Dann has a lot of Mexican cook books dotted around, including Death by Burrito. Death by Burrito is an interesting cookbook as it was written by a co-owner of a restaurant in Shoreditch who had never actually ran a restaurant or cooked professionally. After travelling to Mexico and California, they made up a menu for their restaurant and eventually made this book of all of the stuff that they cook there.
Death by Burrito isn’t the best cookbook – it’s actually one of the more confusing books we actually own. Midway through recipes, it instructs you to go to different pages and make something else, which is pretty challenging when trying to time out food or follow the recipe. Flipping back and forth becomes a constant while cooking, as you try to make little side dishes that go inside the dish you are creating or typing. It’s really great that the book has recipes for salsa verde and different rices, but having the person cooking flip between pages is really a challenge. With that in mind, we are sharing just the recipe for Chicken Enchiladas, not the Chipotle Rice or the Salsa Verde which can be in it.
Chicken Enchiladas
Ingredients
- 1 whole Chicken
- 1 knob Butter
- 1 Onion sliced
- 30 grams Plain Flour
- 1 pinch Salt and Pepper
- 300 ml Salsa Verde
- 4 Large Tortillas
- 300 grams Chipotle Rice
- 2 Balls Mozzerella Cheese
Stock Ingredients
- 1 Leak Roughly Chopped
- 1 Carrot Roughly Chopped
- 3 Celery Stocks Roughly Chopped
- 1 Onion Peeled and Quartered
- 25 grams Fresh Thyme
- 3 Bay Leaves
Finishing
- 200 ml Crema
- 200 grams Coriander Garnish
Instructions
- Put the entire chicken into a large pot and cover with water.
- Add stock vegetables and herbs. Bring to a boil over medium heat.
- Once the stock reaches a boil, turn the heat down and simmer on low for 40 minutes.
- Scrape and remove any scum that rises to the top of the stock.
- Once 40 minutes has ended, check the chicken to make sure it's cooked by making sure the chicken removes easily from the bone and is cooked through.
- Take the stock off the heat but let the chicken sit inside the stock for 15 more minutes.
- Remove the chicken from the stock and set aside to cool.
- Strain the stock, removing the vegetables and discard them.
- In a new pot, pour the stock in and boil the stock until it is reduced by half.
- Once chicken is cool, strip the meat from the chicken and set aside, discarding any skin and bones.
- Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
- Put the butter and oil into the frying pan and heat until melted.
- Add the onion and fry until translucent.
- Add the flour and cook for a few minutes, making a roux.
- Add chicken stock one ladle at a time, whisking, until there is a thick gravy – about 350 ml.
- Stir in the chicken to coat, there should not be too much liquid. Add salt and pepper if needed.
- Make the chipote rice or make just some rice.
- In a small roasting tin, spread out some salsa verde on the base.
- Take a tortilla and fill with rice then chicken. Repeat with each tortilla.
- Place along the tin.
- Cover with more salsa verde and with mozzerella.
- Bake for 30 minutes or until the top is brown and crispy.
- Serve with crema and the coriander garnish.
So let’s talk about the actual recipe. This is just for the enchiladas, but we also made the crema and the chipotle rice. The rice was like making a Mexican risotto – time consuming and difficult. There was no reason to make a risotto – it came out heavy and goopy, like risottos often do. There is the same amount of rice as there is cheese in that recipe in the book, which is really just too much. I have no clue who decided making a cheese risotto for the inside of a burrito was a good idea. The chicken itself was just like chicken and gravy – which is an interesting filling, but we felt the recipe was intense for what ended up being chicken and gravy inside tortillas. This recipe took over 6 hours with the rice and crema and other toppings. It’s just really intense. We don’t understand how this complex recipe came to be for such a simple dish, but it did taste good in the end.
You can purchase Death by Burrito on Amazon.