The Search for Enjococado: Nutty and Thick

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

I’m not the only one who’s looking for the recipe to a delicious enjococado. A Google Answers thread outlines a recipe that was found on a website, years and years ago. I looked around for someone who had tried it before and followed as close as I could, changing a few things based on my experience with the previous enjococado recipe.

The flavor definitely came out nutty and wasn’t really spicy at all. However, there was something special from it and I appreciated the nuts in it somewhat, but they were too overpowering. This version also came out far too thick and chunky. Perhaps more water would help, or maybe more reserved liquid. Feel free to give that a try.

Of course, the entire recipe as found didn’t seem to follow the process that all other recipes followed (like blending!). That didn’t make sense to me, so I made the recipe my own. In my case, I made enchiladas instead of traditional enjococado.

Ingredients

• 2 large oranges, juiced and zest from half
• 3 large garlic cloves, chopped fine
• 3 green onions, chopped fine
• 3 red poblano chiles (can use chile ancho instead fresh red poblanos), stemmed and seeded
• 6 tbsp olive oil
• 15 oz Mexican cream
• 1 cup sliced (or slivered) almonds with skins removed
• 3 chicken breast halves

Directions

1. Fill a small pot with water and boil on high heat.
2. Turn the heat off and place the chiles inside, covering. Let stand for 15 minutes.
3. Heat 3 tbsp olive oil in a large pot (or Dutch oven) over medium heat.
4. Place chicken breasts oil and cook until about half done, taking chicken out of pot when it’s ready.
5. Drain chiles from the pot, reserving 1 cup of liquid.
6. Chop chiles into large pieces.
7. Heat 3 tbsp olive oil in a medium skillet and fry the garlic, onions, almonds and chiles for about 10 minutes.
8. Place mixture from skillet into blender, along with the reserved liquid from earlier.
9. Add orange juice and zest to blender and blend until mixture becomes very fine.
10. Pour mixture from blender into the large pot that the chicken was cooked in and cook on medium-low heat for five minutes. Be sure to scrape the bottom of the pot with your spoon to remove any chicken pieces.
11. Add chicken back to pot and cook for an additional ten minutes.
12. Add Mexican cream to the pot, stirring well, and cook for ten minutes. Add salt as needed.

Source: Old Biddy Blogging