Pulled Pork Enchiladas… entirely from scratch!

We had a roast pork a few nights back – a 2.6kg beast of a thing for 3 people – if you do the math, there was obviously a lot of leftovers, even with 2 men at the table! So since the boys went away for the weekend and I’m not really one for roast pork sandwiches, I tried to think of what to make with a massive chunk of very well cooked pork….. yep…thank you Mexicans, I decided to make an old favourite, Pulled Pork Enchiladas!

Wait a minute… I’m in Tbilisi and there is not a lot of ‘Old El Paso’ on the shelves – no Enchilada meal kits here as I’ve used every other time I’ve made them. (as in, I saw a jar of salsa the other day, but can’t remember where, and can’t remember seeing Tortillas anywhere either!).

So off to Google I went, and found a few great and seemingly simple recipes for Tortillas and Enchilada sauce. Had all the ingredients in the cupboard (amazingly…) and only had to pop to the shops for some cheese and sour cream! Here is the site I used for Tortillas and below are some pics and recipes I used /adapted a little!

Tortillas: The Cafe Sucre Farine website

Enchilada Sauce: got inspiration from loads of websites – mainly adapted from http://www.lifesambrosia.com

 

Ok so Tortillas:

Flour Tortillas

3 cups flour (all purpose)

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/3 cup vegetable oil

1 cup warm water

*I halved all these ingredients and only made half a batch as wasn’t sure how they’d turn out, and was more than enough for my enchiladas!!

 

1. Combine flour, salt and baking powder, mix together. Make a well in the middle and add in oil & water – I don’t have any sort of electric mixer at the moment so I use a fork to whisk ingredients together, starting in the middle and slowly dragging more of the flour mix into the wet ingredients. When it starts to stick, I use my hands to mix it and knead together until it is a smooth ball.

* This step would be much easier with a stand mixer or electric mixer with a dough hook, just keep mixer running until the ball of dough is smooth.

2. Transfer from Mixing bowl to floured surface. Divide dough into 16 equal portions, by dividing ball in half, then half again and so on. Form a ball with each piece and flatten with the palm of your hand as much as possible. Cover dough with kitchen towel or cling film for 15 minutes so it can rest.

Flattened balls of dough – cover with a tea towel and allow to rest for 15mins

3. Heat a large non-stick pan over medium – high heat. Roll each piece of dough into a circle (or as best you can – none of mine managed to make it to circle status!). They should reach about 6-7in diameter. ( I worked by rolling one out, popping it in the pan, while that one was cooking, rolling the next one out and so on).

4. When pan is very hot, place the first dough circle into pan and cook for around 30seconds to 1 minute, it should be starting to bubble a bit and be lightly browned in parts on the pan side. Flip to other side and cook for another 30 seconds (or so). The tortilla should still be soft and have brown spots on surface. Remove from pan and stack on a plate until all are cooked.

My first tortilla in pan – this one was a bit dodgy, and did half size tortillas for rest of batch.

If you aren’t using straight away, cool tortillas and place in ziplock bag in freezer. Can keep at room temp for 24hrs.

**NOTE – Since I was using these for Enchiladas and I usually use the small corn tortillas, I wanted small tortillas – I halved the recipe, but still made 16 tortillas – worked perfectly – (although the picture above is the first one I made which was the full size tortilla!)

**I wrapped mine in foil and left in the oven at a low heat as I was making the enchiladas within an hour!

 

 

Pulled Pork Enchiladas 

Enchilada Sauce

Oil

1 diced onion

5 fresh tomatoes, chopped

1/4 cup tomato paste

2 teaspoons paprika (or chilli powder  – i only had paprika in the cupboard and tasted superb!)

1/2 tablespoon cumin

salt, pepper to taste

*Most recipes call for pureed tomatoes, but I could only find tomato paste in the stores so decided to use a combination of fresh tomatoes and tomato paste. 1 jar of Tomato puree would work the same, or a jar of canned chopped tomatoes.

 

Pork Filling 

leftover roast pork, shredded (I guess I used a cup or two?)

1 red capsicum

1/2 of a green chilli chopped finely

1 onion, sliced

1/4 cup tomato paste

1/4 cup warm water

1 teaspoon cumin

1 teaspoon paprika

200g cheddar cheese grated

sour cream to serve

OVEN: 175 C / 350 F

Method

1. Heat oil in a medium sized saucepan. Cook diced onion until softened, then add chopped tomatoes and cook until soft.  Add in tomato paste, (adding in half a cup of water so it doesn’t get too thick /burn). Stir in paprika, cumin, salt and pepper, put the lid on saucepan and reduce heat to a simmer. Taste and add more spices if necessary. If using fresh tomatoes, simmer for around 30minutes until tomatoes are very soft – if using tomato puree, you don’t need to simmer as long.

Enchilada Sauce simmering away

2. For the pork filling, heat oil in a skillet over medium heat. Cook chopped chilli (adding more if you like!!), sliced onion and let soften for a few minutes. Add in sliced capsicum and let soften for another few minutes. In a seperate jug or bowl, mix together tomato paste and water, and add to pan, along with spices. Add in shredded pork to pan, mixing everything well together, coating with the tomato and spices. Let cook for 5-10 minutes. TASTE and adjust spices to your liking. I think I added in a bit more of both spices and some pepper.

Pulled Pork filling simmering away

3. Heat oven to 175C/350F. Microwave / reheat Tortillas so they are warmed and softened. (I just kept mine in the oven in foil while I made the enchilada sauce/pork mix). Spread a layer of Enchilada sauce on the bottom of a large baking dish. For each tortilla, place a couple of spoonfuls of pork filling inside tortilla and roll closed. Place rolled tortilla opening facing down in baking dish. Repeat until baking dish full of rolled tortillas. Spoon the rest of the enchilada sauce over the top of the rolled tortillas and cover with grated cheese. Cook for 20 minutes or until cheese melts and starts browning on top.

Serve with guacamole and sour cream.

*We just had sour cream as couldn’t get avocados (sad face) but was still really yum and got seals of approvals of husband and his friend!

Enjoy! Its really not as hard as it seems and the results were awesome – obviously as I got so excited to eat and forgot to take a picture of the finished product… when I make it again, I’ll take a picture and add it into this post!!

 

 

 

 

Upside Down Apple Tea cake

We had some friends over on Sunday for afternoon tea & I was trying to think of something yummy yet not ridiculously unhealthy to bake…. I decided to upside down an apple tea cake! And…yummmmm! We ate almost the entire cake between the four of us adults (& the 2 toddlers assisted a bit too !)

Here is the recipe for this yummmmmm & so basic cake!

 

 

Upside Down Apple Tea Cake

1 Granny Smith apple, peeled, cored & sliced thinly

1 heaped tablespoon butter (I used margarine)

2 tablespoons sugar (*I used raw sugar, many recipes call for caster or brown for the topping but mine was great!)

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Cake :

1/3 cup margarine (or butter)

1/2 cup caster sugar

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

1 cup self raising flour (or 1 cup plain/all purpose flour+ 2 teaspoons baking powder)* no SR flour in Tbilisi!

1/3 cup milk

 

Preheat oven to 180c (170c fan forced). Grease 20cm round cake tin- I like to do this with baking paper as it’s easier to flip out cake when cooked.

Place 1 heaped tblspn butter in pan and pop in oven until it’s almost melted. Add in 2 tblspns sugar and 1 tspn cinnamon and spread evenly over bottom of pan. Arrange slices of Apple over this mixture and pop Back in oven while you are making cake mixture.

In mixing bowl or with electric mixer, combine butter/margarine & sugar together until light. Add in egg & vanilla and beat well. Add half the flour and half the milk and beat well. Add in the remaining flour & butter.

Add the cake mixture into the pan with the apples, gently so you don’t mess up the apple arrangement!

Put in oven for 25-30 minutes, test with a skewer after 25mins, if it comes out clean, it’s done.

Take out of oven & flip over onto cooling rack or plate. When cooled you can sprinkle with a little sugar & cinnamon or just leave as is… And serve!

 

enjoy.. I’m off to attempt to make Georgian bread “khachapuri” today so keep an eye out for a post on that!

 

Baking Powder happiness

So….since my last post, I have seen people with prams everywhere.. literally everywhere. Nannies pushing their little charges around the block, up and down the street; Mums taking their babies out for a little stroll; Mums & Dads taking their children out in the pram in the park… So I eat my words. I maintain about the steps and taking a pram “shopping” – you really have to pick the side of the road you want to walk up and down the street on… also in a difference to Australia, over here I’ve noticed that people will merely leave their pram outside a shop while they have a browse, or if you can get your pram in, the store security guard (almost every store has at least one security guard) will follow you around the store while you shop. I have also been very suspiciously looked at when I have the baby in the Manduca carrier & my coat over the top (and hence followed around a store..).

In any case, Friday was a very exciting day for me here in Tbilisi.

Why, you ask?

Because after two weeks of searching in the three big supermarkets,  and the smaller grocery stores in town, I was resigned to the fact that there was not only no Self Raising flour for sale in this country (GASP!), but there was no baking powder either! How was I meant to bake scrumptious muffins, cakes, slices or biscuits? If I did they were going to flat as a pancake! How did the bakeries here bake these things!??

I started gathering some intel (Ok, I googled and read other Tbilisi blogs… which I would credit but I can’t remember which one I read the magical info on…) I found the address of a bakery store (7 Arakishvili St) that “someone” claimed possibly sold Cream of Tartar! This bakery wasn’t all that far from me so I set out with baby in tow, and after a few wrong turns, found said store, and was in paradise! Big containers of Baking Powder, Cream of Tartar, measured out for you and sold by the gram! So 400gms and 12Lari later, some “Didi Madloba, Nahvamdis!”, I was a happy chappy and trotted on home with my 400gms of white powder in a plastic bag (dodgy much!?) to cook some blueberry muffins.

I unfortunately told this to my muffin obsessed baby so for the entire 20 minute walk home all I could hear was “muff? muff?”.

Friday was a good day 🙂