Tequilla's Food Thoughts - Chorizo

Prior to living in Tejas for a while, I had never had chorizo in my life. Clearly I was missing out. Another thing I missed out on prior to living in Tejas was the concept of the breakfast taco/burrito. I'd never seen or heard of that before in my life (even though I worked in a restaurant for 4 years in high school/college. The intersection of breakfast tacos/burritos and chorizo was not only mind blowing, but life changing.

I'm not going to lie, I watch my fair amount of programming on the Food Network. Rarely will I ever watch the shows looking for a recipe (in fact, I rarely use such a thing as a recipe), but instead looking for ideas and new ways to think about combining ingredients and food. And in particular, one of the bigger things I learned from my father, and something that I definitely look for when watching shows, is the concept and importance of making and utilizing sauces.

Having lived in Texas, the influence of Mexican food in my cuisine choices cannot be understated. However, one of the things that stands out to me is that so much of Mexican food is more or less the same tired ideas. Tacos have grown a bit over time in variety over the last 10-15 years (one of my favorite taco places is this one: http://torchystacos.com/menu/). However, when it comes to things like burritos, enchiladas, etc, they seem to me to be the same boring taco meat, chicken, cheese, etc. I decided I wanted to change that ...

So I stumbled onto making the attached ... spicy chorizo hash enchiladas. The filling consists of chorizo mixed with sauteed sweet potatoes, poblano peppers, jalepeno peppers, red/yellow/orange mini peppers, and red onions seasoned with some ground cumin, fennel, and a quick splash of sirracha. Once taking the filling and placing it inside a rolled flour tortilla, it's placed in a pan to bake. Prior to placing in the oven, it's topped with some mexican blend of cheese, finely chopped red onions and some finely crumbled cojita/mexican cheese on top (not pictured). For the sauce, it's a poblano pepper sauce that consists of some stock, poblano pepper, a little jalepenos (no seeds), sour cream, and cilantro all blended together and then put over medium heat to allow to be slightly reduced. It's then poured over before baking at 350 for about 10-15 minutes until the cheese on top is melted as pictured. Top with some sour cream and enjoy.

If you're looking for a little spice and something different for your next Mexican meal, I highly recommend that you try this.