Enfrijoladas de Pollo

At their most simple, enfrijoladas are bean-dipped corn tortillas filled with cheese, topped with more cheese, and baked. They’re a light, vegetarian staple of Mexican cooking, particularly in the Oaxaca region. Our enfrijoladas, however, are a copy of a breakfast dish served at Carboncitos in Playa del Carmen. Their version starts the same way, with tortillas wrapped around cheese and dipped in a bean puree, instead of a traditional enchilada sauce. But Carboncitos doesn’t stop there: they add shredded chicken to their enfrijolada filling, before covering the finished product in more bean sauce, some Mexican crema, and some crumbled crispy chorizo. What’s that? The idea of eating chicken and chorizo for breakfast doesn’t exactly spell “beach day” to you? This is one-meal-a-day eating, designed to carry you not just through a day of laying in the hot sun, but to also expertly handle the onslaught of cheap tequila that is to come, later in the day.

Of course, we have a few regional notes, for preparing this dish here in Portland, Maine. First, real Mexican chorizo is almost impossible to find. Hannaford isn’t carrying it. Whole Foods only has Spanish-style dried, cured chorizo. The Wal-Mart in Scarborough used to have the bright red, uncooked Mexican-style chorizo, but no more. La Bodega Latina has an uncooked refrigerated Honduran chorizo that comes close, but is a little too coarse in texture. You want your chorizo to turn into a fine, crunchy dust, under the heat of a frying pan. Our solution was to put the Honduran stuff through a food processor for a minute or two, until almost a smooth paste, before frying. We’ll be posting our recipe for homemade Mexican chorizo soon, but for now, this seems like your best bet.

Use any leftover chicken you have; we used some of last week’s leftover fried chicken breasts. Shred the meat with two forks.

You can use junky store-bought corn tortillas for this dish, or make your own, but don’t skip the par-frying step. If you don’t take a minute to pass your tortillas through some hot oil before wrapping them into enchiladas, they’ll fall apart and you’ll have a mess. This is a critical step.

Finally, finish the dish with any pepper you’d like. We used jalapenos, roasted in the same pan as the enfrijoladas during the baking stage. Russell from Carboncitos tells us that they use serrano peppers that they roast over an open fire until blackened but still crispy, to maintain the character of the pepper. If you can’t take the heat, use jalapenos, and strip the ribs and seeds before roasting. It’s okay to leave the blackened skins on.

Enfrijoladas de Pollo
Serves 2-3

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup vegetable oil, plus 2 tablespoons, divided
• 1/2 chopped onion
• 2 garlic cloves, chopped
• 1 16-ounce cans pinto beans, drained
• 3/4 cup milk
• 3/4 cup water
• 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1/3 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1/4 teaspoon dried Mexican oregano
• Pinch of ground cloves (about 1/16 teaspoon)
• Salt and pepper, to taste
• 6 corn tortillas
• 1 1/2 cups shredded Monterey Jack cheese
• 1 1/2 cups cooked shredded chicken
• 5 oz. Mexican chorizo, crumbled
• 1/4 cup Mexican crema, or sour cream thinned with milk
• 1 jalapeno pepper, cut lengthwise into eighths

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Oil a glass baking dish. Heat 1 tablespoon oil in large skillet over medium-high heat. Add onions and garlic and sauté until onions are golden. Add beans, milk, water, and spices; simmer until onions are tender, stirring occasionally, about 10 minutes. Transfer to food processor or blender and puree until smooth. Pour about two cups of the puree into a shallow plate or pan for dipping, and set aside.
2. In a separate frying pan, heat 1/4 cup of oil. Using tongs, add corn tortillas one at a time, for about 20 seconds each, or until tortillas just begin to cook and puff up. Remove to plate. After all tortillas have been par-fried, coat one at a time on both sides in bean mixture. Place in glass baking dish, and fill each tortilla with 1 tablespoon of chicken and one tablespoon of cheese. Fold each tortilla in half, or roll them up. Sprinkle finished enfrijoladas with any remaining cheese. Line any remaining space in the pan with the sliced up peppers; we’ll garnish the finished dish with these, after they are roasted while the enfrijoladas cook.
3. While the enfrijoladas bake, crumble the chorizo into a frying an and fry until very crispy over medium-high heat, breaking up any large pieces with a spoon, about 10 minutes.
4. To serve: Remove enfrijoladas from oven. Place two or three of the rolled tortillas onto a plate, and top with more of the bean mixture, the Mexican crema or sour cream, the crispy chorizo, and the roasted peppers. Serve immediately.

Tagged as: cheese, chicken, chorizo, enfrijoladas, mexican

About the Author: Malcolm Bedell

My first memories of cooking start in Maine at six years old, when I wore a yellow rainslicker to avoid getting spattered by the bacon I was frying in a skillet. My interest in both Mexican cooking and recreating classic New England dishes from scratch developed while living in Mexico, on a steady diet of pork and habanero peppers. You can see more of my writing and photography online on Serious Eats, the Huffington Post, BlogHer, and Foodista, as well as in print for Downeast, Indulge, and Cigar Snob magazines.