Layered Enchilada Pie

If you insist on eating only authentic Mexican cooking, you should skip this recipe. But if you are looking for a different kind of casserole, Layered Enchilada Pie is the answer. It is one of the simplest casseroles you can make and it has fewer than 20 grams of carbohydrates per serving. Has a few calories, of course, but all good things do.

It’s really just a hotdish without the noodles and mixed vegetables but with a hint of Mexican cuisine. It will not make the eyes of a Norwegian water, and if you tell the kids that it is like something you had once at their favorite Mexican restaurant, they might eat it without complaining.

It’s from Favorite Foods of Home Economics Teachers-Foreign Foods Edition, an interesting cookbook that someone gave us many years ago, and it contains a number of recipes that we still enjoy.

Next to this recipe Jerri wrote “good!” and our family has enjoyed this version of a south-of-the-border comfort food many times. Here is how to make it.

INGREDIENTS:

1 lb. ground beef
1 medium onion (about 3 inch diameter)
1 clove garlic
2 T butter
1 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. black pepper
1 T chili powder
3/4 cup chopped black olives
1 8 ounce can or 1 cup fresh tomato sauce
6 corn tortillas
2 cups grated medium cheddar cheese
1/2 cup water

PROCEDURE:

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Peel and chop the onion medium fine and mince the garlic. If the olives are not chopped, do it now and grate the cheese. Melt 1 T butter in a skillet over moderate heat and brown the ground beef, onion and garlic. When the meat is no longer pink, drain any fat and add the salt, pepper, chili powder, olives and tomato sauce. Mix well and remove from heat.

Grease a two quart casserole and put a layer of the meat mixture on the bottom. Place two buttered tortillas on the meat and sprinkle with about 1/3 cup cheese. Repeat layers, ending with the cheese. Add the water. Cover and bake for about 30 minutes.

NOTES: This recipe serves 4 to 6 hungry diners.   Buttermilk corn bread or corn pudding goes well with enchilada pie.

James Barber’s Pork Chop Sate

It was not my fault that no one had checked to make sure we had popcorn oil to fry the fish.  Gordy and I were responsible for catching and cleaning them, and we had done our job.

Eight nice bass fillets were ready for the popper when the cook discovered his oversight.  It was a Sunday evening in 1963 in Madison, Wisconsin.  Stores near the campus were closed and no one home in Tripp Hall had any oil.

You might be wondering why four students in a men’s residence hall (a.k.a. dormitory) where cooking equipment was not allowed were planning to fry fresh fish for supper.

The explanation is quite simple.  Though the dining hall fed us twenty meals every week, we had to fend for ourselves Sunday evenings.  Cooking was forbidden in the hall, but popcorn poppers were allowed.  Lake Mendota was a hundred yards away and filled with bass.  And once you learn how, you can fry bass fillets to a delicate golden brown in a popcorn popper.  With an appropriate beverage, they are delicious between slices of cheap white bread.

Our chef found a jar of peanut butter.  Pointing to the oil on top of the contents he assured us that peanut butter would work.  It did, sort of.  We ate blackened bass fillets with plenty of salt and pepper and made the cook scrub out the popcorn popper.  He bought a large bottle of popcorn oil the next day.

That Sunday supper is why I avoided peanut sauce for nearly forty years.  However, once I was persuaded to taste it, I became an immediate convert.  Maybe if we had had some curry powder and lemon juice that evening it wouldn’t have taken so long for me to discover the joys of peanut sauce, but we were just poor students trying to save a dollar on a Sunday night.  Our spices were limited to salt and pepper shakers borrowed from the dining hall.

By which circuitous route I come to James Barber’s Pork Chop Sate.  Sate or satay is a Javanese delicacy that has spread across southeast Asia.  It is basically meat which is marinated, grilled on skewers and served with a sauce.  A spicy peanut sauce is the most common through much of Indonesia.

Barber’s recipe eliminates the skewers and the separate sauce but produces a delicious dinner in less than thirty minutes.  The recipe comes from Fear of Frying, one of three small cookbooks in a boxed set that my sister Patsy gave me for my birthday a few years ago. The books are filled with good simple recipes, many with wonderful titles like “Spaghetti anda Stuff,” “Mrs. Marco Polo’s Homecoming Stew” or “Slightly Pretentious Pork Chops.”

Here is James Barber’s recipe for Pork Chop Sate.

INGREDIENTS:

2 pork chops
2 T vegetable oil
1 small onion (2 – 2 1/2 inch diameter)
1 medium tomato (3 inch diameter)
1/4 tsp. salt
1 tsp. curry powder
Big pinch of cayenne
1/2 cup water
1 T lemon juice
2 T (heaped) peanut butter

PROCEDURE:

Peel and slice the onion very thin.  Wash, remove the stem scar and quarter the tomato.  Heat the oil to very hot in a skillet.  Fry the pork chops about one minute or a little longer on each side until golden brown.  Push the chops to one side of the pan, add the onion and tomato.  Stir and continue frying until the onion is translucent and tomato is beginning to lose its juices.  Turn the heat down to medium.

Stir in the curry powder, cayenne, water, juice and peanut butter.  Stir well to mix all the ingredients.  Cook five minutes over medium heat while stirring to keep the sauce from sticking.  Turn the chops a couple of times to coat them with the sauce.  Reduce heat to low and simmer for 15 minutes, stirring often.

Serve with rice and bread.

NOTES: Use a natural peanut butter with no hydrogenated oils, sugar, etc.  You can double this recipe if guests are expected.  A simple fruit salad goes well with satay.