Tonight, I am making smoked chicken enchiladas. It’s the first time I’ve made this dinner for a while, but I really like it. Details follow:

Description:
This was adapted from a recipe published in the DCIst blog in Washington. That recipe calls for going to a chicken carryout place, buying an already-cooked roast chicken, stripping the meat and using it to make the enchiladas. That’s not a bad idea — but I decided to twist that idea around by marinading chicken parts in mojo criollo and smoking them on the grill. This recipe does allow you to pre-cook your chicken and use it later, so you can still use it as the basis of a weekday time-saver.

Ingredients:
1 whole fryer chicken, about four pounds, or approximately the same amount of mixed chicken parts. Include at least some dark meat. Don’t use skinless pieces — you’re eventually going to toss the skin away in this recipe, but it does help keep the chicken moist when you smoke it.

1 can tomato sauce

Chili powder

Hot pepper sauce. I’d recommend something that has a less distinguishable flavor than Tobasco, like Crystal or Texas Pete.

Eight *thin* *corn* (not flour) tortillas.

Cinnamon

Unsweetened baking chocolate

Small bag o’ shredded Mexican blend cheese, or just shred some jack and cheddar to taste.

1 bottle Goya brand mojo criollo marinade, available at most markets that sell Hispanic foods. Only use Goya — I’ve never found another brand that can touch it.

OPTIONAL:

Sour cream

Cilantro

Shredded lettuce — I prefer romaine hearts for this.

Salsa — make it yourself or buy fresh salsa from most grocery store delis.

Raw or pickled jalapeno slices (optional)

Anything else you might want to dump on top of your enchiladas.

Directions:
PART ONE: Prepare chicken.

You can do this part in advance, even a few days beforehand — I actually prefer to do it this way because cooling and reheating the chicken concentrates the flavor, and it makes for an easy cooking session on Enchilada Day.

Take your whole chicken and cut it into quarters, or just take your chicken parts, and put them into a gallon Ziploc bag. Shake up the bottle of mojo criollo, pour a few ounces into a cup for along with a splash of vegetable oil for basting the chicken later, pour the rest into the bag with the chicken, seal the bag, put the bag in a big bowl to prevent horrible accidents and put everything in the fridge for 3-5 hours. Occasionally shake the contents of the bag around to get the chicken nice and coated.

When you’re ready to cook the chicken, prepare your barbecue for offset cooking. Light about half as many coals as you would for grilling, or fire up the burner at one end of your gas grill if that’s what you use. Once the grill is ready to go, add a chunk or two of your favorite smoke wood (oak works well) or, if you have a gas grill, use a smoker box and some wood chips to provide smoke. Chicken takes on smoke easily, so don’t use too much wood.

We’re trying to keep the chicken meat moist here and we don’t care how the skin comes out, so we’re going to cook our chicken at relatively low heat — say about 250-275 — but don’t get too worked up about the temperature. Any range in this area will work fine.

Take the chicken out of the marinade, drop it on the opposite side of the grill from your heat source, and offset-smoke the chicken until done (perhaps an hour to an hour and a half, depending on the temperature). Baste with the reserved mojo criollo regularly — more than you would if you were cooking the chicken to eat by itself. Again, the goal here is to get very juicy meat, and we don’t care if the skin comes out rubbery, because it’s getting tossed.

When the chicken is done, let it cool a bit, remove the skin and toss it away, strip the meat from the bones, and pull or chop the meat so it is small enough to use in enchiladas. If you want at this point, you can drop the meat back into a ziploc bag and leave it in the fridge for a few days until you need it. This lets you cook your chicken on Sunday and make the enchiladas on, say, Tuesday.

PART TWO: Prepare the enchiladas.

When you’re ready to make your enchiladas, take your chicken out of the fridge so it’s not ice-cold later, and then start by preparing the tortillas. Take eight *corn* tortillas (make sure they’re the thin variety), wrap them tightly in aluminum foil and put them in the oven at 275 degrees for 15 minutes or so. It is necessary to warm the tortillas so they will be pliable when you go to make the enchiladas — but don’t let them dry out. I actually might put in 10 just so eight of them come out OK (corn tortillas are cheap — Shopper’s sells 30 of them for a buck).

While your tortillas are heating, pour one can of tomato sauce into a saucepan and add 1 teaspoon chili powder, 1 tablespoon hot sauce and 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon. Bring to a boil and reduce heat to low while stirring in 1/4 oz (yes, only one-quarter ounce) *unsweetened* chocolate. Use a whisk to make sure the chocolate is thoroughly combined. Let the sauce simmer an additional 10 minutes.

(An aside here: No, this sauce will not taste like chocolate or cinammon. They balance out the heat and add richness. Try it!)

When the tortillas are ready, pull them out of the oven and crank it up to 375 so it will pre-heat for baking. Get a baking dish that’s big enough to hold the eight enchiladas without them bumping into each other (I’d actually recommend a foil pan so you don’t have to deal with what can be a very messy pan cleanup).

Put a few tablespoons of enchilada sauce in the bottom of the pan and spread it around in a very thin layer so the enchiladas don’t stick. Set the pan nearby.

Put about a quarter-cup of chicken meat in a tortilla, roll it up and put it seam side down in the pan. Once you have eight of these in place, cover each tortilla carefully with enchilada sauce, using a spoon. You’re not trying to swim them in sauce here — that will turn them into mush — you just want to cover the tops and maybe put a bit around the sides. Next, cover with as much cheese as you like — but I think moderation is better because it lets the flavor of the chicken and sauce come through. Feel free to sprinkle some raw or pickled jalapeno slices around the pan if that floats your boat.

Drop the uncovered pan into the 375-degree oven for, oh, 20 minutes or so. I’d check after 15 minutes and then every few minutes after that. The enchiladas are done when the edges are slightly crisp and the cheese is melted and slightly brown on the edges. It’s important to cook these long enough to let the chicken get hot if you chose to pre-cook and refrigerate the chicken, but it’s also important not to dry out the enchiladas.

When they’re done, let the enchiladas set for a minute or two so the cheese gets slightly less gooey, then use a thin metal spatula to remove and plate the enchiladas.

You can cover them with anything you like (or nothing at all but perhaps a dab of sour cream and a sprig of cilantro), but I prefer shredded lettuce, fresh salsa and a perhaps few pickled jalapeno slices. Your mileage may vary.

Warning: These suckers can be addictive. The smoked chicken is a different, and less heavy, flavor than the traditional simmered-in-sauce-until-it-falls-apart chicken enchilada approach. It’s good!

Number Of Servings: Eight or more

Preparation Time: 2.5 hours if done same day; 45 minutes if not.