Enchiladas de Valladolid

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Cast iron comal for charring and toasting
• •High-powered blender
• •Fine-mesh strainer
• •Wide heavy skillet or shallow clay cazuela for frying the sauce
• •Slotted spoon or kitchen tongs
• •Glass jar or ceramic bowl for the pickled onion

Instructions

1. 1

   Pickle the red onion

   Place the thinly sliced red onion in a heatproof bowl. Pour boiling water over it and count to ten. Drain immediately. Return the onion to the bowl with the sour orange juice, the teaspoon of salt, half teaspoon of oregano, and the charred habanero slices. Press the onions down so the juice covers them. Let them sit for at least 30 minutes at room temperature. This is cebolla morada en escabeche and it belongs on every Yucatecan plate. The blanching softens the bite. The naranja agria does the rest.

   Char the habanero whole on a comal until the skin blisters in spots. Then slice it. This tames the raw burn and brings out the floral smoke that defines Yucatecan heat.
2. 2

   Char the tomatoes and aromatics

   Heat a dry comal over medium-high. Place the tomatoes, the half white onion, and the unpeeled garlic cloves on the comal. Turn them as the skins blacken in patches. The tomatoes take about ten minutes and should collapse a little. The garlic takes five. The onion takes seven. You are not roasting these in an oven. You are blackening them on a comal the way the cocineras at the Mercado Municipal in Valladolid do it. The char is the flavor.

3. 3

   Toast the chiles

   Lower the comal heat to medium. Toast the ancho and guajillo chiles separately, about 20 to 30 seconds per side. They should puff and turn fragrant. The ancho will smell sweet and raisin-dark. The guajillo will smell sharper, more red. Do not let them blacken. Burned chile turns the sauce bitter and there is no fixing it.

   Press the chiles flat against the hot comal with the back of a spatula. Lift, flip, press again. Thirty seconds total per chile is plenty.
4. 4

   Soak the chiles and toast the spices

   Transfer the toasted chiles to a heatproof bowl and cover with hot tap water, not boiling. Let them soften for 20 minutes. While they soak, return the comal to low heat and toast the canela stick, allspice, and cloves for one minute, until you can smell them. These three spices, with the chocolate, are what make this sauce read as Yucatecan and not as a generic enchilada sauce. The Peninsula's grammar runs through canela and pimienta gorda.

5. 5

   Blend the sauce

   Peel the charred garlic. Drain the chiles, reserving the soaking liquid. To a blender add the soaked chiles, the charred tomatoes, the charred onion, the peeled garlic, the toasted spices, the oregano, the dissolved recado rojo, the chopped Mexican chocolate, the half teaspoon of salt, and one cup of the chicken broth. Blend on high for two full minutes until completely smooth. The sauce should be the color of dark brick with a faint shine from the chocolate. If it is too thick to move in the blender, add more broth a tablespoon at a time.

6. 6

   Fry the sauce

   Heat 2 tablespoons of manteca in a wide heavy skillet or cazuela over medium heat until it shimmers. Pour the blended sauce through a fine-mesh strainer directly into the hot lard. Stand back. It will sputter. Cook for ten to twelve minutes, stirring often, until the sauce darkens by a shade and the fat starts to separate at the edges. Loosen with the remaining 1/2 cup of chicken broth as needed. You want it the consistency of heavy cream. Taste for salt. La manteca es el sabor, and this is the step that gives the sauce its body.

   Straining is not optional. Skin and seed grit will ruin the silk of the sauce. Press hard on the solids with the back of a ladle.
7. 7

   Cook the longaniza filling

   In a separate skillet, melt the remaining tablespoon of manteca over medium heat. Add the finely chopped white onion and cook for three minutes until translucent. Add the crumbled longaniza de Valladolid. Cook for eight to ten minutes, breaking it up with a wooden spoon, until the smoke flavor blooms and the fat renders out a deep orange from the achiote already in the sausage. The longaniza is the soul of this dish. If you cannot find smoked Yucatecan longaniza, do not substitute breakfast sausage. Use a smoked Mexican chorizo de pueblo as a compromise, and know what you are missing.

8. 8

   Warm the tortillas in lard

   Heat a thin film of lard, about 2 tablespoons, in a small skillet over medium heat. One at a time, slip a corn tortilla in for five seconds per side, just until it goes soft and pliable. Transfer to a plate stacked under a clean cloth. This pass through the lard is what lets the tortilla absorb the sauce without falling apart. Skip it and your enchiladas will tear. No me vengas con atajos.

9. 9

   Dip, fill, and roll

   Keep the sauce warm over low heat. Dip a tortilla into the sauce, fully submerging it for two seconds. Lift it out, let the excess drip, and lay it on a warm plate. Spoon a generous tablespoon of the longaniza along the center and roll it tightly. Place seam-side down on the serving plate. Repeat with the next two tortillas, plating three rolled enchiladas per person. Work quickly. The tortillas drink the sauce fast.

10. 10

    Fry the eggs and finish

    In the lard left from the tortillas, fry four eggs over medium heat. The whites should set with crisp lacy edges and the yolks should stay liquid. Spoon a final ladle of warm sauce over each plate of enchiladas. Slide a fried egg on top of each portion. Crown with a generous pile of the pickled red onion and habanero. Scatter crumbled queso fresco and cilantro leaves over the top. Eat immediately, breaking the yolk so it runs into the sauce. This is how they serve it at the loncherias around Parque Francisco Cantón in Valladolid. Así se hace y punto.

Chef Tips

• •Find real Yucatecan recado rojo if you can. The pre-made achiote pastes sold in U.S. supermarkets are a compromise, often heavy on cumin and light on bitter orange. The Marin or Lol-Tun brands are reliable. Better still, dissolve solid recado in naranja agria the way they do on the Peninsula.
• •Naranja agria, the true sour orange of the Yucatán, is hard to find outside Mexico and Florida. If you cannot get it, mix two parts fresh orange juice with one part fresh lime juice and a splash of grapefruit. It is a compromise, not an upgrade.
• •The pickled onion improves overnight. Make it the day before if you can. The pink color deepens and the habanero perfumes the whole jar.
• •Do not skip the chocolate. One ounce sounds like nothing in a pot of sauce, and that is the point. It is not there to taste like chocolate. It is there to round the chiles and make the sauce taste like the Peninsula.

Advance Preparation

• •The chile and chocolate sauce can be made up to three days ahead and refrigerated. Reheat gently with a splash of broth, the flavor only deepens.
• •The pickled red onion with habanero keeps in the refrigerator for one week and improves after the first night.
• •The longaniza filling can be cooked one day ahead. Reheat in its own rendered fat just before assembling.
• •Do not assemble the enchiladas in advance. Tortillas dipped in sauce must be eaten within minutes or they fall apart.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 500g)