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Mexican food is so incredibly delicious and full of flavors, so today I'm sharing with you beautiful Vegan Mexican Enchiladas, which are like Italian Lasagna but in a Mexican way :)
This recipe is not the hardest to make, but for sure is impressive for any type of guests or just for a great dinner with your friends or loved ones :)
Let's take a look at the history of Enchiladas and of course, the recipe is waiting for you!
When the Spanish conquistador Bernal Díaz del Castillo first entered the Aztec capital Tenochtitlán on 8 November 1519, he was amazed – not so much by the temples and palaces which dominated the city as by the food. He had never seen anything so rich, nor so unusual. The meals eaten by King Moctezuma II were especially dazzling. As Díaz recalled in his Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España (1576), 300 dishes were cooked for the monarch alone, while a further 1,000 were prepared for his guests. Served on platters of ‘red and black Cholula pottery’, these were of every imaginable variety. As well as ‘two thousand pots of chocolate’ and no end of fruit, there were ‘fowls, turkeys, pheasants, partridges, domestic and wild ducks, deer, peccary, reed birds, doves, hares, rabbits, and so many other birds and beasts that [Díaz] could never finish naming them’. There were even plates of human flesh – or so he had heard. But most striking of all was a little dish served between courses. Midway through the meal, Díaz wrote:
Two … young women of great beauty brought the monarch tortillas, as white as snow, cooked with eggs and other nourishing ingredients, on plates covered with clean napkins.
Though rather short on detail, this is thought to be the earliest description of enchiladas in European literature. It was a turning point in their history. For no sooner had Díaz clapped eyes on them than they were launched on a voyage of transformation, which would see them become not only the deliciously meaty confections we know today, but also a culinary monument to centuries of colonialism, poverty and prejudice.
From Aztec to ‘Mexican’
Yet enchiladas were already beginning to change – and not for the better. Two years after Díaz had visited Tenochtitlán for the first time, Spanish forces under Hernán Cortés had seized the city and – amid scenes of almost unimaginable horror – brought the once proud Aztec Empire to its knees. What remained of its culture was systematically destroyed. Temples were sacked and palaces and records burnt. But the conquistadors were content to appropriate much of its cuisine – including enchiladas. From the Spaniards’ perspective, they were unusually appealing. Not only were they tasty, but they were also simple to cook – and could even be eaten on the march. They could also be adapted to Spanish tastes relatively easily. New ingredients were added, including cheese, pork and chicken; and spicy sauces came to be used in preference to the chilli paste which had previously been the sine qua non of the Aztec version.
When Mexico became a fully fledged colony – as the Viceroyalty of New Spain – this hybrid enchilada became an integral part of its culinary culture. At first, of course, it was merely a curiosity which the colonists ate while looking for gold and dreaming of home. But in time, socio-economic shifts had turned it into a more potent object of pride, which testified to the gulf opening between New Spain and the Old. To those common folk whom intermarriage had bonded to the land, it seemed to encapsulate their new, half-Spanish, half-Aztec identity; while to those members of the colonial elites, whose ties to Iberia had been weakened by distance and wealth, it symbolised both their sense of ethnic superiority and their growing desire for autonomy.
So pronounced did this self-identification with enchiladas become that, when the yoke of colonial rule began to chaff in the mid-18th century, it started to shed its former associations altogether. Now seen as neither Spanish nor Aztec, it gradually took on the air of a distinctively ‘Mexican’ food – and, by the time independence was eventually declared in 1821, it had become the closest thing the new country had to a ‘national’ dish. Indeed, when the first Mexican cookbook was published in 1831, the author, Cristina Barros, was so proud of it that she included not one, but two separate recipes.
An American Odyssey
But enchiladas were not to remain purely ‘Mexican’ for long. When the US annexed Texas (1845), California and the South-West (1846-8), Mexican dishes began to find their way into American culture – laying the foundations for what would eventually become known as ‘Tex-Mex’ cuisine. Enchiladas were at the forefront of this process. Cooked on makeshift stoves, or bought from roadside stalls, they quickly became a favourite lunch food among hard-up farm hands and factory workers. To accommodate different tastes and budgets, they were also given a distinctive twist. Meat became less common; inexpensive, locally grown ingredients, such as lettuce and onion, were added; and the importance of chilli was somewhat reduced.
By the mid-1870s, enchiladas had begun to feature in regional recipe books. The earliest appears in the Centennial Buckeye Cook Book (1876), a rather curious volume aimed at poor families. Contributed by Anson Safford, the territorial governor of Arizona, this was a model of homely goodness:
Put four pounds of corn in a vessel with four ounces lime, or in a preparation of lye; boil with water till the hull comes off, then wash the corn … bake the meal in small cakes called ‘tortillas’, then fry in lard; take some red pepper ground, called ‘chili colorad’, mix it with sweet oil and vinegar, and boil together. This makes a sauce into which dip the tortillas, then break into small pieces cheese and onions, and sprinkle on top the tortillas, and you have what is called ‘enchiladas’.
Such recipes were, however, the exception rather than the rule. Though Mexicans lived and worked alongside Americans of all stripes on the frontier, they continued to be regarded with hostility by European settlers and coastal elites. This found expression not only in crude racial slurs, but also in disparaging attitudes towards Mexican cuisine – especially enchiladas. Typical was the description offered by a visitor in 1883. Enchiladas, the traveller explained, are:
greasy tortilla sandwich[es], containing chilies and a number of other uninviting looking compounds and other nasty messes, [which] are sold everywhere, filling the air with a pungent, nauseous smell.
Not until the early 20th century did enchiladas gain wider acceptance. Although anti-Mexican sentiments continued to run high in some areas, increased migration to northern states coupled with greater prosperity and the growing importance of cities with particularly large Mexican populations – such as San Antonio – had conspired to mitigate the disdain felt for Mexican foods by the end of the First World War. In the early 1920s, enchiladas were being served in a growing number of restaurants, especially in southern states, and – heaped with a more lavish selection of ingredients – had at last become the object of culinary desire.
Soon, people were clamouring for a taste. Among them was Louise Lloyd Lowber, a budding food writer. In 1921, she admiringly described how enchiladas were prepared at the ‘famous Enchilada House in Old Albuquerque’ for well-heeled readers. A tortilla, she recounted, was first placed in the middle of a large plate,
then a flood of rich, red chile and more cheese, sprinkled between in layer-cake fashion, and the whole topped off with a high crown of chopped onions in which nestles an egg, which has been broken a minute into the hot lard. An artistic and cooling garnish of lettuce – and behold an enchilada.
Since then, the popularity of enchiladas in the US has only grown – so much so that, today, there is hardly a town where they cannot be found.
Mexican Again?
The ‘Americanisation’ of enchiladas has, however, not always met with the approval of Mexicans – least of all in Mexico itself. Motivated in part by a resurgence of nationalism, they have often denigrated the hugely calorific versions favoured by modern estadounidenses as inauthentic aberrations and called for a reversion to the simpler recipes of the past.
This is no doubt well intentioned; but I can’t help feeling that such appeals to ‘authenticity’ and national identity ring hollow when applied to enchiladas. Given how often they have been appropriated by different peoples, and how greatly they have been changed in the process, it is misleading to suggest that they truly ‘belong’ to any one culture, or that a particular recipe is any more ‘authentic’ than another. Surely, to perpetuate such myths is to revive the prejudice and chauvinism which drove the evolution of enchiladas in the first place. Indeed, if the history of this dish shows anything, it is that such sorrows should be overcome not by hiding recipes behind high walls, but by sharing them – with an open mind, a warm heart and a friendly smile.*source
Find the recipe below!
Prep: 30 min
Cook time: 30 min
Level: medium
Servings: 4 enchiladas
Calories per serving: 439 kcal
Find the recipe & nutrition facts below :
For the dough:
4 large tortillas
For the filling:
1 large onion chopped
2 garlic cloves chopped
1 can of beans(400 gr.)
1/2 tsp salt
1 finely chopped jalapeno
1 tsp paprika
For the tomato sauce:
1 small onion chopped
2 garlic cloves chopped
1 can tomato paste
4 small tomatoes chopped
1 tbsp oil
1 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp oregano
1/4 tsp chili (optional)
For the cheese sauce:
2 tbsp oil
2 tbsp flour
1 1/2 cups plant milk
1 tbsp dijon mustard
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
1 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp salt
For the serving:
vegan cheese(optional)
fresh cilantro
Method:
Step 1: First, prepare the tomato sauce by frying onion & garlic in oil for around 5 minutes, then add all of the other ingredients for the sauce(tomato paste, tomatoes, spices) and cook, stirring occasionally for around 15 minutes. Set aside.
Step 2: Prepare the filling for enchiladas by frying onion for around 5 minutes and adding afterward other ingredients (beans, spices) and cooking for around 10-15 minutes. Turn off the heat and mix in around 1/3 cup of the tomato sauce. Set aside.
Step 3: For the cheese sauce, place the oil in the medium pan and let it get to very hot temperature(like for frying), then carefully and slowly add the flour, stirring frequently, add in the milk, mustard, and spices, along with nutritional yeast. Cook for around 5 minutes, stirring frequently until the mixture is well combined and the texture is like melted cheese. Set aside
Step 4: Preheat oven to 180C.
Step 5: Prepare a cooking tin that can fit 4 rolled tortillas.
Step 6: On the bottom place a few tbsp of tomato sauce to slightly cover the bottom of the tin.
Step 7: Take one tortilla place around 2-3 tbsp of the filling and roll it carefully, then place it in the tin, repeat with the other tortillas.
Step 8: Cover enchiladas with the remaining tomato sauce, spread it evenly, then cover them with cheese sauce.
Step 9: Sprinkle with some vegan cheese(optional) and bake for around 30 minutes.
Step 10: Sprinkle with some fresh cilantro before serving.
