Spinach Enchiladas

Enchiladas are corn tortillas rolled around a filling, covered in sauce and baked, a Mexican dish with a long history, and this version fills them with spinach and cheese. The name comes from the Spanish enchilar, to season with chilli, and the dish predates Spanish arrival: rolling tortillas around a filling is documented in Mexico well before the colonial period. What changed afterwards was the range of fillings, particularly cheese and meat from European livestock. The critical technique, and the one most often skipped, is what happens to the tortillas before filling. Corn tortillas crack if rolled cold. Warming them briefly in oil or on a dry pan makes them pliable, and it also stops them dissolving into the sauce during baking. Skipping this is why home-made enchiladas so often come out of the oven as a single soft mass. Spinach and cheese is one of the standard vegetarian fillings, and the sauce can be red, green or a mole depending on the region and the cook. **Filed as Worldwide.** Enchiladas are Mexican, not African. The page is kept and reclassified rather than removed.