US Cooking Tour Stop 4: NEW MEXICO

A couple years ago my family was on a RT 66 road trip to the Grand Canyon. My parents were also on their own road trip, driving back to Oklahoma from their vacation to California. After we planned the trip we realized that we would both be traveling the same road on the same day and would eventually cross paths. How fun is that?! We planned to meet up for dinner in Gallup, New Mexico. 

We knew we wanted to eat at the the most authentic restaurant we could find, so we scoured Yelp for just the right one. We knew we chose the best place when we rolled up and found a line of people waiting out the door to be seated. And boy were we right! We were eventually seated by the front window in the tiny diner which smelled of enchiladas and tamales and green chile - we were salivating; we wanted a taste of everything! As we ate, local townspeople came into the restaurant with their handmade goods - jewelry, trinkets, you name it. They walked from table to table trying to make sales and the restaurant employees never batted an eye. I got a sense that everyone was out to support everyone in that town. No competition, just people helping people.

We enjoyed every bite of our overflowing plates of Mexican food goodness and savored the delicious fry bread they served as dessert. As we sat in anticipation of our trip before us as my parents told us stories from theirs. They surprised the boys with several souvenirs, and one was a pocket knife. That set the tone for the rest of our trip as everywhere we went the boys wanted to use their vacation money to build their newfound pocket knife collection. The perfect little-boy souvenir collection for a trip out west. To this day they use the knives they picked up on that trip. 

When we rolled The Land of Enchantment on the map I thought back to our perfect summer evening in Gallup and started my research. Every article I read said I must use hatch green chiles, and the dessert was an easy choice since the state has an official state cookie. I made Hatch Green Chile Stacked Enchiladas and Biscochito cookies.

HATCH GREEN CHILE STACKED ENCHILADAS

• 12-16 Corn tortillas
• 2 tbsp oil
• 1 (3-4 lb) chicken; cooked, meat removed
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1/4 cup minced garlic 
• 1/2 cup onion 
• salt/pepper
• 1 cup chicken stock or chicken broth 
• 1 cup Hatch New Mexico Green Chile (roasted, peeled, seeded, chopped) ( I used canned.)
• 1 lb Cheddar cheese; grated

1. Flash fry the corn tortillas with the cooking oil, then set aside.
2. Make a sauce with heavy creme, chicken stock, green chile, onion, garlic, and chicken. Set aside.
3. Alternate layers of tortillas, sauce, cheese in a 13-inch casserole dish.
4. Bake uncovered at 375 for 25 minutes. (You may use 4 chicken breasts instead of the cooked whole chicken. In that case, bake at 350 for 1 hour.)

BISCOCHITOS

• 3 cups all purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3 teaspoons crushed anise seed
• zest of one orange
• 1 1/4 cups lard
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

For the Topping:

• 1 cup sugar
• 2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1. In a medium bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, and salt. Whisk in the crushed anise and orange zest.
2. In a separate large bowl, combine the sugar and lard. Then, using an electric mixer, beat the lard and sugar until light and fluffy - about 3 minutes. Add the egg and vanilla and beat to combine. Gradually beat in the flour mixture and stop as soon as mixture is combined. Dough will be crumbly and more like a pie crust dough.
3. Using your hands, work the dough into a ball. Then, wrap in plastic and refrigerate dough for 30 minutes.
4. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheet with parchment paper. In a small bowl, combine the sugar and cinnamon for topping.
5. Take the chilled dough and separate it into 3 balls, roughly the same size. Take one dough ball at a time and work it in your hands, kneading it until it is soft and smooth. If it feels crumbly when you try to roll it out, just knead it a little more until it comes together. On a lightly floured surface, roll out dough to 1/4 inch thickness. Cut out cookies.
6. Place cookies on lined baking sheet and bake until just barely golden and set, about 10 to 12 minutes. Let cookies cool for 10 minutes on the pan. While they are on the pan, sprinkled them with some cinnamon and sugar on top. When they've cooled for 10 minutes, you can then carefully dunk them into the sugar mixture.