Recipe: Turkey Enchiladas Nogada Style

This is one of my favorite ways to use turkey or chicken leftovers. Since we missed having turkey on Thanksgiving I bought one when we arrived in the East Bay. After making stock, soup and having some turkey sandwiches and pizza... this is what I did with the rest:

Turkey Enchiladas Nogada Style
©Devany Vickery-Davidson 2002

Filling:

2 Cups Shredded turkey or chicken
1 cup Chopped white onions
8 cloves of garlic finely chopped
1 small bunch of cilantro chopped (about 1/3 to ½ cup)
6 fresh Poblano chiles roasted, peeled and chopped (or 2 cans of canned chopped green chiles)
1 Chipotle in adobo, finely chopped (wear laytex gloves) and add at least 2 TBS of the Adobo sauce
¼ cup Toasted slivered almonds
3 Tbs. Cumin Seeds toasted and then ground
3 cups Mexican Queso Enchilada (white melting Cheese~ Jack cheese works if you don’t have Mexican products available) Shredded.
½ cup white Rasins (plumped in hot water and drained)

Sauce:

3 Tbs Butter
3 Tbs Flour
3 cups of Low fat milk
1 tsp Salt
1 tsp fresh grated Nutmeg
½ tsp ground White pepper
Dry Spansih Sherry

Garnish:
Queso Fresco
Pomegranate seeds
Chopped green onions

About 2 dozen fresh white corn tortillas
Oil

Mix all filling ingredients in a large bowl.

To make sauce, in a sauce pan melt butter, add flour to make roux, whisk in the milk and stir simmering to thicken slightly. Whisk in spices. Continue to simmer until the thickness of gravy. Add sherry. Remove from heat.
To soften tortillas, run through warm oil for about 1 minute and stack on paper towels.

To assemble, put a drizzle of sauce in the bottom of a baking pan and then in another pan roll a tortilla with about 1/3 cup of filling and place in the sauced pan. Continue doing this until this pan is filled. Top this pan with enough sauce to barely cover the enchiladas half way. Continue this process till filling and/or sauce is used up. If you have extra sauce left, distribute it amongst the pans. You can also use disposable freezer pans for this.

Bake for 35 minutes @ 350 degrees or until the top is bubbling and slightly golden. *If you want to freeze, remove those pans from the oven after 20 minutes of baking and let cool before freezing.

Garnish with the crumbled queso fresco, chopped green onions and pomegranate seeds. Serve with a salsa verde.

White Sangria is a great match for these enchiladas.