Enfrijolada

“Enfrijoladas” are tortillas dipped in bean sauce, a recipe from Oaxaca, Mexico. Robb Walsh and David Garrido included enfrijoladas in their Nuevo Tex-Mex cookbook (1998).
 
An “entomatada” is a similar item, but with the tortilla dipped in tomato sauce. An “enmolada” has the tortilla dipped in mole. All are considered variations of the more-familiar enchilada.
   
 
Texas Monthly
From the May 1998 Issue…
Goat Cheese Enfrijoladas Negras
If you thought you liked refried beans and cheddar, wait until you taste these tortillas stuffed with goat cheese and topped with black bean sauce. (Literally, “enfrijolada” means “beaned,” but “prepared with a bean sauce” gets the idea across better.)
 
Global Gourmet
Goat Cheese Enfrijoladas Negras
Makes 8 enfrijoladas
Here is an inspired contemporary version of that famous Tex-Mex combination of beans and cheese. If you thought you liked refried beans and cheddar, wait until you taste these tortillas stuffed with goat cheese topped with Black Bean Sauce.
 
12 ounces fresh goat cheese at room temperature
1 tablespoon chopped fresh epazote or cilantro
2 teaspoons dried epazote
4 scallions chopped
Salt
1/4 cup vegetable oil
8 corn tortillas
Black Bean Sauce, heated
1 cup Pineapple Pico
4 fresh cilantro sprigs
 
Preheat an oven to 325 degrees F. In a small bowl, combine the goat cheese, epazote or cilantro, and scallions. Stir well, season with salt, and set aside.

In a medium-sized skillet, heat the vegetable oil over medium heat. When the oil is hot, dip a tortilla into the hot oil and cook for 10 to 15 seconds on each side, or until soft. Drain on paper towels. Repeat with the remaining tortillas.

Divide the goat cheese mixture evenly among the tortillas, roll them up, and place seam-side down in a greased baking pan. Place in the oven and bake for 5 minutes, or until the cheese melts.

Remove from the oven and transfer to plates. Cover with the bean sauce. Garnish with the Pineapple Pico and cilantro sprigs.

From:
Nuevo Tex-Mex
By David Garrido and Robb Walsh
Chronicle Books
Full-color photographs and illustrations throughout
Paperback, $19.95
ISBN 0-8118-1612-5
Recipe reprinted by permission.
 
Cooking…South of the Rio Grande
by George Luther Nelson
San Antonio, TX: The Nolan Printing Company
1935
Pg. 22:
Enfrijoladas
12 small thin tortillas
1 pt. bean soup
1/4 lb. Mexican pork sausage (chorizo)
1/4 lb. fresh white cheese
1/4 lb. soft cragnel (chicharrones)
 
Fry tortillas in grease; place the bean soup in dish. Fill with chopped chicharrones. Fold tortilla in half and place in a pan; sprinkle grated cheese and pour over all the bean soup. To each serving a teaspoon of green sauce can be added.
     
26 March 1970, Los Angeles Times, pg. J20:
ENFRIJOLADA
Mash 4 cups cooked black or kidney beans and put them in a big soup pot with the bean liquid. Add 2 avocado skins which have been ground, 1 tablespoon chili powder and 1/2 teaspoon salt. If the mixture is too pasty add water slowly until it has the texture of a thick soup.
 
Bring to a boil and add several small cooked tortillas or tortilla wedges and let simmer for 5 minutes. Place a generous helping in each bowl and garnish with onion slices, shredded cheese and cloves.
 
Enfrijolada is my favorite of all the Zapotec dishes Luisa Maria showed me how to prepare.
 
2 March 1976, Charleston (WV) Gazette, Pg. 1C:
Tortillas in some sort of bean sauce are called “enfrijoladas.”
 
23 August 1979, Los Angeles Times, pg G18:
ENFRIJOLADAS
Margarita’s Beans
1/3 cup oil
12 corn tortillas
Heat beans. Heat oil in a small skillet and fry each tortilla a moment or two until softened but not crisp. Dip immediately in the hot beans until coated. Remove and serve at once, either rolled or as the base for huevos rancheros. Makes 12 enfrijoladas.
   
Google Books
A Cook’s Tour of Mexico:
Authentic Recipes from the Country’s Best Open-Air Markets, City Fondas, and Home Kitchens
by Nancy Zaslavsky
New York: St. Martin’s Griffin
1995
Pg. 254:
Enfrijoladas Tortillas Dipped in Black Bean Puree and Folded
A CLASSIC AT THE FONDAS in Oaxaca’s markets, enfrijoladas are one of the famous dipped tortilla quartet made up of enchiladas, enmoladas, and entomatadas. Black beans become the sauce for tortilla dipping here; try to get epazote or avocado leaves to flavor yours to be delectably authentic.
   
Chowhound
What are enmoladas, entomatadas, and enfrijoladas?
I encountered these on the menu of a local Oaxacan restaurant and wasn’t sure the owner would be able to describe them all in detail—how do they differ? Other words on the menu I didn’t understand: chapulines, campechana, botana aguachile?
Thanks!
Chowpatty Aug 16, 2006 03:08AM
(...)
Basically it’s a difference in how the tortillas are prepared:
enmoladas are rolled in a mole sauce;
entomatadas Oaxaqueñas are tortillas in a Oaxacan dry-roasted tomato sauce (typically on a comal);
enfrijoladas fried tortillas with beans and sauce
And I think that Campechana is some type of mixed seafood similar to ceviche.
A botana is a snack/appetizer
ciaogina Aug 16, 2006 04:35AM
(...)
Think “enchilada,” which in its basic form is a tortilla dipped in chile sauce, folded in quarters and served with a little onion and a tiny spot of cheese.
So using the same format, en-mol-ada is a tortilla dipped in mole. en-tomat-ada = tomato sauce. En-frijol-ada = dipped in thinned beans.
Campechana is a mixed seafood cocktail in the style of a Campeche woman.
Botana aguachile - some kind of appetizer, probably a shrimp cocktail, with chiles de agua - these typical Oaxacan small green chiles.
Chapulines are fried tiny grasshoppers with chile salt that are as common in Oaxaca as potato chips are here.
Snackish Aug 16, 2006 04:43AM