#Chicken Enchiladerole with Sour Cream sauce

[serebronaga]

Chicken Enchiladerole with Sour Cream Sauce

Every year, Tamesr and I make each other food for our birthdays. Worked great when we lived together, still works while we are many states apart. She usually makes me cakes. I tend to be a little more..untraditional.

Yesterday was her birthday. I made her a chicken enchiladerole.

What is an enchiladerole? Well, technically it’s an enchilada. In a casserole dish. I used to be able to roll the enchiladas like a normal person, but as my hands have slowly stopped cooperating over time, I find it much easier to just tear up the tortillas and layer them like a casserole.

But! What’s so interesting about my enchiladerole that I’m making a post about it? It’s...bland. Not spicy, not acidic. I make the chicken, and I make the sauce. Nothing premade here! I’ve got medical restrictions, placing me on a bland diet, so I modify recipes to fit. 

Maybe you’d like to see what I’ve done? Maybe you’re in a similar situation and want to see if you could try something similar? Woo!

I should mention this is heavy on dairy. And the post is long. With pictures!

First off, lemme say, normally I do this in a casserole dish. Yesterday, I did not. I did this in a disposable aluminum pan. The result was a little different than I expected, but not bad. Thusly, do not worry if you do not have a casserole dish (I never had one before I moved back with my parents to help them). Disposable aluminum pans are pretty cheap at the store (I think my 2 pack was maybe a dollar or two.) so even if you don’t want to casserole it and want to roll them like normal, these pans will still fit the bill.

!

Gather your party to move forward.

Preheat your oven to 375 F.

This is the chicken party, chicken not pictured.

2 pounds of chicken meat. Breast fillets or strips or ones that have been cut up for stir fries all work. They’ll all be cut up in the end. Frozen or fresh, no difference (but ya gotta thaw em, silly).

Mayonnaise. 

Garlic (I use minced).

Lemon juice.

Seasonings/spices. I am a weh weh baby and use only rosemary, salt and a dash of cayenne pepper. You can change these to suit your tastes.

Shredded cheese, your choice. 

I picked up this bit from my sister. She uses it when she makes spinach chicken. I like cooked spinach, but it has no place in my enchiladerole. 

My parents use canned chicken chunks when they make their enchiladas. Le yuck. No flavor and it stinks worse than canned tuna, tbh. It’s ok for chicken and dumplings, but not in a dish where chicken is top of the bill.

What we’re going is basically making a paste to dredge the chicken in. The mayo coats it and keeps it from drying out. The lemon juice is to help break down the meat and tenderize it a little. The spices flavor the meat. The cheese makes a happy crust. 

I don’t do fancy measurements. See that spoon? You need 2.5 spoonfuls of mayo. A 5-6 second squeeze of lemon juice. Pinch of salt, dash of cayenne, and two shakes of rosemary. For the garlic, your choice. I use the other end of the spoon and take a dip out of the jar. 

Handful of cheese. Add it a little at a time if you need to, to keep the balance. Remember, you’re going for a paste. Mix it up, should look something like this.

Prep your chicken. You can leave it in the big fillets or chop em into smaller pieces to bake. I find it easier to piece them, since they take less time to cook.

Stick em in the bowl, mush them around with your hand. Don’t worry about them being completely coated, just make sure they’re covered into the mayo. When they’re all coated, you can put the extra cheese on top to make the crust.

Like that. You definitely want to use foil on your pan for this, because there will be liquids. Cheese oil, chicken juice, all that good stuff. Make a little wall around it so it doesn’t get everywhere when you take it out later. Save the crunchy bits that end up around the chicken when they’re done. They’re still good and you can put them in the enchiladerole for extra flavor.

Now, as Alton Brown would say, GO WASH YOUR CHICKEN-Y HANDS.

Now, I put mine in the oven for 45 minutes. However, that is for THIS oven. In the past, I’ve had to cook them for longer, and for shorter. It all depends on your oven. You know it, I don’t. It’s better to underestimate and have to add time than to overdo it and burn the yums. 

Food safety, cook the chicken to an internal temp of 160-165 F to make sure it’s done and any germies are slain. Unless you have a fancy stick thermometer, you’re probably not going to be able to tell. Here’s what you do: cut the biggest piece open and see if its raw inside. If it’s raw, they aren’t done. You want it to look like the inside of a chicken nugget (white), not what it looked like going in (pink and gooey looking).

Like that. 

So now that they’re out of the oven, let em sit. One, they’re hot and you don’t want to handle bitchin hot chicken. Two, whenever you cook meat, you want to let it rest afterwards. This lets it reabsorb some of the liquid that cooked out and other fun culinary stuff.

When you have approximately 15ish minutes left on the chicken cooking, let’s start the sauce.

Have you ever heard of a roux (roo)? We’re going to make a roux. Now you can sound fancy.

AP Flour

Unsalted Chicken stock

Milk (I use whole milk because that’s how I am. Fairlife is lactose free, though. Whether you use regular or lactose free doesn’t matter. Just don’t use like...nut milk. Use the moo juice.)

Butter (I used what was already opened, which was unsalted. If you use salted butter, watch how you add salt in other parts of recipes. It can throw off your groove.)

Sour cream. 

Not pictured here, the same spices as the chicken paste (Cayenne, Rosemary, Salt. No garlic this time, but you can if you want to.)

Also not pictures, more shredded cheese. Haha.

I use about 2 tablespoons of butter. Melt it in your pan, mix in the flour slowly. Probably about a cup of it. You’re the judge of how thick you want your sauce to  be, so adjust to your liking. What we’re doing is helping the flour not be a little bastard and clump when it encounters the fat (the butter), so the sauce can be smooth. Nobody likes lumpy sauce. If you need to, you can add a little bit of the chicken stock to help smooth things out. 

When things are looking pretty well mixed, add in the stock and the milk. Eyeball it, my dudes. Fill the pan a little under halfway with the stock, then the other half with milk. Keep about an inch to the top, otherwise things will get messy when you add in the sour cream later.

When it reaches a simmer, add in your spices and sour cream. Stir stir stir. Don’t let it boil, though. Sour cream doesn’t like to be boiled. Keep stirring. Add in a handful of cheese. Don’t let the flour or the cheese settle on the bottom and burn. That will taste very bad. 

Are you stirring? KEEP STIRRING.

It will eventually look like this. Smooth. Taste it. Taste flour-y? Not done yet. Keep going til it doesn’t taste like flour. You should be able to taste the sour cream and the spices. Need more spice? Add it now. By now, it should reach your desired thickness. At the least, you want it to coat the spoon when you remove it from the sauce. 

Dance break. Bean has come to see you for culinary support. Sing her a song while you wait for the chicken to be handable.

Tear up some tortillas. Flour or corn is your decision. My parents and sister prefer corn. I like flour. I find they fit better with the creamy texture of the sour cream sauce. 

You can make the chicken any size you like. I tend towards bigger bite size pieces because I’m impatient.

Put your first layer of chicken in. Arrange your chicken, toss in some shredded cheese, make another tortilla layer. Repeat til you reach the top of whatever size dish you’re using.

My dumb ass underestimated the depth of these pans and thusly, it fit only one layer. Luckily it was a two pack, so I just made two. Huzzah.

Top layer, now is the time for the sauce. Try to spread it evenly, make sure it gets down the sides or you will have very dry bottom layers.

What’s that? Something is missing?

You’re right, it’s the final cheesening. I told you this recipe was heavy on the dairy. This is why we use the big bag of cheese. This will make your crust. Yom yom.

Stick it in the oven. I put these in for 30 minutes. Added 5 more minutes at the end for the cheese crust to properly brown.

Bean is still here to support you. Sing her another song while you wait for the enchiladeroles to cook.

BAM, as Emeril says. Let it cool for a couple minutes before you cut into it (nobody likes to be burned by shittin hot noms). Eat it now, or put it in the fridge to eat later. Sometimes it’s even better that way, having more time to coalesce flavorfully.