Jackson Jambalaya

A favorite pastime of Clinton folks is to criticize our perfectly fine Mexican Restaurants. Yes, we do have our share of them, but they all have good crowds every day and the food they serve is fine. As for me, I like all of them, some more than others, but here is a way to avoid all of them by eating at home if you think they are not up to your standards.

I have no idea how many Mexican restaurants I have eaten at over the years. I am certain it is well over a hundred. Honestly, I can only remember one bad experience. In that one, the wife and I went to "Taco Tuesday" in well-known restaurant, not in Clinton, and spent a good bit of time over the next day, losing weight as our GI tracts violently emptied. Weird, because their tacos were pretty good that day. That was maybe seven years ago but the memories are vivid. At least we have something to talk about when we drive past the place now. We are cowards and have never given them another chance.

For a couple of years, I was responsible for the Quality Engineering work at Packard Electric's Nuevo Laredo automotive wire harness facility (Alambrados Automotricies), across the Rio Grande from Laredo, TX. Whenever I went down, I always made sure to take their plant engineer out to dinner at one of the several first-rate restaurants in Nuevo Laredo because the food was first rate and I made two or three times what my Mexican counterpart was paid. The AA wire harness plant was on the western edge of a huge slum of the Maquiladora zone in Mexico. Packard Electric did not own the plant, they just paid 100% of what it cost to build and run, and we were AA's only customer.

Many of the workers in the plant would come up from other parts of Mexico, work on one of the ten or twelve factories along the river for six months and make enough money to go home for the other half year and then come back up again when their money ran out. Most of the workers in the plant were young females, and they were very good workers. I think back then, they made $4.50 a day and no more per Mexican labor laws. AA provided each worker with clean a smock each day and two meals in the plant cafeteria. They had a breakfast taco filled with highly seasoned potatoes that was Soooooo Good! They also had a small medical clinic on site that would see any worker (free) and provide any medicine they prescribed (free) if you were sick. 

Packard had four plants along the border as a part of their program to move all of Packard our of Mississippi to Mexico. NO one at Packard ever asked my opinion. They just told me my job was to go down and work so many days a month. They actually asked me to move to Laredo and drive across every day to AA, and a new plant they were building in Sabinas Hidalgo, which was 85 miles below the border. I said No. My boss told me "But ZeroBear, you will be like a god down there." and I thought, right up to the point where some Cartel guy wanted to borrow my car and thought it would be OK to leave me bleeding our on the side of the road after taking it. Also, the Sabinas Hidalgo plant was inside the second Mexican border (Interior border) and the word was, if a Mexican Policeman stopped you, show them your GM ID and they will let you go. If a Mexican Military guy stopped you, "Good Luck", so avoid them. The military guys controlled the area around Sabinas Hidalgo and I had no desire to be the guy they saw driving through their customs roadblock in a new GM company vehicle every day. There was too much desert highway between the border and the plant for me to drive every day.

Sorry to write so much no food stuff. Here is how I make Shrimp Enchiladas that will be better than anything you can buy at Dos Gringos, or Pedro's Tacos. 

Shrimp Enchiladas 

Makes six

Ingredients:

20 +- Raw Shrimp peeled and deveined
6 Flour Tortillas (10 inch size, I think, Maybe eight inch)
1/4 cup Onion, diced
1/2 cup Green Bell Pepper, diced
1/2 cup Red Bell Pepper, diced
1/4 cup Celery, diced
1 Tablespoon Butter
1 Jalapeno Pepper, fine diced
1 Tablespoon Cajun Seasoning for shrimp
1/2 teaspoon Zatarain's Shrimp Boil Oil for shrimp
1-2 cups Monterrey Jack Cheese, shredded
1/4 cup Pancho's Queso Cheese
2 Tablespoons Sour Cream
Salt to taste
1 teaspoon Black Pepper
1 Tablespoon Garlic Salt

Pam Spray for Oven dish
2 Tablespoons Parsley, chopped, for plating

Directions:

Dice green and red bell peppers, jalapeno pepper, onion, and celery. Reserve some of the red Bell Pepper and Jalapeno pepper to top the dish when cooking.

Peel and devein shrimp. Cut each shrimp into two or three pieces. Season with Zatarain's, Cajun seasoning, salt, garlic salt and set aside.

Sauté the peppers, onion and celery in butter over medium heat until tender. Season with a little salt and reduce heat to medium low.

When the vegetables are tender, add the shrimp.

Add the sour cream and stir until uniform

Cook on low heat until the shrimp turn pink.

Portion the mixture down the center of a flour tortilla, roll and place in oven proof dish that has been sprayed with Pam. I intended for this recipe to make six enchiladas and portioned to have enough Shrimp mixture to do six rolled tortillas.

I heated my Pancho's white queso in a bowl, in the microwave, and drizzled it over the top of the enchilada rolls then sprinkled my retained peppers over the cheese queso. The white queso gets nice and runny in the microwave in about 30 seconds, and just like white lava in a bowl at a minute of microwaving. Be careful to not get burned with the microwaved sauce.

If you like your enchiladas green, add jarred Verde sauce from the grocer over the top now. For me, these are fine.

Then I sprinkled the rest of my shredded Monterrey jack cheese over the dish.

Cooks in an uncovered dish at 350 degrees f for about 40 minutes and pulled when the queso begins to brown.

I made a simple green salad with lettuce and radishes, and added chipotle pepper over my ranch dressing, made to package directions with mayo, sour cream and just a touch of heavy cream to thin it slightly. Dressing goes on top of salad and chipotle is dusted over the dressing.

Leftovers the next day were nice too. There were only two enchiladas left, so we halved them and had some Spanish rice I made to go with our leftovers meal. I guess if I had heated a can of refried beans and plated on a larger plate, I could have called my leftovers a #32 Combo Plate at Senior ZeroBear's Cantina.

Thanks for looking.
God Bless you.