Mexican is perhaps my favourite kind of food, which is slightly awkward because I live in the south west of England, which is not known for it’s Mexican cuisine.

I mean, I like pasties, too, so it’s not all bad!

We tend to have something along the lines of fajitas, enchiladas, quesadillas or burritos about once a week. It can be hard to get hold of the ingredients sometimes, but generally you can make do. One thing that always intrigues me is the idea of canned or jarred enchilada sauce, as it’s not something you can buy around here. It’s probably pretty disappointing compared to the homemade stuff, but I can’t help but wonder. Especially green enchilada sauce. I mean. Wow. What must that be like?

Anyway, I get to make my own sauce instead. The sauce I make here is based on one by the Pioneer Woman (and you can read the much better original recipe here*), however this one has been slightly adjusted to include readily available British ingredients. The rest of the enchilada recipe was based on seeing the phrase sour cream enchiladas and deciding I wanted some. With chicken.

So here is how:

Firstly, decide at 10am on a Saturday during the school holidays that you want to make enchiladas despite having none of the ingredients to hand. Secondly, drive to the supermarket only to question every life choice you have ever made when you struggle to find a parking spot, are nearly run over by an old man with a trolley, and realise that you’ve impulse bought two different varieties of condensed milk despite having no plans to use them.

Once that is all out of the way, open all the windows in the hope of tempting a breeze into your tiny kitchen, and begin.

Boil a jointed whole chicken. By which I mean start with a whole chicken, joint it, and boil it, for about 25-30 minutes. Once done, take the chicken out of the water and allow it to cool enough to handle. Save the chicken water and the bones to make stock, which will make you feel like either a witchy old grandma or the head cook in a nineteenth century country house, depending on what sort of reading you did as an early teen.

Shred the chicken once cool enough to handle, and place it to one side. This will give you way more than you need, so be prepared for leftovers.

Make your enchilada sauce (unless you have a secret supply of the jarred stuff – and if you do, please clue me in!)

Heat two tablespoons olive oil in a large saucepan. Finely dice half a medium onion and half a red bell pepper and fry for a couple of minutes while you mince/squash some garlic, then add this to the pan. Allow everything to fry until softening – another two minutes or so.

Measure in chilli powder (I went with Hot), cayenne pepper and cumin, along with a sprinkle of salt and pepper, and a crumbled stock cube. Fry together for a minute to allow the flavours to release.

Sprinkle over a tablespoon of flour and stir together for a minute before adding a glug of chicken stock (if you have any to hand, otherwise just use the water from your boiled chicken.) Give everything a really good stir, to lift the cook vegetables and spices from the bottom of the pan, and to encourage everything to turn into a paste.

Add a 500ml carton of passata and half a pint/250ml cold water. Allow everything to come to the boil, reduce the heat slightly let the mixture reduce by about a third (about 15-20 minutes, I was distracted by shredding chicken.)

Once thickened, turn of the heat and allow it to cool before using an immersion blender (a whuzzah in this household) and whuz it until smooth. You now have enchilada sauce – ta da! You won’t need all of it, but you can keep the leftovers in the fridge for (I’m guessing) three days, and it can be frozen. Buy some freezerproof soup bags – I’m always meaning to!

For the filling, grate a lot of cheese. Again, Monterey Jack isn’t readily available round these here parts, so plan big then settle on cheddar. I had a ball of mozerella in the fridge that was dangerously close to it’s expiry date, so that got torn up as well. Dice a load of spring onions as well. This filling is very mild and creamy, which is good because I forgot to mention that the enchilada sauce is hot.

Get a nice big bowl ready. Add 150ml of sour cream (half a pot if using a tall pots), six spring onions, half a teaspoon of chives and about a tablespoon of finely chopped coriander. Give it a stir, then add two large handfuls of shredded chicken and a large handful of grated cheese. If you have mozzarella hanging around, throw that in too. Add a good sprinkle of black pepper. Mix everything thoroughly. If it looks a little dry, just add more of the sour cream. Next time I may put the whole pot in.

Warm eight small tortillas in the microwave for thirty seconds. While they are warming, lay out your chicken mix, you saucepan of enchilada sauce, grated cheese, and a large rectangular dish around a chopping board – this will be your incredibly messy workstation. Once everything is to hand, dunk a tortilla into the enchilada sauce and lay in on the chopping board. Add about two spoonfuls of the chicken mix and roll it tight. Place it in the baking dish and repeat with the other seven tortillas. You’ll have to squeeze them in tight!

Then, if you are like me and can’t leave well enough alone, spoon over some more of the enchilada sauce. Then some of the left over sour cream. Once you are finally done messing, top with grated cheese and place on a baking tray. Bake in a preheated oven until everything bubbles and the cheese is catching at the edges (20-30 minutes.)

Serve with salad or rice, and dips of your choice. Or peach salsa, which I also made today and will post about later.

Sour Cream Chicken Enchiladas

8 small tortillas

enchilada sauce

2 handfuls shredded chicken

150ml sour cream

1 handful grated mature cheddar

1 ball mozzarella, torn – optional

6 spring onions, finely sliced

1 tsp chives, finely sliced

black pepper

2-3 handfuls more grated cheddar

Enchilada sauce recipe

2 tbsp olive oil

half a medium onion, finely diced

half a red bell pepper, finely diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 tsp cumin

1 tsp chilli powder

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

1 chicken or vegetable stock cube

salt and pepper

1 tbsp plain flour

1/2 cup chicken stock or reserved chicken cooking liquid

500ml carton of passata

half a pint/250ml cold water

*Annoyingly this link will open on my phone but not on my laptop – apologies in advance if you experience any difficulties