I’ve been on a major Tex-Mex kick in the kitchen the last two weeks, my bounty including enchiladas rojas, black beans with chorizo, grilled/stuffed poblanos, various forms of taquitos, and shrimp enchiladas verdes.
The red chile sauce for the enchiladas rojas is fantastically easy, and the resulting sauce is wonderfully fragrant and spicy. The recipe is enough for one large batch of enchiladas, but I recommend doubling it so you have some leftover. I used a mix of mozzarella and cheddar for the enchilada filling, then topped them with a generous amount of cotija prior to baking.
The grilled/stuffed poblanos are much more enjoyable to me than their fried counterpart, but they are much hotter so be careful if you are sensitive to that. I may look into buying gloves for next time I handle so many chiles, because my hands were burning for 12 hours. Yesterday I was told that wiping your hands with a small amount of rubbing alcohol will remove the oils from the skin, but I have not confirmed this. If you have leftover filling for the poblanos (which I did both times I made them), use the filling for taquitos. Heat some oil, steam corn tortillas, fill and wrap them, then fry them in moderately hot oil for 2-3 minutes each side, or until very crunchy.
The enchiladas verdes were delicious, the verde sauce had the tangy flavor of the tomatillos, but the addition of peppers into the salsa added some welcome complexity and heat. We had the black bean side dish with the shrimp enchiladas – you can’t really go wrong with Mexican chorizo, and the dollop of chipotle crema on top was exquisite. Ok, maybe more than a dollop. And yes, that is a glass of rosé in the background.
Which leads me to the title of this post – both the enchilada and the black bean recipe made use of crema, which I had not purchased until I did so as an impulse buy at Buford Highway Farmer’s Market recently.
Mexican crema is often considered synonymous with French crème fraîche, both being a soured cream, but thinner than the American version of sour cream. Both Mexican crema and crème fraîche can be difficult to find at your run of the mill grocery store, but they are readily available at many stores in the Buford Highway area and other specialty grocers.
If you can’t find it, or are feeling adventurous, it’s quite easy to make at home. A variety of recipes are available online, but they will all make use of cream and a sour acid, which could be buttermilk (which is high in lactic acid), or in many cases, lime juice. This website goes into more detail on crema and includes both recipes, or you can conform and view a recipe here on Epicurious.
The crema is delicious on it’s own as a condiment, but as can be seen in the beans/chorizo dish, it’s fun to play around with the flavor, and the consistency is easily workable. I recommend keeping a pint of it around, it will be quite easy to find a variety of uses.
accolades: the meal photographed for this post was made with my Mom, who deserves credit for most of the cooking of this dish.
