Thursday, February 26, 2009

Remember that crazy dream I had about the tomatillos and the enchilada recipe?

Well I finally got around to making that recipe 2 nights ago. It was a LOT of work but oh my heavens, it was worth it! I am totally convinced though that a big star like Tyler Florence has not husked that many tomatillos lately. Those little buggers are HARD to get the husk off of! When you buy them in the store they have a papery green husk that you have to remove.

Tomatillos - straight from the store

Under the husk, the tomatillo looks like a little green tomato. But between the husk and the green tomatillo skin, there is some sticky stuff that makes the husk REALLY hard to get off. It took me forever to husk 18 tomatillos!

After peeling off the husk and scraping all the sticky stuff off under running water.

I took a few pictures of the roasted tomatillo salsa part of the enchiladas but after I got the salsa made, I quit with the pictures. At this point in my pregnancy I'm already having to sit down on one of our barstools to do all my cooking, so taking pictures of every single step of the whole recipe would have taken forever.


Inside of a tomatillo

The tomatillo salsa turned out to be AMAZING!!! I will definitely be making this recipe again but probably only for special occasions. It takes forever! Also, I learned I don't like the taste of turmeric. It's kind of an earthy spice that I'm sure in the right recipe I would like but this was NOT that recipe. The rice that went along with this enchilada recipe turned out OK but only once I added some diced tomatoes w/green chilies to cover up some of that turmeric taste. The black beans that are also in that same recipe turned out great. I will definitely be making those again!


Tomatillos, onions, jalapenos and garlic ready to roast.

After roasting the vegetables, transfer to food processor and add lime juice, seasonings and cilantro. Pulse until blended but still slightly chunky.

Finished salsa. DELICIOUS!! I added some diced tomatoes (from a can) because I just had to have some tomatoes in my salsa. But would have been just as good without it. YUM!

Taking hints from the comments on the Food Network site, I doubled the tomatillo salsa recipe, used corn tortillas and left everything else the same. It made two HUGE pans of enchiladas, a big pot of rice and a big pot of beans. We are still eating leftovers two nights later and the leftovers taste even better than on the first night I made this recipe. I even had some filling leftover to freeze and will be making more of these enchiladas when my mom comes. (Which is next week! Yipee!!!)

So the verdict on the tomatillos? Delicious. If you only try part of this long, very involved, complex recipe...try the roasted tomatillo salsa. It is DEFINITELY worth the work!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Email this recipe or the link to get it when you have time. We love salsa, especially with cilantro! I make one that tastes like Zapata's green salsa. I could eat Mexican food everyday and never get tired of it. And the pics of Easton are too cute. Both my babies drink their bath water too, which grosses me out especially after they pee in it!

Anonymous said...

Never mind! I went back up and saw the link. This is what happens when you have 3 kids;) My mind is not as sharp as it used to be!

Amy said...

Mandy,
No worries! I know all about that child-induced lack of concentration. I may not have three little ones but I do have a wicked case of "preg-nesia" going on right now. :)