Small Wax Potatoes in Chile Sauce (Papitas Enchiladas) Recipe

In restaurants in Mexico, they serve these little round wax potatoes instead of chips. They’re great appetizers with a beer on a hot day, and so addicting! I use really tiny potatoes for this recipe, like grape size. They’re boiled to a perfect, not too mushy, soft texture, and you can eat the skin and all. You can make these with a green salsa, too. They’re both good but the chile de árbol is super spicy, like fire, and you gotta wash it down with a big gulp of beer. — Jenny Martinez

 

Small Wax Potatoes in Chile Sauce (Papitas Enchiladas)

Prep time: 10 minutes

Cook time: 30 minutes

Serves 8 to 10

 

Ingredients

• 2 pounds baby wax potatoes (grape size)
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 12 dried chiles de árbol
• 2 dried morita chiles
• 1 cup fresh lime juice
• 2 garlic cloves
• 1 tablespoon Mesa Mia: Jenny’s Favorite Seasoning (or your preferred meat seasoning)
• 1 tablespoon chicken bouillon powder
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter

 

Equipment

Box of toothpicks

 

Directions

Bring a large pot of water to a boil; add the potatoes and salt and cook until the potatoes are cooked through, about 15 minutes. Drain and set aside. Meanwhile, to a blender, add the chile de árbol, moritas, lime juice, garlic, seasoning and chicken bouillon powder and blend until smooth. Set aside.

In a medium pan, melt the butter over medium-low heat. Add the cooked potatoes and give them a quick stir, then stir in the chile de árbol mixture. Cover the pan and simmer the mixture to allow the potatoes to absorb all the flavors and spices, about 7 minutes. Transfer the mixture to a serving bowl and enjoy eating these using toothpicks to spear them. This is a perfect appetizer with a cold beer and a great crowd-pleaser!

Excerpted from My Mexican Mesa, Y Listo! Copyright © 2024, Jenny Martinez. Photography Copyright © 2023 by Jennifer Chong. Reproduced by permission of Simon Element, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, LLC. All rights reserved.

 

Cook with Jenny

Martinez shared two more recipes from My Mexican Mesa, Y Listo! for AARP members to try:

Fideo Soup

My husband says this is the perfect cold weather comfort food that takes you back to childhood. It’s a blank canvas on which you can get creative.

Mexican Churros

Churros are the most famous dessert from Mexico these days, and you can find churros-flavored everything, from cheesecake to ice cream. There’s some technique involved but they’re so easy to make once you get the hang of it. 

Read about Jenny Martinez’s cookbook, My Mexican Mesa, Y Listo!