Spicy Mushroom Enchiladas

When I think of summer food my mind doesn’t always jump to what you’d expect. Don’t get me wrong, I do love salad on occasions but for me, summer food is holiday food. Things that are exciting, colourful and in my world, spicy!

I love Mexican food and since visiting on holiday at the end of 2014, there have been several Mexican recipes pop up on Gingey Bites. Here is another – spicy mushroom enchiladas – which features mushrooms as the main ingredient and actually features a Piri Piri hot sauce I bought when I was there. It’s the last of a small collection I came home with!

This is a play on a typical enchilada recipe which usually features either chicken strips or beef mince. By using mushrooms, I’ve switched it to a vegetarian version and used chestnut mushrooms, finely diced and cooked to give a mince-like texture. Mushroom ‘mince’ is a great meat substitute for vegetarian and vegan dishes and would work really well in spaghetti bolognese, lasagne and chilli dishes. The bold flavour you get from chestnut mushrooms really held up against the sharp tang of the jalapeños and worked beautifully with the smoky tomato salsa.

Spicy Mushroom Enchiladas

For 2 people as a main or 4 with sides

• 500g chestnut mushrooms
• 1 tsp olive oil
• 50g water
• ½ red onion
• 1 crushed garlic clove
• 1/2 red chilli (seeds removed)
• Salt & Pepper to season

• 4 large flour tortillas
• 200g tomato salsa – I used a smoky chipotle salsa from La Costena.
• Jarred jalapeños
• 75g grated mature cheddar (or vegan alternative)
• Small bunch of fresh coriander
• ¼ red onion thinly sliced
• 4 -6 tbsp sour cream (or vegan alternative)
• Hot sauce
  

• Start by making your mushroom mince. Clean and trim the chestnut mushrooms.
• Push the mushrooms through your food processor with a grater attachment on. Or, hand chop to a fine consistency.
• Heat the olive oil on a medium heat in a large frying pan and add the garlic, onion and chilli allowing them to soften for a couple of minutes.
• Add the mushrooms and fry for 1-2 minutes (so they start to release their flavour) stirring to ensure they don’t stick.
• Add up to the whole 50ml water a little at a time and continue to stir.
• Allow the mushrooms to simmer on a medium heat for around 10-12 minutes until the water has evaporated and the mushrooms are softened down.
• Drain any extra liquid away and your mushroom mince is ready for use.
• Lay out your tortillas and line each one with 2-3 tbsp of the mushroom mix. Top with a couple of thin slices of red onion, some jalapeños and (if you want) a couple of drops of hot sauce.
• Fold your tortilla up from the bottom so that the filling is covered and then fold in the sides and tuck them underneath. Place snugly in a line into a shallow oven dish.

• Pour your tomato salsa over the enchiladas and top with grated cheese, jalapeños, coriander and sour cream.

• Bake the mushroom enchiladas in the oven for around 15-20 minutes until the cheese is bubbling like so: