Main Ingredients:

See below ingredients and instructions of the recipe

Cooking Preparation of the Recipe:

2 lb Ground meat (mixed 1/2 C Wine or sherry
-ground beef and 3/4 C Black olives
-ground pork) 1 1/2 C Enchilada sauce
1 md Onion 1/2 C Tomato sauce
1/2 Green pepper -(1 small can)
5 Garlic cloves 12 Corn tortillas
1 Cilantro bunch 1/2 lb Monterey jack cheese
1/2 t Red pepper 1/2 C Sour cream (optional)
1/2 t Salt Oil
1/2 t Cumin (or more)

Chop onion and garlic; place them in a frying pan with the ground meats.
Saute them without adding fat. When meat is brown, add the chopped green
pepper and most of the cilantro leaves and cook for another minute or two
(until green pepper is cooked bright green). Drain well, then add (about)
several tablespoons of the enchilada sauce and cook for a few minutes
longer. Set aside.

Make the sauce: into a saucepan, pour the remaining enchilada sauce (from
the can). Add the can of tomato sauce. Add the wine or sherry, cumin, salt,
red pepper, and cook for 10-30 minutes (depending on how compulsive you
are). The flavor should be smooth (not gritty) and spicy.

Collect together everything that you will need for assembling the
enchiladas. Grate the cheese onto wax paper. Have the olives handy (you'll
be cutting them in half). Lightly oil the baking dish.

The frying pan from which you drained the meat mixture still has some of
its grease left in it. Take 4 tortillas from their package, separate them
from each other, then one-by-one, slide them over the frying pan surface on
each side, to moisten them slightly with the grease. That done, stack them
in the frying pan and heat them until they are soft and pliable.

The final assembly requires a bit of manual dexterity and speed: Take the
tortillas, and place them (bumpy side out) in the oven dish, curved into a
"U" shape, each right next to its neighbor. (At this point, start heating
your next 4 tortillas in the frying pan. I usually wind up preparing 10
tortillas in all.)

Place a small handful of cheese into the U of each tortilla, followed by an
appropriate amount of meat mixture, and finally several olive halves. Then
curl one end of the tortilla around to tuck into the opposite end, and
carefully rotate it to conceal the seam. Each tortilla should be filled
firmly (not too loosely) but not overflowing the ends.

Once all the filling is used up and the enchiladas are now filled
tortillas, pour the sauce over the top, helping it run into all the
crevices. Sprinkle lightly with remaining cilantro leaves. 10 Cover with
aluminum foil and bake for 20-30 minutes, just until the tortillas are soft
and the sauce is slightly bubbly. Let sit for 5 minutes, then serve, topped
with a dollop of sour cream. If you fail to drain the meat well enough, the
enchiladas will be greasy. If over-baked, it tastes all right, but the
tortillas lose their texture. In general, however, the recipe is quite
forgiving in its proportions. Feel free to adjust the seasoning to your own
tolerance for hot spice. I like to assemble this recipe at least 3 hours
before baking to give the flavors a chance to blend. Left refrigerated for
a day, the seasoning is even less aggressive. Served with a salad (and some
Mexican beer), it's a complete meal.

NOTES:

* Enchiladas with meat, black olives and cheese -- For many years, I've
been involved in Latin American "solidarity work" here in the San Francisco
area, and as a result, I have learned some of its culinary pleasures. This
recipe originated from the back of a can of enchilada sauce in Mexico, but
was refined by a special Chilean refugee friend who won a scholarship to
the California Culinary Academy (in San Francisco) and now cooks
ever-so-lusciously. Yield: Serves 6-8.

: Difficulty: moderate.
: Time: 1 hour preparation, 30 minutes baking.
: Precision: Approximate measurement OK, but time the baking carefully.

: Karen Kerschen
: EECS Department, University of California, Berkeley, Calif., USA
: karen#silvia.Berkeley.EDU

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