Bitchinest Vegan Enchilada Sauce Recipe

What's Inside:

• 3 tbsps vegetable oil
• 1 tbsp all-purpose flour
• 2 cups vegetable stock
• 1 dried Ancho chili
• 10 oz tomato paste
• 1/2 tbsp ground cumin
• 1/2 tbsp dried oregano
• 1 tsp ground black pepper
• salt to taste
  

First ya gotta make or buy some vegetable stock (the non-tomato kind). I made mine with a mirepoix (pictured below) plus portabella mushroom stems, garlic, thyme, oregano and bay leaves:

Mirepoix Ratio - 2:1:1 (Onion: Carrot: Celery)

Then, in 2 hot cups of said vegetable stock, you gotta soak yourself a big ol' dried Ancho chili (rinse it first, then cut open to remove seeds, veins and stem). Eventually your veg stock will get crazy spicy and full bodied. Don't worry if it's overwhelming at first because once the other ingredients are added it will tame down to a medium-spice. (Hint: this is a variable in your dish and will depend on your taste...you may even want to use more than one of these chilies if you like it hot).

An Ancho Chili - Sweet and robust

In a separate sauce pot on medium heat mix together about 3 tbsps of vegetable oil and 1 tbsp of flour with a wooden spoon and cook for about 3 minutes (but not so much as to start browning the mixture). This is called a roux and will add thickness and body to your sauce.

Roux Blonde - a lipid and some flour cookin' away (keep stirring to avoid browning or burning locally)

Once your roux is cooked up, pour in your stock that has had that chili steeping in it (remove the chili; it's like a teabag to you now...but if you want to add more chili and body to this recipe and happen to have a blender of some kind you can just purée the thing into it all later). Use a whisk to blend together the stock and roux and watch as it magically thickens!

Now that you've got a solid flavour and consistency base going on, you're going to want to chuck in about 10 ounces of tomato paste and whisk it all together, at this point you'll see what your end consistency will be. Feel free to thin it out by adding a bit more stock (or water, if you've run out of stock) till you reach the thickness you want. Ideally, an enchilada sauce is thicker than a traditionally described French sauce cos it's meant to really stick to things.

Finally, you're just going to season this thing with the necessary flavours which are traditionally: Oregano, Cumin and Black Pepper. The potency of the spices in your cabinet will vary so feel free to adjust this to taste. Keep in mind that dried spices take a moment to release their flavours into a dish...so let 'em cook for a few minutes before adding any more. Then, of course, you'll have to season this with a bit of salt to bring out all the flavours (this one's up to you).

Enjoy!

Enchilada Sauce - ...this is pretty much what it looks like...

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