Food Science Sunday

Friday night I found something I fell in love with- a show called Top Secret Recipe on CMT (of all places) where this hilarious guy tries to crack the secret recipes of famous foods like Cinnabon cinnamon rolls and KFC fried chicken.  He has a food truck (lab) and 3 days and he will pretty much do anything like stealing some cinnamon while on tour of a factory to try and re-create the signature recipes.  So much food science and so much fun.  You can check his show out HERE.  That's my dream job.  I love food science.  Who knew that the original Cinna"mom" lives on Bainbridge Island which is a 30 minute ferry ride from here?  Not me.

On to my week- it was full of experiments.  Times like this when the budget is tight, I don't do a lot of menu planning from recipes like my favorite magazine,  Everyday Food.  Instead I buy meat and veggies on sale and play with what I have.  This week I had some leftover green salsa that needed to be used and some corn tortillas that were getting stale in the fridge.

 So I decided to improvise some green enchiladas.  I knew the fresh tomatillo salsa would not make a good sauce as it was, so I pureed it in the blender to get out the chunks and added it to a shallow pot with a cup of chicken broth.  I brought that to a simmer and added 1 TB of cornstarch mixed with a little cold water.  Now I had a cooked sauce with a little body to it that would not just soak into my tortillas. If my salsa hadn't been so flavorful, I might have needed to add some cumin or even coriander to the sauce.    For the filling I cooked about 1 chicken breast and diced it and then added 1 can of white beans.  Pinto would have been better, but I didn't have any.  I mixed in 1/2 cup of my sauce to the chicken/bean mixture.  I made sure it was nice and hot.  I heated my tortillas (cooking one at a time in a dry skillet and then keeping warm in a tortilla warmer is optimal).  I filled each tortilla with chicken/bean mix, placed it in a pan and after having several lined up, I drizzled the sauce across the middle and sprinkled some cheese across the top.  I broiled them with the rack in the middle- heats and crisps the cheese on the top a little slower.  I have found that enchiladas work best this way for me.  I have all parts of the enchilada hot- the sauce, the filling, the tortillas and then I quickly build them and broil in the oven instead of baking for any length of time.  This keeps my tortillas from getting soggy.
I had some Cojita cheese which is like Parmesan for Mexican food.  We put this on top and drizzled with my version of Mexican creme.  I mixed some light sour cream with a little cream, a spoonful of low fat plain yogurt and a little milk to make just the right consistency.  The enchiladas turned out decent and the best part was the kids ate them up and had seconds.  Sometimes when we have things that are a little different, that isn't the story.  This would be a good gluten free meal as long as your salsa were free of any gluten.

Once you follow a recipe (or look at several versions) and get a feel for what ingredients are needed for a desired result, you can make any changes you need to make.  I wanted to make a creamed corn casserole Friday night for a dinner party, but didn't have the corn bread mix it called for or the bread crumbs.  I know corn bread mix has cornmeal, flour and things like salt and maybe baking powder in it.  I was able to add those things and the consistency turned out right.  The bread crumbs were for both the casserole body and a crunchy topping on top.  I melted a little butter in my cast iron skillet and added panko when it got hot.  I browned the panko so it would have flavor and color and used that in place of the bread crumbs.  We all enjoyed it and my guests didn't know that I didn't follow a recipe.
~Here's to Healthy Eating (and improvising)