French Enchiladas

There are no new plots in fiction, it's all been written before. There are no new ways to wrap up meat and vegetables and cook them in a sauce, every cuisine is a mirror of every other.

And so we have what amounts to enchiladas but made with crepes. For a Monday night meal recently I made chicken and mushroom filled crepes and they were delicious.

Here in northern New Mexico we make corn tortillas wrapped around meat and vegetable fillings with red or green chile sauce, then smothered in cheese --- those are enchiladas. The recipe I made was exactly the same, only it was eggy flour crepes stuffed with chicken and mushrooms in a bechamel sauce and topped with gruyere cheese. Same difference.

I recruited some polar bears to help decide if chicken mushroom crepes were the same as chicken chile enchiladas, and they said yes. Yes they were. But different.

I made the crepes from scratch (I have a crepe pan) and I made the bechamel from scratch too. Both are easy as long as you have lots of milk and some eggs and flour. The crepes were filled with cooked shredded chicken and mushrooms, covered in gruyere cheese and broiled. Served with lemon buttered fresh green beans and a nice red zinfandel.

The bears said it was really good. Jim had two crepes, and cleaned his plate.

Enchiladas, crepes -- variations on a universal theme. All good.