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LIFE & ARTS
February 2, 2012
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Culinary Corner: Indulge in the taste of home By EDGAR HERNANDEZ LIFE & ARTS EDITOR
After having gained confidence in my last cooking venture, I decided to step it up a notch and cook something more difficult and tasty than meatloaf. I called my madre and asked her how to make enchiladas. After a quick run through of what ingredients to use and an explanation of how to prepare the dish with modifications, so as to avoid weight gain, I set out to the local grocery store to find what I needed. On the way there I began to get a bit nervous since I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to find all the ingredients that I needed. Furthermore, when it comes to shopping for food I tend to buy the same brands I have always seen my family buy (shout out to the Communication Division, I’m sure I learned something about this in one of my classes there, not sure which one, not sure when). As I waddled up and down every aisle I came across the unexpected — an entire aisle full of products labeled in Spanish that I was familiar with. The only things that were problematic were the tortillas and the cheese. Good tortillas are hard to come across in local grocery stores, unless the grocery store has an obvious Hispanic influence. All throughout Southern California, these grocery stores are pretty common. Instead of getting good tortillas I had to go with the generic label that looks like a tortilla but has the resistance of a slice of bread. As for the cheese, queso fresco is commonly used in a lot of Mexican dishes. Seeing how the local grocery store didn’t have this kind of cheese — an employer that spoke Spanish laughed at me when I asked if they had said cheese, humiliated I walked over to the fancy cheese section and pretended to know what I was doing — I settled for feta cheese. I could have ventured into Los Angeles and easily found these products, but that would have taken a lot of time. Time that I didn’t have since my friend was waiting for me in her car outside my apartment. I drove back up to Drescher and picked up a friend. I then set out to start preparing our meal while she perused gossip blogs, as I insisted that she let me prepare the food. The sound of veg-
etables being cut on a cutting board was mixed with the latest news of Heidi Klum’s impending divorce, the sad news of Etta James’ death and something about the Kardashians. The process of preparing enchiladas is quite simple. First, all the toppings have to be prepared. I started by slicing some lettuce and putting it aside in a small container to rinse. (Remember to wash all your vegetables.) Then I cut some avocado into thin slices. You don’t need to wash the avocado. I added a little bit of flavor to the sour cream by adding salt, pepper, a little bit of milk and mixing it all together until it was aqueous. For the inside of the enchiladas I chopped some onion and mixed it with the feta cheese. I’ve often seen enchiladas made with chicken; however, I decided to stick with how I’ve seen them made at home. If you want yours with chicken you just have to cook some, shred it and put it in the tortilla. A few times I’ve seen people put enchiladas into the oven. When I first saw this I was shocked. “What kind of bastardization of my culture’s food is this?!” You see, I’m used to seeing enchiladas made differently due to the way most of my family made them. First you need some jalapeño sauce. If you’re not up for the hot stuff — I understand that a lot of my readers have delicate stomachs that are not used to spicy foods — you can use tomato sauce. They’re in the same aisle of the grocery store right next to each other. Put this to boil on a pan with some consome and water, and then turn it off. Make sure you stir the pan so that everything is mixed. After it boils, put out another clean pan with some cooking oil (I used cooking spray because I didn’t have oil and the results were disastrous at first). After it heats up a bit, make sure the flame is to medium or lower. We wouldn’t want burn marks all over your forearms now. Take a tortilla and dip it into the pan with the sauce. Make sure that the entire tortilla is covered in the sauce. Then put the tortilla in the pan with cooking oil. You let it sit there for a bit, then flip it. Once it looks like the tortilla has absorbed the sauce, take it out and place it on a plate. This was difficult for me. The first four at-
EDGAR HERNANDEZ / LIFE & ARTS EDITOR
Trying to cook: Enchiladas can be decorated with many different toppings. In this case, I decided to go with some lettuce, avocado, sour cream and shredded cheese.
tempts had to be thrown away much in the same fashion that the SAC needs to be taken out, without remorse and with hope that the next thing to come along is better. Once the tortilla is on the plate, you can add the feta cheese with onion (or chicken if you prefer) in the middle and roll it. You repeat the same process until you have as many enchiladas as you want. Finish it off by putting all the things you worked on first on top. My friend and I are still alive, so give the recipe a try!
Ingredients: For the sauce; 1 can of Jalapeño sauce (or tomato sauce) 1 spoonful of consome (bouillon) Toppings As much cheese as you’d like. I suggest either fresco or feta. 1 onion 1 head of lettuce 1 avocado Sour cream Salt and pepper *Adjust amounts and ingredients to your taste.
edgar.hernandez@pepperdine.edu
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