This preparation was a very popular item at the Blossoming Lotus Restaurant in Kapaʻa. It’s a bit complicated for everyday meals, but the stunning effect is worth the effort when you have a lot to feed.
The basic recipe is much as it was at the Lotus, but we are familiar enough with it’s preparation to just wing it and throw it together, making it a bit of our own interpretation. There are 6 separate preps that are brought together for the completed dish.
First, the casserole itself has a marinated and baked tempeh (1), mixed with pinto beans and rice. This is layered with corn tortillas in a kind of rich enchilada sauce (2) that is thickened with silken tofu, full of sun-dried tomatoes and guajillo and ancho chilies. This is topped with seasoned and fermented cashew cheese (3) and baked.
To serve, we make a thick, fairly sweet/spicy mole sauce (4) with chilies, carob chips, tomatoes, spices, cacao powder, raisins and toasted pumpkin and sesame seeds. Pico de gallo salsa (5) is pretty standard fare here: our version is a very simple salsa cruda we prefer to the more complex preparation the restaurant used. We top it with our own version of guacamole sauce; (6) a concise mixture of avocado, lime juice, aji dulce chilies, salt and cilantro. The restaurant used a vegan sour crème instead.
It goes together (quite festively I think!) as you see here:
The enchilada casserole sits on a layer of mole sauce and is topped with pico de gallo salsa and guacamole
