Chicken and Avocado Enchiladas

FEATURING MONJAY MEZZA’S AVOCADO DIP

Not much needs to be done to enjoy our products, Break open a packet of your favourite crackers or cut a carrot into batons and dip away. Or simply arrange our delicious finger foods on a platter and watch them crowd around. But the potential of our range is so much more, and we want to prove it. So we've created our very own recipe page to show you the versatility of our products. Dips to marinate or bake with, finger food transformed into main meals - the limit is your imagination.

YIELDS: 8 Enchiladas
BAKE TIME: 20 min

Chicken and avocado enchiladas may sound like an awkward fusion of Tex Mex and Ladies Who Lunch, but some unions just seem to hit it off. It’s the sparring between the creamy, cooling avocado and the pickled jalapenos that bring this dish to life. Probably the bubbling cheese as well. And the lime. And the spices. The coriander… Okay, so each ingredient is playing an indispensable role, as in all good recipes.

Enchiladas are usually the first thing non-Mexicans think of when they think of Mexican cuisine. The word is likely derived from the Nahuatl word chīllapīzzali, which means chilli flute, and first came to our attention in Bernal Díaz del Castillo’s 1576 Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España. In 1831, recipes for various enchiladas appeared in the incredibly influential El cocinero mexicano (The Mexican Chef).

As hard to believe as it is, not everyone has been a fan of this popular dish. Through the Land of the Aztecs from 1892 includes a critique from a white tourist which describes an enchilada as a ‘greasy tortilla sandwich containing ‘chiles,’ and a number of other uninviting-looking compounds and other nasty messes . . . filling the air with a pungent, nauseous smell’.

There’s just no accounting for taste.

Ingredients

Avocado Enchilada Sauce

2 tablespoons of butter
2 tablespoons of plain flour
2 cups of stock (chicken or vegetable)
⅔ of a cup of sour cream
1 teaspoon of ground cumin
½ a teaspoon of garlic powder
½ a teaspoon of ground coriander
1 teaspoon of salt
Several twists of the pepper mill
250g of Monjay’s Avocado Dip
Handful of chopped coriander
Juice of a lime

Enchilada Ingredients

2 cups of cooked, shredded chicken (roast chook from the supermarket is ideal)
1 onion, sliced thinly
Pickled jalapenos, diced
1 cup of grated cheddar cheese
8 tortillas

How to Prepare

Heat the oven to 175 degrees.

For the avocado enchilada sauce, melt the butter in a frying pan and whisk in the flour. Let it bubble and colour for a couple of minutes, then stir in the stock and let it come to the boil. Simmer for around five minutes to cook the flour through. Add the sour cream, cumin, garlic powder, coriander, salt and pepper, give it a stir, then remove from the heat. Stir through the avocado dip, coriander and lime, and set to one side.

To assemble, lay the tortillas out on the kitchen bench. Spread a little of the avocado sauce on each, then top with shredded chicken, followed by the onion, jalapenos and cheese. Roll the tortillas carefully and place snugly in a baking dish, seam side down. Cover with the remaining avocado enchilada sauce and then bake in the oven for around 20 minutes. If the enchiladas look as though they’re drying out too much, cover with foil.

Serve hot and bubbly.

Monjay Mezza is the home of traditional Middle Eastern Dips, Finger Food and Desserts.