Birds and Enchiladas

I started off the day birding from 7:00 to 11 in the park with a friend. We ended up with 50 different species.  Three were new for me.  The Bell's Vireo, Pacific Slope Flycatcher and the Happy Wren!

 Painted Buntings

 Cinnamon-rumped Seedeater

 Streak-backed Oriole

 Bullock's Oriole

Ferruginous Pygmy Owl (not a great photo)

In the afternoon I went to a Mexican cooking class offered by Cece, the lady who has the park restaurant and does Taco night.  We made Traditional Nayarit Chicken Enchiladas.  First you boil the whole chicken breast in about 7 cups of water with a little salt and 3 whole tomatoes.  Shred the chicken.  Make a sauce by blending the 3 tomatoes, a teaspoon of dried oregano and 3.5 cups of the chicken broth.  Then strain this sauce and set aside.  Chop some lettuce.  Soak 5 dried Guajillo chiles in warm water for about 10 minutes or until soft.  Then clean the seeds from the chiles and put the chiles in a blender with one clove of garlic, a dash of salt and one and a half cups of the chicken broth. Blend and strain.  

Put a few tablespoons of oil in a frypan and dip a tortilla in the chile sauce.  Then fry it for about 10 seconds on each side starting with the "correct" side of the tortilla first (or it will fall apart).  One side has more burn spots than the other.  The burn spots are often darker too.  This is the side you fry first!  

 Frying tortillas

Then you put some chicken on the "face" side of each tortilla and roll it up.  The "face" side is the one without as many burn spots thus ending up with the tougher side of the tortilla on the outside of the enchilada.

Then you can pour some of the tomato sauce over the enchiladas, add shredded lettuce, red onion slices which have been marinated in lime juice and salt, some sour cream and top it with Queso Seco which is a dry cheese.  Or you can put sauce on the enchiladas then smear on sour cream then the garnishes.  Or you can just put cream and cheese as in the third plate below.  

I chose to put it all on.  Cece said it is also important to garnish the plate with radish and cucumber.

The enchiladas I made.

I brought home enough for supper and we enjoyed them on our patio.