Chilaquiles scunish

Post at Aug 08, 2010 22:16:

Chilaquiles NICSA

by scunish

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3336696

Let me warn you, GWS, I am no cook. There are three, maybe four dishes that I can reliably make without them turning out inedible somehow. Thanks to my very patient wife, this dish has become one of them! Mostly. They didn't come out as good this time, I think because I caved under the pressure. This is the best Sunday morning breakfast, especially if you're hungover. You may return immediately to sleep after eating it, however. Be warned.

In any case, here are some chilaquiles for you. Enjoy!

Ingredients:

• 1 8oz. bag dried California Chiles
• 2-4 oz dried Pasilla-Ancho chiles
• 4 Tbsp olive oil (or any oil, it's all I had in the cupboard) - more, if needed
• 2 tsp kosher salt
  • More Kosher salt to taste
• 1 1/2 tsp cumin
• 1/4 cup cream
• 4 cloves garlic
• 10 corn tortillas
• 8 eggs (use less if you want, I like mine egg-tastic)
• 5 oz. Queso Fresco (you can use Jack cheese if you prefer to white it up)
• Enough cilantro to garnish

First, you'll want to boil some water in a large cookpot and drop all of your chiles into it, stems, seeds, and all. Just smash the chiles down with a wooden spoon if they poke out. They'll be okay.

While they're boiling, bust out your comal and heat it up on medium-high. Once it's hot enough, peel then roast your garlic cloves on it until they're brown. Burnt is okay too, we aren't being fancy here. Still, you should keep a close eye on the garlic and turn them occasionally, or they'll stick and you'll have very irritating garlic goop all over your cookware. You don't have a comal? I guess you could do this in the oven with a cookie sheet, or if you're feeling fancy, you could just saut it in some of your oil. That will probably change the taste though.

Once the garlic smells good and looks better, throw all four cloves into a food processor. Or a blender, whatever floats your boat. Toss in your cumin, salt, and cream at this point as well. Don't be like me and spill your cumin all over the place. Blend the hell out of the mixture. It should look like this after you've finished:

If you used your blender, you now have to dump your garlicy mixture into a bowl like I did, because you're about to reuse it. Please rinse out the blender, you dirty whore.

Your chiles are still cooking, but now you can mess around with your tortillas. Let's heat up half of our oil in the biggest frying/cooking pan that you've got.

Make quick work of your tortillas. Just rip those bad boys into pieces. Fourths, eights, whatever size your mouth is. Don't be lame and use a knife.

Fry half of them up in your oil. Don't add too many, or they won't get evenly crisp. Turn them after awhile. How long is awhile? I dunno, you tell me. After the first batch is done, dump them onto a wire rack, add the rest of your oil, and fry up the rest.

Your chiles are probably done at this point. How do you know? I'm glad you asked. Here is a cooked chile (right, top) next to an uncooked one (left, bottom). They will change color when they're ready.

Take a pair of tongs and lump some of the cooked chiles into your blender. You want to fill it up maybe of the way. Add a couple of dashes of salt. Now take a regular coffee cup and fill it up with bongwater. I mean the water that the chiles boiled in. Toss that into the blender as well.

DO NOT PUT TOO MUCH WATER INTO THE BLENDER! You don't want watery food, right? Start small and if you think it looks too thick, add a little more. Sorry I don't have precise measurements. This is how I was taught to make them, and so I pass the torturous guesswork on to you. Now, blend! If you have room after blending, repeat this. If you run out of room, then you can start the next step to make room for the rest of your chiles. The next step:

Dump the contents of the blender into a...what are these things called? Mesh strainer? Wire holey thing? Whatever. Dump it in, and please make sure that there's a bowl or something underneath it. Now smack the hell out of it. Again and again. You can hit the rim of the strainer with either your fist, or the heel of your hand, just be careful not to get any chunks in the bowl. You will look stupid like me in this picture:

When you finish, you'll have a thick blob of chile parts that you can throw in your garbage disposal. You'll also have a smooth sauce that is hopefully not too thin. If it's too thin, then with your next batch of blended up chiles, just add less water. You'll get it.

Right, so it's time to rinse out your blender again. Pour your sauce back into it, and this time add the cream/garlic/cumin mixture that you've got waiting on the counter. Blend that all up. Stick your dirty finger in it and taste-add salt if it needs it. It will probably need it.

Right, sauce is done! Now you need to return your fried tortillas to their frying pan, and turn the heat up again to medium/medium-high. Once the pan and tortillas are hot, beat the hell out of your eggs, and add them all at once to the frying pan. Be sure you stir constantly, you want there to be a fairly even coating of egg on all/most of the tortillas. It should be beautiful and eggy, like so:

Now comes the finale. You want to be very careful here. Add SOME, but not all, most, or even half of your sauce to the tortilla-egg mixture. Mix everything up well. You want your food to be completely covered in sauce, but you don't want sauce soup. If you have some spots that are sauce-free, add more. Let it simmer there for five minutes or so. Don't do it for too long or your tortillas will be completely soggy instead of just somewhat soggy. Store whatever sauce you don't use for the next time you make Enchiladas or this. See? You now have enchilada sauce too! Anyway, the stuff should NOT look like this in the pan, because I put way too much sauce in. But whatever, this isn't fine dining:

Now crumble up your queso fresco and top the chilaquiles with it. Let it melt a little. Serve it up, top with cilantro, and eat! But don't forget, you still have 800 oranges leftover from your last fruit stand visit, so in the spirit of fresh food, you should squeeze some juice to have with it.