Mexican food is something I love the sound of but can find very little of here, which is strange in a way as we have nearly every other cuisine under the sun! Coventry is a hugely ethnicly diverse city and within just our little block of streets there must be 20 languages spoken and a similar number at my son's school. We have shops selling Chinese, Indian, South African, Caribbean, Halal, Polish, Thai and so on and that's just in our little local set of shops never mind the rest of the city but pretty much the sum total of Mexican inspired foods is the use of tortillas to make wraps, tacos shells, the occasional tin of refried beans and salsa.
I make Tortillas quite often, so often I have the mix pre-made in a jar, as they are a great easy bread to make and I can use them like nan breads with Indian and to make wraps for sandwiches and so forth so that part was easy.
I use the tortilla recipe from Delightfully Gluten Free but I add just a dribble of glycerine as I find it helps with the stretch of the dough and I can get them thinner without breaking.
I looked all over and the only place I could find tomatillos was in quite large tins by mail order and if we didn't like them I'd end up with a lot left over so very reluctantly I decided I would have to do a different version. I will of course probably find six different places selling them after the challenge is over, that's always the way isn't it?
I decided instead to do the mole sauce from here which the hosts had suggested as a replacement, as we have never had a mole sauce before either it was still a challenge, particularly as the list of ingredients sounded very strange, chocolate and peanut butter with tomatoes? Still I had everything but the chillies. We have lots of chillies for sale here in the market and ethnic shops but this recipe calls for chipotle peppers which are apparently smoked and I really though I was out of luck on that one as well but at the last moment found some in Morrisons !
Tom and I really liked the taste though Jon wasn't so convinced, we decided the closest we have had before would be a satay sauce.
So on to the construction of the dish, to the sauce and tortillas I added some precooked turkey and cheddar cheese and layered it up in stages, very like making a lasagne really which is what that dish is more normally used for in this household.
So after a couple of layers of tortillas, turkey, sauce and cheese, it was topped with more torillas, sauce and a bit of cheese and put in the oven.. for a bit to long really so mine is less pretty than most of the other Daring Cooks but I caught it before it really burned!
So here is the final dish, served with rice, very tasty and something I will certainly be considering doing again soon in one form or another. I loved the different taste of the mole sauce but the dish as a whole wasn't so un-usual I couldn't see serving it to friends or family which is nice.
Recipes.
GF Flour Tortillas (based on a recipe from Delightfully Gluten free)
1/4 cup each of cornflour (corn starch), tapioca flour, potato starch.
1/2 cup of Dove farm rice flour (which is mixed brown and white)
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp xanthan gum
1/4 tsp glycerine
1 1/2 tbsp olive oil
1/2 to 3/4 cup of water (enough to make a nice dough)
Mix all the dry ingredients, then add the oil and glycerine. Finally add water to mix. Leave to sit for a few minutes then roll out as thin as possible by making small balls of dough, flattening them then rolling to size.
Cook in a dry pan with just a touch of oil for a minute or so each side.
Mole sauce (based on recipe from food network)
2 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 tin of chopped tomatoes.
1 sweet pepper, chopped
heaped tsp of chipolte pepper
1/2 pint chicken stock
2 tbsps smooth peanut butter
2 oz dark chocolate
The original recipe had chilli powder as well but as most of us are not used to chilli I stuck to just the chipolte peppers for the first time which gave it a bit of a kick but not too strong for us.
Saute onion in oil till translucent, add garlic and spices and saute to toast spices a bit. Add all other ingredients and simmer of 10 mins, Puree till smooth.
Stacked Enchiladas
Put a small amount of sauce in the bottom of a oven dish. Add a layer of tortillas, top with turkey, cheese and a little more sauce. Repeat this layer then add a final layer of tortillas, more sauce and some cheese.
Bake for about 20 mins to melt cheese and heat through.
