablespoon or two of the chicken mixture in the bottom of each tortilla, sprinkle with a thick coating of grated cheese and roll them up. Tuck them all into the pan. If any sauce remains, spread it over the top of the tortillas then sprinkle with more cheese.

Bake about 15 minutes until the sauce is bubbling and the cheese melted and beginning to brown.

Serve with a green salad or asparagus or something else in the Green family.

GIVEAWAY:  To enter the drawing for TWO Key West mysteries, one to keep and one to share, sign up for my mailing list, and leave a comment including the name of the person you'd most love to share a book with!

A DELICIOUS DECEPTION will be here before we know it—hitting bookstores on July 14! In this installment, Hayley is quite pregnant, which makes everyone around her worry about her urge to find a missing girl…

“Wait,” said Darcy. She held up her hand. “Say it again. You went back up there on your own? Are you out of your mind?”

I sat back in my folding chair, crossing my arms over the bulge of the baby. “No, just a concerned citizen. Very concerned, since you yourself pulled me into this mess in the first place. You seem to be sidelined, so I thought I could do some light investigating on my own, talking with a couple of perfectly friendly women. I did not approach or contaminate the crime scene. A little girl is missing and I for one feel some urgency about finding her.”

Darcy slumped in her chair, silent for once. Rivulets of tears ran down Louise’s cheeks. I began to open the bags of food and extract our dinner.

“Mmm, this smells very good. I’ve never eaten here. This is from the little hole in the wall on Bertha Street?” I quirked my eyebrows. Darcy was not known as a foodie. “How in the world did you find this place?”

“The deputies often stop here mid-shift,” she said, dishing up a plate of chicken fajitas, rice, beans, and guacamole and pushing it towards me. “The salsa has tons of flavor but not too much heat.”

 A DELICIOUS DECEPTION, coming July 14 at a bookstore near you!

USA Today bestselling author Lucy Burdette writes the Key West food critic mystery series including A POISONOUS PALATE and A CLUE IN THE CRUMBS. Join her mailing list right here.

Chicken and Black Bean Enchiladas @LucyBurdette

LUCY BURDETTE: We love enchiladas in my household, but the jarred sauce is often loaded with sodium (as are store-bought tortillas--yikes.) This recipe for homemade sauce caught my eye and it turned out to be delicious—it probably tastes the most like authentic Mexican restaurant enchilada sauce of any I’ve tried. It’s not a last-minute recipe so start ahead. In fact, one good idea would be to double the sauce and freeze half of it so you have some pre-made for next time...

You can change up the contents of the tortillas as you like. Cookie and Kate concentrated on artichokes and spinach, but I used chicken from a roast I made earlier in the week, plus black beans from black bean soup (ditto, earlier dinner), and some leftover spinach. The sauce is so good that you could use any filling—all vegetable, ground beef and rice, the options are endless. (And for future reference...)

Here’s another of my favorite enchilada recipes with green tomatillo sauce.

And here’s one made with fresh tomatoes. 

And here’s the black bean soup recipe, that came from Death on the Menu. 

 Now back to today's recipe!

INGREDIENTS

Homemade red enchilada sauce (yields 2 cups sauce)

• 3 tablespoons olive oil

• 3 tablespoons flour

• 2 teaspoons ground chili powder

• 1 teaspoon cumin

• ½ teaspoon garlic powder

• ¼ teaspoon dried oregano

• ⅛ teaspoon ground cinnamon

• 2 tablespoons tomato paste

• 2 cups vegetable broth (check for sodium levels in broth too!)

• 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar 

• Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Enchiladas

• 2 tablespoons olive oil

• 1 cup chopped red onion (about 1 small red onion)

• 2 cloves garlic, minced

• 2 cups black beans (homemade is best, but you can also use canned—rinse and drain before adding)

• 1 (4-ounce) can green chilis, drained

• 12 ounces baby spinach, preferably organic

• 1-2 cups shredded chicken

• ¼ cup sour cream, plus more for serving

• Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

• 6 (8-inch) whole wheat or regular tortillas

• 1 and 1/2 cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese (mine had hot peppers in it for more zip)

• Handful chopped cilantro, for garnish

Measure out the spices and flour for the sauce before you start cooking. Heat the olive oil and add the spices, stirring until fragrant. Add the tomato paste and mix that in well. Next slowly add the broth—this will resemble making gravy, keep whisking until it has thickened.  Off the heat, add in the vinegar and taste to see if it needs seasoning. Set that aside.

For the enchiladas, sauté the onion and garlic in oil until soft. Add your chilis and spinach and cook this until the liquid has evaporated. Add chicken and beans to heat through. Mix in the sour cream and 2/3 of the cheese.

Grease a 9x13 pan and pour a half or so of the sauce into the bottom. Divide the filling between the 6 tortillas, roll them up, and nestle them into the sauce. Sprinkle with more cheese. Bake at 375 for about 25 minutes, until the sauce bubbles, cheese is melting, and tortillas are beginning to brown. Add more sour cream if you like it for serving, and sprinkle with cilantro for garnish.

And that's what will happen! Enjoy!

The 11th book in Lucy's Key West food critic mystery series, A Scone of Contention, is on bookshelves near you. You can find it wherever books are sold!

A scone-by-scone tour of glorious Scotland. Foodies and Outlander fans will rejoice in the references to both in this not-so-mysterious paean to Scotland. –Kirkus

Chicken Enchiladas with Red Sauce @lucyburdette #recipe

LUCY BURDETTE: I love red enchilada sauce but when I had to curtail my sodium, it went off the list of foods I could choose. The restriction has eased up now but I’m still careful—probably lots of us could do with less. And if you start looking, you'll find it's hidden in everything! When I spotted Sylvia from Feasting at Home’s recipe for easy, fresh red enchilada sauce, I knew I could tweak it. Especially since we have a windfall of tomatoes in the garden that we can’t eat fast enough.

Ingredients for the sauce

2 generous cups of tomatoes (Sylvia used a 14.5 ounce can diced fire-roasted tomatoes) 
¼ cup water
2 Tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon  apple cider vinegar
2 teaspoons chili powder
1 large garlic clove
1 teaspoon cumin
1/4  teaspoon chipotle powder  (or smoked paprika for smoky flavor)
1 teaspoon dried oregano
Fresh parsley or cilantro

Whir it all together in the blender. Taste and adjust seasoning. That’s it!

I left out the salt altogether, knowing I’d be making my chicken enchiladas with lots of cheese. But you be the judge!

For the enchiladas

1/2 roast chicken, skinned and deboned
1 red onion
1 large pepper
1 can black beans, drained
4 oz Cheddar Cheese, grated--save 1/3 for topping
1/2 cup Plain yogurt or sour cream
Handful of cilantro, chopped
8 whole grain enchilada skins

Slice the onion and pepper and saute in a little olive oil. Drain and rinse the beans. Shred the cheese. Mix all of these ingredients together. 

Pour half the tomato red sauce into a 9 by 13 pan. Roll the filling into 8 enchilada skins and tuck them into the sauce. 

Pour the rest of the sauce over the top, sprinkle with cheese and cilantro.

Bake at 350 about 35 minutes until browning and bubbly. Serve with a green vegetable. (Next time, I think I'd use more cheese and sour cream, but the sauce gives these a wonderful flavor.)

Lucy Burdette writes the Key West food critic mystery series, featuring fiesty food critic Hayley Snow. Number 9, A DEADLY FEAST, is in stores and online everywhere. THE KEY LIME CRIME will be published next summer. 

"Hayley and Nathan make an appealing pair, and the food descriptions and Key West atmosphere are equally enticing—a sure bet to draw readers of foodie mysteries."

—Booklist

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Chicken Enchiladas in Tomatillo Sauce

LUCY BURDETTE: I've waited all summer for tomatillos to show up somewhere--in my garden, in the grocery store, or at the farmer's market. We used to have plants that reseeded themselves every year, but I suspect that the flooding we had during hurricanes Irene and then Sandy wiped them out. 

So when I noticed a basket of them--finally-- at the farmers’ market a couple of weeks ago, I snatched them up. My favorite thing to make with them is a green enchilada sauce. It isn’t hard and it freezes just fine so if you make extra, you can save half for a winter supper. These yummy enchiladas don't take long, especially if you have access to half a roasted chicken.

For the green sauce:

*15 or so medium tomatillos (Remove the paper husks and then wash them) You can also include a few green tomatoes if you're short on the tomatillos
*1/2 box organic chicken broth (or homemade of course if you have that lying around:)
*1 onion, quartered
*1-3 cloves garlic
*1/2 bunch cilantro, washed well, stems removed, coarsely chopped (I know some folks don't like cilantro--and I'm sorry for you:). I think you could substitute parsley.)

Place tomatillos, onion, garlic, and chicken broth in a pan and simmer about ten minutes until the veggies are soft. 

Cool and pulse in a food processor, adding the cilantro at the end. The sauce should not be entirely smooth, just a little chunky texture. Set that aside. If you’re cooking the enchiladas right away, oil a 9 x 13 inch pan and pour the sauce in. Preheat the oven to 350.

For the enchiladas:

*1 package tortillas (whole wheat tastes just as good as white and is better for you:)
*1/2 roasted chicken, deboned, de-skinned, and shredded
*2-3 green or red peppers, halved and sliced
*1 onion, halved and sliced (white is fine but red is prettier)
*4-5 ounces cheddar or Monterey Jack cheese, shredded
*1/2 cup sour cream or Greek yogurt

Saute the onions and peppers in a tsp of olive oil until soft, then combine them with the chicken, cheese, and sour cream or yogurt. Spread a heaping spoonful in the center of each burrito skin and roll tightly. Nestle these into the sauce in the pan. Top with a little extra shredded cheese and a tablespoon or two of the green sauce. Bake for 1/2 hour or until bubbly. Serve with an extra dollop of sour cream if desired.




Lucy Burdette is the author of the Key West food critic mysteries. MURDER WITH GANACHE will be out in February, but you can pre-order it now.

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