Mami’s Enchiladas...

The way to a man's heart and his inevitable expectation of you being his mother.

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Mami Maisonet
5960 S Land Park #222
Sacramento, CA 95822

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PUERTO RICAN COOKING WORKSHOPS

Thanks to everyone who attended last week’s Mofongo cooking class. I hope I demystified Mofongo and showed you that it doesn’t have to be super complicated and it doesn’t have to take a long time! Here is a photo one of the participants took of their final dish. I think they did an amazing job at presentation!

I have another class on Sunday, August 13, 2022.

CLICK HERE FOR INFORMATION ON MY NEXT CLASS

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New website, who dis?

I used to have a website. I built it myself on Wordpress. And I cried like every other minute through the entire process. Only to find out having a website really isn’t even necessary. You can totally get by with just your social media pages these days. Zacarías González took pity on your girl and made a simple website for me. Also, a logo! On the advise of the counsel - what little experience I have had with the “where is this?” social media crowd - we know they’re gonna need something direct and simple to land upon. Land upon these nuts, dummies!

illyannamaisonet.com

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If you do choose to make these enchiladas, let me know by posting on social media and tagging me in it! I love to see if the recipes worked out as planned. And I love sharing your efforts with other followers who may be too intimidated! Someone asked me what kind of mole I used for the sauce. Newsflash: it’s canned. But, Mami always “doctored” up her recipes, fortifying it with additional spices. And because I cook it at such a high temperature, for a long time, it thickens up and the color darkens.

Enchiladas were the first recipe Mami taught me. I was around 19-years-old. Soon I’d tell Mami and Nana that I didn’t want children and that I was an Atheist. I still remember the look on their faces. I knew how to make eggs, beans, ramen, hot dogs. This was the first entree recipe I learned. And I used it throughout my wasted youth, cooking for boys as a performative monkey in an attempt to display my domesticity in the audition process we call dating. At 19 in 2000, I still had some of my family’s old-world etiquette locked in my brain; cooking was a necessary attribute in any Latina searching for a permanent partner. Insert history’s longest eye-roll.

The enchilada recipe was passed down to Mami by my Nina Maryanne. If you’re asking yourself, “Wait, doesn’t she already have a Nina Deedee?” You sweet, sweet, un-Catholic heathen. The ceremonial performances of Catholicism require you to be baptized, where you acquire your first set of godparents. Your communion is where you collect your second set (insert Chicana Nina Maryanne) and then your confirmation. Collecting sets along the way to combine the strongest dual-type combinations (water and electric) to assist you in fighting your version of villainous Maxie and Archie should there come a time when your biological parents perish.

The recipe evolved over time as I added more seasonings for my own tastes. I was taught (by Nana and Mami) the archaic proverb, “The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.” And I dated a lot in my twenties. This recipe got a workout.

I attribute the got of my first boyfriend to this recipe. He was Mexican and Black. Tall. A musician. Exceptionally intelligent. A great conversationalist. And looking for someone to take care of him. I have some speculations on why he didn’t feel loved at home. His parents had divorced. His father was a hardworking old-school machismo Mexican who was all about the same things Mami wanted for me; get that education and get a good job. And much like Mami, my boyfriend’s dad probably felt disappointed in himself that the old-school work ethic they knew hadn’t been instilled in my boyfriend. I know Mami definitely felt that way about me for a long time. My boyfriend was a sensitive artist type, which is not ok for a lot of machismo dads. And my boyfriend was definitely living in the shadow of his younger brother who (at the time) was on a skyrocketing baseball career and would eventually go pro. Even if it was short lived due to an injury.

Not to mention that my boyfriend was fine. Too fine! He never had an issue with finding a woman to take care of him. He had physical components I considered (still do, don’t come for me, I’m working on it) out of my league. We met on the party-line. Youngin’s, gather round while I try and explain what this party-line was like. Think of a free service similar to a series of internet chat rooms, but on the phone. Press a button and move on to another room. A week later we decided to finally meet in-person.

My older cousin - who I looked up to - took me to pick him up. I remember his tall and lanky frame walking across the lawn; fitted ball cap over unruly obsidian hair, beautiful smile, straight teeth and a tawny complexion. My cousin whispered, “Damn.” He wasn’t just fine to me, but conventionally fine. He was so fine that I thought I didn’t deserve him. He was so fine that I let him (basically) move in with me.

We were both 20. I worked two jobs. I would come home and he’d still be chilling on the couch. He didn’t work. He hadn’t made any music. He didn’t clean. And he would ask me to cook for him because he hadn’t eaten all day. I had used my cooking prowess to snatch his ass and this is what he now expected. Looking back, I also think that having food cooked for him was just his love language; it meant that someone actually cared. There’s nothing wrong with that. But, when you start to expect those things and aren’t filling that cup with anything of your own…

“What do you want to do with your life?” I asked him. He wanted to be a working musician. I used my connections (again - my older cousin) to put my boyfriend (who was in a “group” with his best friend) in the same room (my cousin’s living room) with one of our town’s most popular party/club deejays at the time. My boyfriend’s partner and “best friend” was supposed to show up with their demo. A cassette that featured both of them! What the best friend showed up with was a demo…of himself. Not the demo they worked on that included both of them. The best friend had used the opportunity to showcase himself. AND ON MY CONNECT! At first I was mad at the best friend and I tried to point out how shady that was, but it was falling onto deaf ears. My boyfriend’s (and often most men’s) emotional attachment and loyalty to a man who had clearly fucked him over eclipsed whatever attraction he had to me and any of the things that I had done to help him. TL:DR - Bros before hoes. Then I just became pissed at my boyfriend for allowing someone else to control his fate.

I considered that moment a crescendo in our relationship and realized it was all bullshit and he had to go. He looked surprised when I broke up with him. So surprised that he went home and never saw or spoke to me again! I literally didn’t know what the hell happened to him! Until almost a decade later.

I tolerated so much because I didn’t think I was physically compatible with him. Some people have said, “You put up with so much because he was your first.” He was my first boyfriend, but not the person I lost my virginity to. That award goes to a random middle-aged Japanese-American car salesman I met on Craigslist a year before, whom I never saw again.

MAMI’S ENCHILADAS

Yields 10 enchiladas

SAUCE

1-28 ounce can Enchilada Sauce; like La Victoria

1 teaspoon Ground Guajillo Chile, like Morton & Bassett

1 teaspoon of Chili Powder

1 tablespoon of your favorite herb blend, like Mrs. Dash

2 teaspoons Ground Cumin

2 tablespoons Ground Onion Powder

2 tablespoons Ground Garlic Powder

MEAT

3 tablespoons Olive oil

1 large onion, small dice

6 cloves garlic, minced

1 pound ground beef

1 teaspoon Ground Guajillo Chile, like Morton & Bassett

1 teaspoon of Chili Powder

1 tablespoon of your favorite herb blend, like Mrs. Dash

2 teaspoons Ground Cumin

2 tablespoons Ground Onion Powder

2 tablespoons Ground Garlic Powder

¼ cup sofrito

Kosher salt and ground black pepper, to taste

10 Corn tortillas

16 ounces Mexican cheese blend

Preheat oven to 400F

Over low heat, warm up your enchilada sauce. Throw in all of your spices. Let simmer on low until ready to use.

Over medium high heat, in a saute pan, add olive oil to your pan. Cook your onions for 3-5 minutes or until translucent and very soft. Add in your garlic and cook for 3-5 minutes, but don’t allow it to brown. If they start to turn brown, just add some water to the pan to stop the browning. 

Add in your ground beef and break it up a little. Add in all your spices and combine thoroughly. Add in sofrito. Cook for 10-15 minutes or until the meat is thoroughly cooked and the spices have been totally incorporated. This is also the time to add in other fixins if you wanted; zucchini, butternut squash, sweet potatoes, potatoes. The combination of fillings are endless. Set aside.

Warm up your tortillas on a comal or a cast iron pan and set aside in a towel.*

Take your 8x8 square pan and add a little of the enchilada sauce to the bottom of the pan. Take your still warm tortilla and add in 2-3 tablespoons (or more, if you can fit it in) of your ground beef mixture. Roll the tortilla over the meat mixture until you have a taquito/flauta/rolled taco whatever you wanna call it. Place the taquito onto the enchilada sauce. Do this until the bottom row of taquitos are tightly nestled from end to end of the pan.

Cover the bottom row of taquitos with more enchilada sauce.** Then add your cheese. And then repeat the steps again, stacking another row onto the bottom row.

Add the enchiladas into your oven and cook for 20-30 minutes, or until the cheese is bubbly, melted and browned! 

Serve with Spanish Rice and Beans, or just by themselves.

*Notes: Mami taught me to warm the tortillas up in oil, this keeps this extra pliable. But, I also find it adds a lot of oil. Which I no longer prefer.

** You can make this as saucy as you like. I like mine saucy. Sometimes I’ll even add some of the canned sauce into the beef mixture, just to give it extra moisture. If you have extra meat and enchilada sauce, just add the sauce into the meat mixture and use it to make tacos or breakfast burritos.

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