Easy Chicken Enchiladas

Ingredients

3 boneless skinless chicken breasts, about 6 oz. each
15-16 oz. chicken stock
salt, pepper
3 small cans diced green chiles
vegetable oil, for tortillas
12 corn tortillas
Pam or other spray oil
1 can crushed tomatillos
1 can green enchilada sauce
8 oz. shredded cheese, your choice



Method

Phase 1:
Put the chicken stock and chicken breasts in a large skillet over medium heat.  Season with salt and pepper.

Cook until you see the bottom half of the chicken has turned white, then turn chicken over and season again.

Once the entire chicken has turned white, remove the breasts to a cutting board to cool slightly.  Cut each breast into two or three pieces, across the length, so that the resulting shredded pieces won't be longer than about 1 1/2".  You may notice that the chicken is not completely cooked inside, but this isn't important, as it will finish in the next step.

Using two forks, shred each cut piece of chicken, and return the shreds to the skillet, stirring occasionally as you you keep shredding.

Shredded chicken tends to dry out, but this process serves to keep the chicken very moist and finishes any cooking needed.

With all of the chicken back in the pan, open two cans of the diced green chiles and mix the contents into the shredded chicken.  If you want to make this dish ahead, you can stop here and finish the rest later or the following day.  If you do, just refrigerate the chicken mixture until you can continue.

Phase 2:
Put about 1/4" - 1/2" of cooking oil in a medium skillet over a medium heat.  Prepare a sheet pan with several layers of paper towels for draining the tortillas and set it close by.

Once the oil has come to frying temperature, slide a tortilla edge first into the oil.  You only need to leave it there for 2-3 seconds, as you are trying to soften it, not fry it.  Gently remove the tortilla to the paper towels, and repeat for the remaining tortillas, one a a time.

 Treating them this way makes them not only more flexible, but they are much less likely to break as you roll them up.  Once you have done all the tortillas, and pat the oil from the top of each, stack them up and set aside.

Prepare your casserole dish by spraying with the aerosol vegetable oil.  Not only does this make it much easier to get the enchiladas out of the dish when cooked, it really makes cleanup easy as well.  Gather your casserole, tortillas and filling together and get rolling.

I found that there is a simple easy way to get your enchiladas rolled tight and to keep all the filling from falling out.  Put your filling across the tortilla, then fold over the tortilla and pull tight (as in the picture below, but using both hands).

Keep it tight and continue rolling until you have just a little tongue showing underneath.

 
Transfer this to your casserole, placing it against one end as shown below so that it will not unroll.  Continue for the rest of the tortillas until your dish is filled.

Now combine the remaining can of green chiles , the crushed tomatillos and the enchilada sauce in a bowl or other container.  This recipe makes about a quart of sauce, but you will only need half of that, so freeze the rest for the next batch of enchiladas.

Slowly spoon/pour the sauce over the enchiladas, allowing a little run off at the sides. 

After this you can evenly distribute the shredded cheese over the top of the dish and you're done.  This is the second holding point - you can make these enchiladas to this point and cover with cling and refrigerate for hours or even until the next day before cooking if you need to.

Phase 3:
Preheat the oven to 350°, and bake until all the cheese has melted and starts to brown.  Everything is already cooked, so we are just heating everything together at this point.  Naturally, if you pull this from storage in the fridge, you will have to spend more time heating it up.  When a thermometer inserted in the center of the food reaches 200°, you are ready to go.

A servng can be 2 or 3 enchiladas, depending on how hungry you are.  You can also top them with anything from Pico de Gallo to sour cream and sliced black olives.