The Search for Enjococado: A Bit Too Oily

Note: This is part of a four-part recipe series, the Search for Enjococado.

This final recipe I found is fairly close to the required spiciness, but misses the mark in a lot of different ways. For example, it doesn’t involve cooking the chicken inside the enjococado, but rather boiling the chicken and putting the enjococado on top. I know for sure that’s not how it should be done. So I modified the directions a bit to be more in line with what the other enjococados called for.

That resulted in an incredibly oily dish that had the right spice, but was missing the nutty flavor that’s needed. It also called for far too much Mexican cream – in the case of this recipe, it actually called for sour cream, which was weird.

Anyway, here’s a much simpler recipe to try that’s close in spiciness to what enjococado should be, but lacking in a bunch of other ways.

Ingredients

• 3 chicken breast halves
• salt to taste
• 1 tbsp oil
• 5 guajillo chiles (dried, devined, and seeded)
• 1 chile de arbol (dried, devined, and seeded)
• 1 clove of garlic
• 1 chicken broth cube, dissolved in hot water
• ½ tsp cumin
• 15 oz Mexican cream

Directions

1. Soak peppers for about 20 minutes in hot water, then drain, reserving 1 cup of liquid.
2. Meanwhile, heat oil over medium heat in a medium pot (or Dutch oven) and salt the chicken excessively.
3. Cook the chicken in the pot until about half cooked, then remove from pot.
4. Place peppers, garlic, chicken broth, cumin, and reserved liquid in blender and blend until smooth, but thick.
5. Pour pepper mixture into the pot where you cooked the chicken and cook over medium-low heat for about 10 minutes. Be sure to scrape the bottom of the pot to get any chicken bits that might be stuck to the bottom.
6. Add the chicken to the mixture and cook for about five minutes.
7. Add the Mexican cream to the mixture and stir well, cooking for an additional 5-10 minutes or until the entire mixture starts bubbling to ensure it’s warm.

Source: cdkitchen