Chicken enchiladas with a unknowningly spicy sauce!

I knew that tonight's dinner was going to have a ton of steps to it, so I've been chipping away at a couple them. Whenever I had some downtime over the the past couple of days during the crazy baking spree we are doing now, I got some of the more time-consuming parts of these Green Chile-Chicken Enchiladas done.

By the time I was ready to start preparing these tonight, all I had to do was assemble them and throw the pan into the oven. I made the sauce first on Monday - this is a combination of roasted Anaheim chiles, onions, garlic, a bit of flour to tighten it up, coriander and chicken broth. Besides enhancing their flavor, roasting the chiles is done first so you can remove the tough skins. This is done by broiling them until their skins have blistered and blackened - you then toss the chiles into a zip-loc type bag and after a few minutes, the chiles have steamed enough so the skins slip right off. The spicy seeds can also be easily removed at this point. If you want a very smooth sauce, you could puree the entire batch, but we both thought leaving half of it chunky was a good idea to give the sauce some texture.

I prepared the filling for the enchiladas yesterday - this began by poaching chicken breasts in a combination of chicken broth, onion, oregano, garlic and a bay leaf. Once the chicken is done, the poaching liquid is no longer needed for this recipe - however, I wouldn't just toss this down the drain! I say strain it and use it for a soup or freeze it for another dish at a another date. The tender chicken is allowed to cool slightly - it is then shredded and mixed with tangy sour cream and sautéed onions. The original recipe called for raw onions, but I decided to soften them first as Jeff is not a fan of crunchy onions. I stopped at this point and refrigerated the mixture until I was ready to assemble tonight. The filling is placed into warmed white corn tortillas, rolled up and placed in a baking dish lined with a portion of the green chile sauce. The remaining sauce is spooned over and a mixture of Monterey Jack and cheddar is scattered on top.

I'm fairly confident that I picked out the correct chile, but I was a little taken aback when I took a bite from my portion! Woo doggy - it was so hot! When we've had Anaheim chiles before, they have always been fairly mild, but apparently these were on steroids or something! It was almost borderline too-hot for me; however, between the gooey layer of sharp cheeses on top and the cool filling, the heat was tempered enough so I was still able to enjoy the flavor. Jeff was loving that spicy heat though!

Recipes
Green Chile-Chicken Enchiladas