Black Bean Enchiladas à la The New York Times

Again, big debate on star rating. Ben, Eryc, Sophia and I landed on four stars, but it’s soon to be a five with a few modifications. I got this recipe from the “Recipes for Health” series on The New York Times. It caught my eye because you make your own black beans, which I’ve always wanted to learn to do, then make the enchiladas the next day. While there are several steps to putting this dish together, requiring at least 24 hours of advance planning, no step is very time-consuming and the end result was delicious. In fact, the only reason this wasn’t a five-star recipe right away is because we would all tweak it slightly.

After soaking the beans overnight, I cooked them with onion, garlic, cilantro and salt for a few hours to make a flavorful, thick bean sauce. I finished the simmered black beans in the morning, then put together the enchiladas around 3:30 for 5:00 dinner after dying Easter eggs.

To make the enchiladas, I puréed the beans a bit, them simmered them with some whole cumin seeds and chili powder (used my immersion blender, so puréeing was a breeze). While the beans thickened, I was supposed to soften my corn tortillas in a delicious homemade enchilada sauce of tomato sauce, olive oil, more cumin and more chili powder. Well, my corn tortillas were extremely fresh, probably 30 minutes old and still warm from the neighborhood tortilleria. The first one I put in the simmering sauce disintegrated in about 10 seconds. So, I simply dipped the tortillas in warm sauce on a plate to coat lightly, filled them with black beans and white cheddar and rolled them up.

To finish, I topped them with extra black bean sauce, extra cheese and, strangely, chopped walnuts. These seemed odd, but they were actually delicious and added nice crunch. After baking, I added a bit of chopped cilantro for color and served with slices of fresh avocado, Aunt Jennifer’s homemade salsa (which we’d made the night before... so garlicky good) and Pacificos (thank you, Eryc!).

The enchiladas were delicious, to be sure, but could have been a bit more dynamic. After dinner, as we ate the pieces of the first saucy, disintegrated tortilla, we decided that next time we’d quadruple the sauce recipe and, instead of topping the rolled enchiladas with more beans, we’d pour the extra sauce over the top and then sprinkle with cheese and walnuts. I’m eager to try these changes, because I think the result will be scrumptious. Look for another enchilada post soon.