CHICKEN ENCHILADAS

I ASSUMED THAT SPITTING THE CHILI PEPPER THAT HAD BECOME A BALL OF FIRE SEARING my mouth across the table and into the lap of my smiling, middle-aged hostess would have been uncouth, so I didn’t. Instead, with beads of sweat coursing off my reddening face, I simply shared her and her family’s amusement at this gringo’s discomfort with the proffered chili pepper and drained my water glass.

I think I was set up.

We were the guests of these upscale friends of a fellow I had hired to help my company develop new business in Mexico. We never got any business worth that trip, or several other subsequent trips, but I did gain a taste for Mexican cuisine beyond Tex-Mex; a tolerance for the heat of those chili peppers ranked a bit higher on the Scoville scale; and an appreciation of the flavors chilies can add to a well-prepared recipe.

This recipe is based on one that my wife got from Tish Gutierrez, one of her co-workers. It wasn’t actually a recipe. It was more like a list of ingredients with some vague directions on how they were to come together. This is the kind of recipe that can be used to show your Yankee friends (or yourself for that matter) that the Mexican food offered up by chain restaurants—particularly those in the northern U.S. latitudes—is to real Mexican food as ketchup is to real salsa.

A note of caution: when working with the chili peppers, either wear gloves or remember not to rub your eyes until you thoroughly wash your hands. You will only forget once. Trust me.

Also, much of the heat in a chili pepper is in the seeds and the white membranes, so you can decrease the heat by not adding all of these parts. Try a little piece of whatever pepper you’re using and adjust the recipe accordingly. But be sure to leave a little heat in the recipe. Otherwise, you might as well just go buy one of those supermarket varieties labeled mild, which is grocery-speak for chunky ketchup with green specks in it.

If you really want to understand hot, you need to understand the Scoville scale. In 1912 a chemist by the name of Wilbur Scoville developed a way to measure the heat level of a chili pepper. Basically, the test involves diluting ground chilies with water until a taster can taste no heat. The chili pepper is then assigned Scoville units based on how much it needed to be diluted to become “heat-less.” The sweet pepper has zero Scoville units. The Habanero has 300,000+. Here are ranges for some common chili peppers. There are over 200 varieties so you might not find your favorite here.

Mild to Just Barely Hot

0-100 Bell, Sweet,Pimento

500-2,500 Anaheim, Sandia, NuMex Big Jim,

1,000-2,000 Espanola, Poblano, Ancho, Pasilla

Hotter to Really Hot

2,500-5,000 Mirasol, Guajillo, Jalapeno, Cascabel

5,000-8,000 Chipotle,

5,000-10,000 Yellow wax, Puya

6,000-17,000 Hidalgo

8,000-22,000 Serrano

12,000-30,000 Manzano, Shipkas

15,000-30,000 Chile de Arbol

Really Hot to Extraordinarily Hot

30000-50,000 Aji, Cayenne, Tabasco, Jaloro

40,000-50,000 Santaka, Super Chile, Piquin

50,000-100,000 Yatsafusa, Thai

60,000-85,000 Chiltecpin

70,000-80,000 Haimen

85,000-115,000 Tabiche

95,000-110,000 Bahamian

100,000-125,000 Carolina Cayenne

__Extraordinarily Hot to Too Hot For Normal People__

100,000-200,000 Jamaican Hot, Birds Eye Haberno

125,000-150,000 Kumataka

150,000-325,000 Scotch Bonnet

350,000-577,000 Red Savina Haberno,

Chicken Enciladas: The Recipe

Makes six enchiladas

Ingredients

2 chicken breasts

2 cups muenster cheese, shredded

6 corn tortillas

¼ cup olive oil

FOR THE SALSA VERDE

1 ½ pounds tomatillos, peeled

4 ancho chilies, stemmed and seeded

4 cascabel chilies

3 garlic cloves, minced.

½ cup onions

1 tablespoon olive oil

¼ cup fresh cilantro, chopped

Salt and pepper

FOR THE ENCHILADA SAUCE

2 cans tomato sauce

2 large onions chopped into small dice

1 pound Anaheim peppers, roasted, peeled and seeded

First: Grill the chicken and dice. Mix with the shredded cheese and set aside.

Second: Make the salsa verde. Wash the ancho and cascabel chilies, stem and seed them. Cook chilies in water for 10 minutes until tender. Cook the peeled tomatillos in boiling water until tender.

Third: Blend the tomatillos in a food processor with chilies.

Fourth: In a skillet, sauté onions in the oil. Add the pureed tomatillos, chilies, cilantro, salt and garlic. Stir and cook gently.

Fifth: Make the enchilada sauce. Put the Anaheim peppers under the oven broiler turning as the skin blackens. Put them in a paper bag to steam for a few minutes, then peel and cut into small dice.

Sixth: Cut the onion into small dice and mix with the peppers. Add the tomato sauce and salsa verde to taste—a half-cup or more depending on your tolerance for heat. You’ll have some salsa verde left over.

Seventh: Put it all together. Heat a bit of oil in a skillet; press the tortillas into the hot oil for a few seconds to soften and make them more pliable to roll.

Eighth: Things start to get messy. Preheat the oven to 375°F. Dip each tortilla into the enchilada sauce, put two tablespoons of the chicken/cheese mixture on the tortilla and roll. Place the rolled, stuffed tortillas side-by-side in a glass baking dish. Cover with the remaining sauce.

And finally: Cover with aluminum foil, bake until heated through—about 25 minutes—and enjoy with your favorite beverage.