Blue Cheese Enchiladas, Take One

[Jenise]

A few months ago a Tokyo based wine lover described a meal he was served of blue cheese enchiladas with a light Jalapeno sauce. Been rolling my mind around that ever since, and finally got into the kitchen yesterday to attempt something. What I decided beforehand was that the sauce needed to be spicy, tangy and very green with cilantro. I'd meant to buy sour cream to provide some of that tang and round the corners on the hot green chiles I was going to use, but I forgot and I'm glad now that I did. I got the tang from another source, and my dish was lower in fat than it would have been with sour cream.

In fact, the sauce was so good we could have eaten it as a soup: fantastic flavors. I sauteed half an onion finely diced in about a tablespoon of butter, then added a heaping tablespoon of flour. I stirred that in and added two cups of 2% milk, then a cup of chopped cilantro, four roasted and chopped New Mexico green chiles (thank you again, Larry!!!), about half a tsp of cumin, and maybe 2/3 c of Herdez brand tomatillo/green chile salsa. A bit of salt completed it.

I dipped/rolled the enchiladas in the conventional fashion of first oil to soften, then the sauce, and filled them with a 4:1 ratio of pepper jack to Maytag Blue and a little diced white onion.

The result was delicious, but it was really the sauce that was so good. The blue cheese broiught something novel to the party, but I can't say I think it was better because of the blue, and I don't think the Maytag was the right blue nor the pepper jack the right base. A tangy cheddar would have been better, and a smoother sharper roquefort (this Maytag was really young, almost powdery) or even a Shropshire blue would have been better cheese fillings.

I served it with a heavily celeried spanish rice, and diced tomatoes with daikon radish sprouts. Our wine was a 99 Clos du Marquis from Bordeaux, which was a delicious pairing.

then a cup of chopped cilantro

No, no, no. You were going along fine there for a while.

I can see you are still very much in your misguided youth, Jenise. Cilantro only improves those sauces where one wants that certain essence-of-Dial to come through.

I have learned through (bad) experience which of the restaurants in Santa Fe and Albuquerque attempt to ruin their food in this manner. And I avoid ordering anything that may have soapweed lurking in it.

OTOH, perhaps they are just attempting to wash my mouth out, as my mother always threatened.....

Sounds pretty tasty, Jenise! How do you think one of the Mexican white cheese would work as an alternative to the jack?


Mike

[Jenise]

soapweed

No wonder you need estrogen shots, girlfriend, you're not getting enough in your edible herbs! Cilantro will help, really it will. Cilantro eaters don't get moustaches.


Mike, re Mexican cheese, it might work well with a sweeter, creamier blue like roquefort. It would not have helped the Maytag (which is nothing like the Maytag I remember). Worth a shot, I wish I'd bought a bunch of different cheeses to try. In hindsight, little more work and expense than doing it all over again.

[Jenise]

Oh, and a note to anybody: I chopped up the single leftover enchilada and dumped it and all the rice into the leftover sauce which I thinned this morning with some chicken broth and a couple shots of Cholula sauce. Great soup, great breakfast.