Enchiladas Verdes

I have made enchiladas a few times, but always beef with red sauce. It was time to spice things up a little bit! I decided to try "the green kind". I also decided to make it with chicken. But I still served with Mexican Rice, because it is so good.

Ingredients:
4 teaspoons vegetable oil
1 yellow onion, chopped
3 medium garlic cloves, minced or pressed
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1.5 cups low sodium chicken broth
1 lb boneless chicken breasts (2-3 breasts)
3 cans tomatillos (11 ounce cans), drained & rinsed
3 medium poblano chiles, halved lengthwise (take out seeds if you don't like spicy)
2.5 teaspoons sugar
1/2 cup chopped cilantro
Grated cheese - pepper jack or monterey jack (amount depends on your personal preference)
12 6 inch corn tortillas

Adjust oven racks to top of oven and turn on broiler. Toss tomatillos and poblanos with a little oil in a bowl and transfer to rimmed baking sheet lined with foil (poblanos skin-side up). Broil until vegetables blacken - around 5-10 minutes. Cool for another 5-10 minutes, then remove skin from poblanos only. They'll come off easily. Transfer tomatillos and chiles to food processor.

While the chiles are cooking and then cooling, cook the chicken. Heat the other half of the oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat, then add onion and cook until translucent. Add garlic and cumin and let that cook for another 30 seconds or so. Decrease heat to low and stir in broth. Add chicken, cover, and simmer until instant-read thermometer inserted into thickest part of chicken registers 160 degrees, 15 to 20 minutes, flipping chicken halfway through cooking. Transfer chicken to large bowl; place in refrigerator to cool, about 20 minutes. Remove 1/4 cup liquid from saucepan and set aside; discard remaining liquid.

Add sugar, 1 teaspoon salt and reserved cooking liquid to the chiles and tomatillos in the food processor. Process until sauce is somewhat chunky, about eight 1-second pulses or until it looks like this:

Taste sauce; season with salt and pepper. Set sauce aside (you should have about 3 cups). When chicken is cool, pull into shreds using hands or 2 forks, then chop into small bite-sized pieces. Combine chicken with cilantro and 1.5 cups cheese. This is the pulled chicken before combining with cilantro and cheese:

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Smear bottom of 13- by 9-inch baking dish with 3/4 cup tomatillo sauce. Warm up tortillas in the microwave. Spread 1/3 cup filling down center of each tortilla. Roll each tortilla tightly and place in baking dish, seam-side down. Pour remaining tomatillo sauce over top of enchiladas. Use back of spoon to spread sauce so that it coats top of each tortilla. Sprinkle with remaining cheese and cover baking dish with foil. Bake enchiladas on middle rack until heated through and cheese is melted, 15 to 20 minutes. Again, I served with the mexican rice but you could also garnish with scallions, radish, sour cream, guac, etc. The whole pan:

Doug's plate, complete with rice :-)