Street Style Enchiladas with Red Sauce

Street style folded enchiladas in red chile sauce topped with radish and crunchy vegetables

Street Style Enchiladas with Red Sauce

Red Chile Enchiladas are as gutsy as street food should be. Tortillas are dipped in a spicy red sauce, fried, folded and simply sprinkled with an assortment of small chopped crunchy vegetables.

Course Mexican

Cuisine Mexican

Prep Time 30

Cook Time 40

Servings

Calories 272kcal

Author Lea Ann Brown

Ingredients

For the red chile sauce
6 cloves garlic unpeeed
6 medium red chile peppers dried, New Mexico or Ancho. Tops torn off and seeds shaken out.
1 teaspoon Dried Oregano Mexican preferred
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 cup chicken broth
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 Tablespoon Cider vinegar
Finishing the Enchiladas
1/4 cup Mexican Queso Cheese crumbled. Cotija or queso anejo
3 leaves Romaine lettuce sliced crosswise into ribbons
1 tablespoon cider vinegar
4 radishes thin sliced
1/4 cup sweet onion fine chopped
3 tablespoons cilantro chopped
1 jalapeno pepper sliced thin, seeds and veins removed if you want less heat
2 medium zucchini cut into matchsticks
10 small Green olives cut in half
12 corn tortillas

Instructions

For the Red Chile Sauce: Heat a skillet over medium high heat. Once the skillet is warm, add the unpeeled garlic. Toast the garlic, turning occasionally, until they turn soft. About 10 minutes. Cool and peel.
Add the dried chile peppers to the hot pan. Press them with a spatula until a wisp of smoke appears. Turn them immediately and toast on the other side. In a bowl, cover the chiles with water and let the soak 30 minutes. Stir them after 15 minutes to make sure they all rehydrate evenly. Drain and discard the water.
Combine oregano, black pepper, cumin, cloves, peeled garlic, chiles and broth in a food processor. Process to a smooth puree, scraping the sides of the bowl every few seconds. Then press the sauce through a medium mesh strainer into a wide shallow bowl. Add 1 tablespoon of vinegar and stir. It should be the consistency of a tomato sauce. Add more broth if needed.
Prepare the toppings. Crumble the Cotija cheese. Slice the lettuce into thin ribbons cutting across the leaves and toss with 1 tablespoon vinegar. Thin slice the radishes. Chop the onion. Chop the cilantro. Slice the jalapeno peppers. Cut the zucchini into matchstick shaped pieces. 1/4 inch thick and about 2 inches long. Cut the green olives in half.
Finish the enchiladas. Heat a small non-stick skillet over medium high heat. Add 1 tablespoon of oil and 1 tablespoon of the red chile sauce. Fry the zucchini sticks until just becoming tender and starting to brown. Remove from heat and set aside. Keep warm.
Preheat oven to 220 degrees. And have an oven safe plates ready for the tortillas once they're fried.
Heat a non-stick skillet over medium heat. Once the pan is hot, add 1 tablespoon oil. One at a time, dip the corn tortillas into the sauce and fry them in the oil for 10 seconds. Don't let the skillet get hot or the tortillas will stick and you'll have a mess.
Using a spatula, flip them and cook on the other side 10 seconds. Transfer them to a plate (3 per plate) folding them in half as you do. Slightly overlapping them. Place each plate of three in the warm oven until you're ready to serve. Continue with the rest of the tortillas. Adding a drizzle of oil when needed.
To serve: Spoon several sticks of the zucchini over the enchiladas. Then add the remaining ingredients keeping them in the middle of each plate of enchiladas. Serve immediately.

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