Black Bean & Goat Cheese Enchiladas, Mango Relish

I’ve been a huge fan of chef Stephan Pyles, a 5th generation Texan, since I moved to Dallas, Texas in 1978. My roommate and I would walk to brunch at a neighborhood restaurant called The Bronx, where he worked. But that’s a really minor part of what this man accomplished, because after he became a French-trained chef, he opened restaurants – 26 restaurants in 7 cities within 30 plus years to be exact. I’ve been lucky to go to a few back when; he retired in 2020.

Pyles, along with Dean Fearing, who at the time chef’d at the Mansion at Turtle Creek in Dallas, essentially became the fathers of Southwestern cuisine, introducing new flavors to the mundane Tex-Mex cuisine of the time. I loved it. And still do.

One Thanksgiving, when my girls were too young to join us for Thanksgiving dinner, I made dishes from Stephan Pyles’s cookbook, The New Texas Cuisine, published in 1993. The recipes were revolutionary! I made a turkey with a blue corn and chorizo dressing, shrimp and papaya enchiladas with tomatillo sauce, pozole with greens, pecans and dried cranberries, and much more.

This specific recipe I’ve never made before now, but it’s always appealed to me. We love black beans here, and with the addition of chile peppers, corn, and goat cheese, wrapped in tortillas topped with a tomatillo sauce and a mango relish is spectacular. If you can get your hands on mangos, this recipe is perfect any time of the year.

Black Bean-Goat Cheese Enchiladas with Mango Relish

Sauce:
1 cup chicken stock
8-10 tomatillos, husked, rinsed, and chopped
4 cloves garlic
1 cup chopped onions
2 serrano chile peppers, seeded and chopped
2 tablespoons chopped cilantro
Salt to taste

Filling:
1/4 cup chicken stock
2 cups cooked black beans
1 clove garlic, minced
2 serrano chile peppers, seeded and minced
1/2 cup diced mango (I omitted because of husband)
green onions, thinly sliced (I used my garden chives)
1/2 cup roasted corn kernels (mine were unroasted)
8 ounces fresh goat cheese, crumbled
Salt to taste
Vegetable oil
8 corn tortillas (I used white corn tortillas)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

To make the sauce, in a saucepan, cook the chicken stock, tomatillos, garlic, onions, and Serrano over medium-high heat for 10 minutes, stirring frequently. Transfer the mixture to a blender, add the cilantro, and purée until smooth. Season with salt and set aside.

To make the filling, in another saucepan, bring all the filling ingredients except the cheese and salt to a boil. Remove from the heat, whisk in 4 ounces of the goat cheese, and season with salt. Keep warm.

Pour enough of the oil in a skillet to come up 1/2” up the sides. Over medium heat, bring the oil to 350 degrees F. Submerge the tortillas in the oil one by one for 5 seconds each to soften. Drain the tortillas on paper towels and keep warm; do not stack the tortillas. (I microwaved the 8 tortillas for 25 seconds to soften.)

To assemble the enchiladas, divide the black bean-goat cheese mixture evenly among the tortillas, spreading evenly down the middle. Roll up the tortillas and place seam side down on a baking sheet or in an ovenproof baking dish, placing them snugly together.

Pour the reserved tomatillo sauce over the enchiladas and top with the remaining 4 ounces of goat cheese. Cover with foil and bake in the oven for 10 minutes.

Serve 2 enchiladas per plate, together with the mango relish.

A great recipe, although I would have put the goat cheese inside the enchiladas. Blobs of goat cheese are not pretty. Or grate a goat cheddar.

Mango relish:
1 ripe mango, peeled, pitted, and diced
2 tablespoons diced peeled red bell pepper
3 tablespoons diced jicama
1 tablespoon chopped cilantro
1 tablespoon minced Serrano chile
Juice of 1 lime
1/2 teaspoon salt

In a mixing bowl, combine all the ingredients. Keep refrigerated.

I added some Tabasco to the relish.

To be fair, Mark Miller was another chef who joined in on the Southwestern revolution, and is famous for his restaurant Coyote Café in Santa Fe, New Mexico. His cookbook Red Sage, published in 1999, is a fascinating fusion of Native American and Mexican-European Cowboy cuisines. I highly recommend it, as well as his chile book, which taught me the correct spelling in America for chile peppers!!