Guacamelee – World’s Greatest Enchiladas

Not hard to make, exactly, but a lot of prep work.

I know what you’re thinking- “This isn’t on the schedule!” Technically, you’d be right. However, shortly before starting on this week’s recipe we received our July IndieBox in the mail. July’s indie game? Guacamelee! As always, IndieBox serves up an excellent game with awesome special features. July’s box comes complete with the Guacamelee game in a nifty credit card/usb form, two stickers (luchador mask sticker not pictured; the boy just had to stick it on his PC tower), soundtrack (so you know it’s good), instruction manual, temporary tattoo, felted chicken magnet, shot glass, and… do you see what I see?

No, surely not… It couldn’t be…

Ladies and gentlemen, geeks and gamers, we have a recipe! That’s right, what we have here is a recipe for the World’s Greatest Enchiladas. But are they really deserving of the title? Let’s find out.

Gamers, grab your mats:

• 2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• 1 can condensed cream of chicken soup
• 1 1/4 cups sour cream
• 1/4 teaspoon chili powder
• 1 small onion
• 1 can chopped green shiles
• 1 package mild taco seasoning
• 1 bunch green onions
• 1 cup water
• 1 teaspoon lime juice
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/2 teaspoon onion powder
• 5 flour tortillas (standard size, 10″)
• 3 cups shredded cheddar cheese
• 1 can enchilada sauce
• 1 can sliced black olives
• Not included on the Ingredients list but listed in the instructions, Butter

NOTE: Ask me how many times I flipped the card over like, “Did I miss something?” when I read ‘butter’.

Hint: Over 10, under 20.

Looks like a wholesome spread. Garlic and onion powders not pictured.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C, thanks IndieBox for the conversion because I have no idea.).

Place chicken in a large pot and add water to cover. Bring to a rolling boil over high heat, then reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer until the chicken is no longer pink, 10 minutes or so.

Apparently we’re making shredded chicken. I’ve never done this outside of a slow cooker, so we’ll see

The the covering stage. Was hard to hold the camera and lid like this.

Also, call this an experiment with a different sort of picture layout. You like? Yes? No?

Tough crowd.

To shred chicken, remove from pot with tongs or a large fork and place in a large bowl.

Shred chicken by placing two forks back to back and pulling meat apart. In comparison, I think I’d rather stick to my slow cooking method.

Looks legit to me.

While the chicken’s boiling (or shortly after, we’re not picky) combine cream of chicken soup, sour cream, and chili powder in a saucepan.

Usually I’m not a ‘cream of’ soup fan. Today I could eat this with an old shoe.

Bring to a simmer over low heat, stirring occasionally, then turn off burner and cover to keep warm.

Heat the mythical butter in a skillet over medium heat. Chop and stir in onion. Cook and stir until onion is translucent, about 5 minutes. I gave it an extra two for color.

Mmm, veggies.

Add shredded chicken:

-plunk-

Chopped green chiles:

That’s it, face the product for the nice people…

Taco seasoning:

Also known as when it starts to smell good.

And half of your chopped green onion:

Because greenery, yo.

Finally, pour in a cup of water, give it a healthy stir, and allow to simmer for 10 minutes.

Now to cook in the flavors.

After your 10 minute timer goes off, add lime juice, onion powder, and garlic powder (I use granulated garlic). Stir together and simmer for another 10 minutes.

Solids added, liquid incoming.

Stir in 1 cup of the warm soup mixture with the chicken mixture:

Measuring skills. I have them.

And spread the remaining soup mixture on the bottom of a 9×13″ baking dish.

Go ahead, lick the spoon.

This is the tricky part, because I have only cooked one Mexican-style dish before and suck at rolling tortillas. Fill each tortilla with a healthy amount of chicken mixture; I used about two heaping spoonfuls.

Roughly. Give or take. Y’know. ‘Cause measuring.

Sprinkle with some cheddar cheese, reserving half of the cheese for topping.

Cheesy chicken.

Fold tortillas over the filling (don’t seal the top or bottom, just fold it over).

As you can see, I did the wrong thing. I had to do a lot of corrections in the pan and it was messy. Don’t be me.

Place tortillas seam-side down in the pan.

Can you tell I had to fix… well, several?

Pour sauce as evenly as possible over enchiladas. There’s no shame in using a spoon.

This is starting to look kinda right…

Cover enchiladas with the remaining cheese, green onions, and sliced (drained) olives.

Pretty.

Bake until filling is heated through and cheese is melted and bubbling on the sides, about 25 minutes. Go over this, and you’ll have boiling enchilada sauce and cheese burned into the bottom of your onion.  It’s done!

The enchilada service station.

These babies are huge!

And there you have it, the World’s Greatest Enchiladas. But do they live up to the name? Survey says, almost!. These enchiladas are huge, filling, and taste great. If you wanted to, you could cut these in half and serve with a side for a whopping total of 10 servings. Otherwise, a single enchilada will easily feed one adult for a total of five servings. The only thing we found to be ‘wanting’ was the in spice department; they’re fairly mild, as far as Mexican food goes. I’d love to make them again with a more ‘punched up’ flavor. What would I change?

1. Double the chili powder to 1/2 teaspoon.
2. Add 1-2 chopped jalapeno peppers to the enchilada filling.
3. Listen to intuition and buy the spicy taco seasoning instead of the mild seasoning.
4. Up the lime juice to ~1 tablespoon. Right now it’s at the ‘don’t really know it’s there’ stage, but you’d probably notice if it was missing. I feel like a tablespoon would add a little zest to the dish and would be amazing.

In short, in this house we believe in spicy food. Don’t like spicy? Leave the recipe as-is. It’s fantastic. Really well put together recipe for a widespread audience. IndieBox, you’ve really nailed it this month with yet another fantastic box. SEND ME MORE RECIPES. DO IT.

And just think: You too could have a new indie game with killer extras shipped to your door every month. We have never once been dissatisfied with our box. I mean, come on, we have a secret hidden game room in our house dedicated to tabletop and indie games. It’s so good we’ve even bought past boxes and will probably buy more as we can afford them. If you’ve never had a subscription box or are looking to add another to your collection, this is it.

And now I’m gonna drool on my desk for the rest of the day, thanks.

Coming Up Next: Will we finally get to do The Next Penelope graham ships? Will something else happen? Stay tuned!

Also, if you haven’t voted for next month’s featured recipe, do that.

Cheers,

Leisel

Remember, cooking IRL doesn’t have to be a Feat of Strength!

Entry for #WeeklyChallenge for #FoodBloggers