That was G's comment about dinner the other night. He amended it later to say that I should forgive him if tears ran down his cheeks but he was just enjoying his meal so much that he couldn't help himself. Pretty good, huh?
And what feast elicited such joyous rapture? It was hardly haute cuisine, but even I have to admit it was good, and by that I really mean GOOD.
I have been itching to make cheese enchiladas. Perhaps it was my trip home to visit my mom, where I do believe she mentioned her famous cheese enchiladas more than once. Perhaps it was also some little bit of cussedness that came out when I was reading Paul Fussel's Class: A Guide Through the American Status System because Tex-Mex cheese enchiladas, made with a combination of cheddar and processed cheese food (Velveeta), would definitely be non-u.
So I did make enchiladas, cheese enchiladas, but not classic Tex-Mex cheese enchiladas. Instead, I'll call them three-cheese enchiladas. In the decades since I have left Texas I have changed, and my tastes have changed, so my enchiladas, like me, were a hybrid
To begin with I didn't make traditional chile gravy. Traditional gravy is made with oil, chile powder, broth, and flour. I actually didn't know that at first. I always made my chile gravy with cornstarch, which I believe is the way I learned to make it, but perhaps it is not, perhaps that was just something I devised on my own those early years in New York when I was trying to recreate the tastes of home. Anyway, it came as quite a shock to me, years later, to learn that most Tex-Mex chile gravy was made with flour, because I never supposed it to be so, and I just assumed it was gluten-free. Truthfully however, I stopped making that kind of chile gravy long before I learned about my own gluten intolerance. By then I had read Diana Kennedy, and Rick Bayless, and started collecting Mexican cookbooks. By then I made my own chili powder, and made my chile gravy using dried chile pods in whatever blend suited my fancy, although always with a base of the Tex-Mex favorite, the ancho chile. Not surprisingly, my chile sauce started out with dried peppers, ancho and pasilla, which I toasted and pureed and cooked with broth to make a rich, slightly more complex red sauce with a nod to both the Texas tradition and its Mexican origins.
Now my memories of cheese enchiladas revolve mostly around the cheese. Perhaps these are the memories of a child, and as a child I was most fascinated by the cheese, but even so I recognize that it was the gravy and the tortilla that elevated the dish beyond just tortillas and melted cheese. Later on, as an adult I learned to love simple stacked enchiladas which were all about the combination of the tortilla and the sauce, with just a little cheese to accent the richness of the dish.
My enchiladas were a combination of these traditions. There was lots of cheese, three kinds of cheese: Velveeta, a youngish cheddar that melts well, and a fabulous Queso Anejo that I found in a local Mexcian market with its sharp salty funky goats milk flavor, pretty much combined in equal measure. But the enchiladas weren't all about the cheese. I combined the cheese with minced scallions, a couple of bunches worth, because the onions this time of year are a little tired. The tortillas absorbed the sauce, and I was generous with the sauce, so that the resulting enchiladas were a rich combination of corn, chile and cheese and scallion, with just a touch of crema that I added because the sauce came out a little spicier than I thought G would tolerate. Peppers, like people, can surprise you. You can't judge how sweet or piquant they may be just on outside appearances and have to wait until they reveal themselves.
So we had enchiladas. We still have enchiladas. A tray of enchiladas will make more than one meal for 2 people. And even though I was tired and stressed and making enchiladas takes time, I enjoyed the process. It was relaxing once the ingredients were lined up and I just moved my tortillas from through the various stages into the final dish. It was even more relaxing while they were in the oven and I sat down to rest with a glass of wine.
One day this week we will each have a single cheese enchilada for breakfast (how decadent) perhaps with Ox Eyes, which are eggs poached in salsa. Have you eaten ox eyes? I don't remember having them growing up, but I did have them when I was in college, during those summer days I was back in Texas between semesters. Oh my, I am getting hungry again just thinking about them.
