Tag: meat

Easy Hamburger Enchiladas

I had my first authentic enchiladas when Jerri and I were living in Charlottesville, Virginia. My friend Vince, a graduate student from Texas trapped far from home for the holidays, offered to cook Jerri and me a traditional Mexican Christmas dinner–a fiesta. Since Jerri and I were also far from our families that first Christmas, we welcomed his offer.

Vince had never cooked a dinner so he consulted an expert. He wrote his grandmother who sent him detailed instructions on how to make mole and refried beans. She told him how to pick out and cook a turkey, and she included detailed instructions on how to make enchiladas after shaping and baking the tortillas.

The recipes were in Spanish, which Vince translated as he read them to us. The instructions were like those from many experienced cooks who had learned how to do things from their mothers. For example, one instruction for the mole said, “Don’t heat too hot,” which Jerri said meant not to boil it. She was already an experienced cook.

The biggest problem was the ingredients. Vince’s grandmother had warned him that he was not to buy gringo chili powder. It was adulterated with stuff that would spoil the recipes. Her mole needed powdered chili peppers. Period. Chocolate had to be real Mexican chocolate, not the kinds you bought in American supermarkets. She told him he could use cheddar cheese if he had to, but queso blanco would be better.

We bought the turkey, cheddar cheese and dry pinto beans at the Safeway store in Charlottesville, then drove to Richmond, Virginia where we had located a Mexican market. Besides the chili powder and chocolate, they had locally made tortillas which made life a lot simpler. The meat market in Charlottesville had wonderful bacon that we needed for the grease to make the refried beans.

A couple of weeks before the big day I offered to roast the turkey and was prepared to buy a roaster. Instead, Vince told me that we needed to boil the bird, so we bought a stew pot. Boiled turkey for Christmas dinner was new to me, but Vince said it was what his family always had for their special fiestas. “It’s wonderful,” he said, “and you will like it.” He was right.

Jerri remembers that it was a complicated affair. The day before our fiesta, Vince began cooking, carefully following his grandmother’s recipes. We cut the turkey into pieces, boiled it until it was tender and took the meat off the bones in large pieces. While the turkey was cooking, Vince was making the mole and I was assigned the job of cooking pinto beans. Jerri made a pumpkin pie.

On Christmas Day, Vince put it all together. We had cheese and bean enchiladas, turkey mole with rice and refried beans, beer, coffee and pumpkin pie. The food was delicious, making it was fun and we three celebrated the holiday in a way that I will never forget.

As I learned from Vince, enchiladas are simply corn tortillas rolled around various kinds of fillings. In other words, enchiladas (and burritos) are Mexican versions of the sandwich. The ones Vince made were filled with mashed beans, onions and cheese. His sauce was, as I recall, mainly chili powder, salt, a cup of tomato sauce and water simmered together for a few minutes. It was pretty spicy.

Jerri and I have been making and enjoying enchiladas since that Christmas fiesta. Here is a simple recipe for one kind. It may not be an authentic Mexican recipe, but the enchiladas taste good, and it’s easy to make them. If you make the sauce ahead of time, you can put a tasty main dish on the table in half an hour or so.

INGREDIENTS:

For the enchiladas:
3/4 lb. hamburger
1 medium onion
1/2 cup sour cream
2 T parsley, chopped
1 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
10 corn tortillas
1 cup cheddar or jack cheese

For the sauce:
2 cups tomato sauce
3/4 cup water
1 jalapeño pepper
1/3 green bell pepper
1 T chili powder
1/2 tsp. oregano
1/4 tsp. cumin
1/8 tsp. garlic powder

PROCEDURE:

First start the sauce by putting the tomato sauce, water and spices into a saucepan over medium heat. Wash and cut the stem from the jalapeño pepper and then cut it into fourths lengthwise. Scoop out and discard the seeds and white membrane and chop the pepper fine. Do the same for the bell pepper. Stir the chopped peppers into the sauce and simmer while you make the enchiladas.

Preheat the oven to 350º.

Brown the hamburger in a skillet over medium heat. While the meat is browning, chop the onion and parsley medium fine. Drain the hamburger and add the onion to the meat, cooking it for two or three minutes over low heat. Stir in the sour cream, parsley, salt and pepper and turn off the heat.

Lightly grease a baking pan and warm the tortillas. The easiest way to warm them is to put four or five tortillas between damp paper towels and heat them for a few seconds in your microwave oven until they are warm and flexible.

Put about three tablespoons of meat mixture in a row on each tortilla. Roll and place the tortillas seam side down in the baking pan. Top them with the sauce. Bake at 350°F for 15 minutes. Top with the cheese and bake three or four minutes more until the cheese is melted.

These enchiladas are good by themselves or you can serve them with refried beans and a green salad.

NOTES: You can substitute ground turkey or chicken breast sliced into thin strips
for the hamburger. You can make two or three times as much sauce with almost no extra work and store the extra in a covered container for a week or so in the refrigerator. If you prefer spicier enchiladas, use more jalapeños or add some cayenne pepper to the sauce.

Roast Leg of Lamb

My first experience with lamb was a disaster. Halfway through my first year at the University of Wisconsin, I had become accustomed to meals that ranged from good to excellent prepared by skilled cooks at Van Hise, the dining hall for my dormitory. Having eaten in UW-Madison cafeterias since then, I can understand why you might think I am delusional when I say we had some great meals, especially on Sundays.

There was a dress code for Sunday dinner meant to teach students the proper way to enjoy a special meal. Men dressed in coats and ties and women wore dresses or skirts and blouses. Sunday menus included items such as steaks or shrimp. We often had chicken or pork roasted and served with some delicious sauces and interesting vegetables followed by at least a couple of good choices for dessert.

But then came the Sunday when we had roast leg of lamb. I went to the meal with what I still think was an open mind. After all, I had learned to enjoy some pretty weird sauces and underdone (by my mother’s standards) steak and vegetables. From my reading I knew that people ate mutton and, if they could afford it, leg of lamb. Closer to home, George the Turk made lamb shish kabob that attracted hundreds of diners to the Turk’s Inn every Easter. Leg of lamb was a delicacy.

However, this meat tasted to me as if it had been wrapped in an old army blanket and left outside in the rain for a week. I couldn’t eat more than a few bites, though some of the guys I knew said it tasted pretty good to them. Maybe I got meat from the one bad leg in the whole dining hall. Whatever the case, after that, when leg of lamb appeared on the weekly menu, I found a coed to invite me to her hall for Sunday dinner.

Fast forward to my first visit to the home of Jerri’s oldest brother, Theron, and his wife Phyllis. Jerri and I had been married for nearly two years, but we had not had a chance to visit them at their home in southern Kansas. After talking with us for awhile, Phyllis excused herself to “put together a little lunch.”

As the newest and youngest member of the family, I was trying to be on my best behavior, so I left Jerri with her brother and followed Phyllis into the kitchen to see if I could help. On the counter were two large platters of meat she had put in the oven to warm when we drove in the yard. When I asked what kind of meat it was, she said, “Oh, we had leg of lamb last night and I roasted some extra so we could have a good lunch today.”

I don’t think she saw me blanch or maybe she thought I was just a little overcome by the masses of food she was piling on the table. When I went back into the living room I told Jerri what we were having. “Just eat a little and behave,” she said. She knew how I felt about lamb.

As I was finishing my fourth or fifth slice of some of the best meat I had ever eaten, I got up the courage to admit that this was the first leg of lamb that I liked. Theron’s explanation was simple. Their daughters were raising sheep for their 4-H projects, so they had lots of lambs on their seven acres, there was a very good slaughterhouse in town with a butcher who knew how to process lamb, and Phyllis knew how to cook it.

I have never looked back. Roast leg of lamb is always the main course at our Easter dinner and occasionally on other special occasions. Friends who told me that they did not like lamb have been known to ask for seconds and even nibble cold snacks after dinner. Still, I do have a sister who says that she prefers ham for Easter…but that’s her problem.

The garlic and breading mixture below are enough for a small boneless leg of two to four pounds. Just increase the quantities as necessary.

INGREDIENTS:

1 boneless or semi-boneless leg of lamb, 2 to 4 pounds
1 large or two medium cloves of garlic
1 tsp. olive oil
1/4 cup flour
1/4 tsp. dried basil
1/2 tsp. dried rosemary
1/4 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
1/2 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. paprika

PROCEDURE:

Preheat the oven to 450º.  Pat the leg of lamb dry with paper towels and set it aside on a work surface.

Clean and slice the garlic into twelve to fourteen slivers.  Pulverize the basil, rosemary and pepper in a mortar or crush it as best you can with a spoon and a cup.  Put the flour on a dinner plate and mix in the spices and salt.  

Pierce the leg with a narrow bladed knife and insert slivers of garlic spaced about four inches apart on the entire surface.  

Rub a teaspoon or two of olive oil over the roast and roll it in the seasoned flour.  Pat the flour evenly on the roast.   Put the meat fat side up on a rack in a roasting pan and place it on the middle shelf in the oven.  Insert a meat thermometer in the thickest part of the roast or use an instant reading thermometer when the roast is nearing completion.

After ten minutes reduce the heat to 325º and roast approximately twenty to thirty minutes per pound.  The only sure way to know if a three pound roast is done is to check it with a thermometer after the meat has been in the oven for an hour.   Remove the roast from the oven at 135º for medium rare or 145º for medium.  Lamb should never be cooked to well done.  

Let the roast sit for ten to fifteen minutes before carving.  Boneless roast will often have string or netting to hold the roast together which should be removed before slicing.

Serve with dinner rolls, a garden salad, fresh green peas and mashed potatoes for an elegant dinner.  If you like to serve wine with meals, pinot noir goes very well with leg of lamb.

NOTES:  Save the drippings from the roasting pan to make gravy for hot leftover lamb sliced to serve with potatoes or open sandwiches.