Chicken Enchilatas with Green Sauce

So, once you make the Green Salsa, you can create some other dishes too.  Another favorite: Chicken Enchiladas!  Three main components are the chicken, green salsa, tortillas and garnish.  Order of operations:

Chicken:

• Boil chicken breasts in salty water with a quartered medium onion and 1-2 teaspoons of jarred garlic
• (You could buy a rotisserie chicken and just skip the first steps)
• When fully cooked drain hot water and run cold water over it in order to cool it off for shredding
• Shred chicken by just pulling it into pieces- like the width of half a straw
• Set chicken aside

Green Sauce/Salsa:

• Boil tomatillos Serrano peppers and one onion until you see the tomatillos turn a lighter shade of green. (If they are boiled too much, the tomatillos will break apart, but still okay to use.)
• Blend:
• 20 tomatillos
• 6 Serranos peppers
• 1/2 of an onion
• One handful of cilantro
• About one teaspoon jarred garlic
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 1 tablespoon of salt (roughly)
• one teaspoon black pepper
• couple shakes of oregano and thyme
• Blend up in batches on medium/high- if you make a batch that is too spicy, do not use as many Serranos in the next batch and it will even out
• Blend the salsa until it no longer is chunky and the cilantro is in fine bits

FYI: 

• Leaving out spices will change the flavor, but if you are like my sister, she leaves out the cumin because she does not care for it.
• Salt dramatically changes the flavors of hot peppers (spicy peppers such as Serranos).  My husband always adds way more salt than I think would be necessary, but it greatly improves the flavor.  My suggestion is to just try it out... Spoon out a small bowl of the green salsa and add more salt to it.  Eat with a piece of tortilla (not a chip since they also have salt) and see if you like it.  I have begun to add more salt when I cook and then we do not have a salt shaker at the table.  Food is much tastier if seasoned properly.  Watch Top Chef- the judges never add salt while eating. If the food is poorly seasoned, it is not rated very highly.

Tortillas:

• Warm a skillet with a teaspoon of corn oil on medium high
• Place a tortilla in the skillet, swirl it in the hot oil, heat both sides for about 30 seconds... enough time to heat, but not crispy or brown.
• (You might want to use tongs so as to not burn your fingers)
• (No need to soak the tortillas in the oil, just enough to soften them for rolling)
• Place heated tortilla on plate
• Arrange a line of shredded chicken on the tortilla and roll it up
• Roll 3 or more tortillas with chicken on a plate-depending on how hungry you are. (OK, I get 4 usually)
• (Some people cook/fry up the tortillas and place them onto a paper towel.  When you have all you need, take one tortilla, dip it into the salsa, place on plate and roll it up with the chicken.

Garnish and Enjoy:

• Smother the rolled chicken tortillas with Salsa Verde (your green salsa)
• Top with crumbled Queso Fresco (which means Fresh Cheese), chopped cilantro and diced onion, maybe even some extra shredded chicken or Quesadilla Cheese.
• Serve with black beans and sour cream on the table.

For the kids, I just roll up chicken in the tortillas for chicken tacos.