Vegan tofu-lasagne ála Famassu: the most recent version
SOME PREPARATIONS
You'll need
red pesto (vegan kind)
300-500g of tofu.
1) So, first you'll want to make some red pesto, which I use as a kind of marinade for the tofu.
For the red pesto, you'll need
-1-3 cloves of garlic (depending on how much you like garlic
)
-1 onion
-2-3dl of grated vegan cheese
~300g of sundried tomatoes
-some oregano, basil & other herbs like that
-a (small-ish) handful of either pine seeds or some nuts you like
-some oil (I use the oil that the sundried tomatoes are in)
(cayenne pepper if you like it spicy)
just throw all of the ingredients into a blender and go at it. if you don't think the end result is red enough for a red pesto, you might add a couple of some of those smaller kinds of tomatoes. Taste the end product, it could need salt and black pepper (or not).
2) slice the firm tofu into ~1-1,5cm/1-1,5cm cube-ish pieces . Then put the pieces into a bowl and throw the red pesto on them and mix them up so that all the tofu pieces are covered in the pesto.
You might want to do the pesto and marinade the tofu a day before you make the lasagne, if you want the tofu to really suck up the flavour and the lasagne to taste a bit more immediately after you take the lasagne out of the oven instead of having to wait for the day after for the tofu in the lasagne to be at its best.
THE FILLING
You'll need
2-3 carrots
2 onions
2-3 cloves of garlic
lots of spinach
1-2 cellery
(+ you CAN use 1-2 red bell peppers. I usually do, but I didn't have any when I made this particular lasagne a couple of days ago)
100-200g of Chantarelle mushrooms
the marinated tofu
1 can of tomato sauce
1-2 small cans (they are, like, 25 or 50g) of tomato puree
oil or butter (I used coconut butter, since I had some leftover from a while ago, but any kind of oil or vegan-approved butter is fine)
1) prepare the onions, garlic, carrots, cellery & mushrooms like you'd probably normally do for any kind of dish (that is, chop, slice & cut them into pieces).
2) melt a sizable (but not too big) piece of coconut butter (or pour some other kind of oil) on the frying pan. Once that's done & it's hot enough, throw in the onions, garlic & cellery. Saute them (maybe throw a little bit of salt at this point).
3) once the onions etc. are done, throw in the mushrooms. I sliced each mushroom into about 2-4 pieces (they were kinda big ones) and didn't cut them at all if they were tiny ones. Now, you'll have to fry the things on the frying pan for as long as all the excess water from the mushrooms is gone.
4) now come the carrots. In they go into the onion-mushroom-etc. mix. Cook them for a while. They don't need to be fully cooked at this point, since there's plenty of time still when the whole thing is in the oven.
Sorry about the crappy lighting ;3
5) throw in the tofu. At this point, the frying pan is probably starting to fill up (I suggest a big-ass one, otherwise you could be in trouble
), but try to fry the tofus the best you can, to get them to suck up on some of the flavor that is on the frying pan at that moment.
6) throw in the spinach. You don't need to cook them too long, they'll almost immediately start to turn dark-green and their size diminishes, and that basically means they're done
7) open & pour the tomato sauce and puree cans on to the frying pan and mix it with everything. The puree isn't 100% necessary, but I like to add some of it into tomato sauce -including dishes, just makes them better than just having tomatosauce, imho. Depending on the tomatosauce, some of them might be a bit watery, so I'd cook the filling until it's thicker/most of the water has evaporated.
At this point, I'd taste the filling. It might need some salt & spices of your liking (I still had to add some garlic powder, salt and red bell pepper powder to get a bit more taste into the filling).
THE CHEESE MILK
You'll need
3dl grated vegan cheese
~1 liter of some kind of milk (I use soy or rice milk)
1+dl of flour
5 tablespoons of butter
black pepper
nutmeg
1) melt some butter (again, I used coconut butter) in a saucepan on low heat (it shouldn't be superhot after it's melted). Once it's melted, mix about 1-1,5dl of flour (I'd pour it through a strainer/sieve/whatever you call it) into it.
2) once the flour is in, you can put the stove on higher heat and start pouring in the milk. Don't do it too quickly, you'll want to pour a little and then make sure it mixes properly, and only then pour more..
3) once all the milk is in the saucepan, keep mixing the liquid/sauce constantly. Do this until the mixture starts to boil (I use medium-high heat). At that point, take it off the stove and throw in most of the cheese (leave some, maybe 1/3rd, for the topping). Wait until all the cheese has malted. At this point, the cheesemilk-sauce should be somewhat thick. You can throw some black pepper and nutmeg into it.
PUTTING THE LASAGNE TOGETHER
So, you'll want one of these (of some kind)
1) pour some oil (of your choice) into it and take some paper or something and swipe the bakeware-thingy all over inside until each corner & spot of it has been oiled.
2) pour some of the cheesemilk on the bottom so that a slim layer of it covers the whole bottom of the bakeware -> put the first layer of lasagne sheets on top of the cheesemilk -> put some filling on the lasagne sheets -> pour some cheesemilk on the the filling (again, so that it can be found ~all over this layer) -> put another layer of lasagne sheets -> put on some filling -> pour cheese milk -> repeat until we are on the final layer. Now, you've put in the last of the fillings (or well, as much as you can put in, I predict there will be a bit too much of it
). You'll want to first pour some cheese milk on top of the last layer of filling (don't pour all of it yet), then put the last layer of lasagne sheets on and only at this point should you pour the last of the cheesemilk on the top-most layer of sheets.
only missing the grated cheese
3) once you've put all the layers, filling & cheesemilk in the thing, sprinkle the last of the grated cheese on the top-most layer of sheetes & cheesemilk.
heat the oven up to 200*C, put the lasagne in and keep it there for about 30-40 minutes (until the top-most layer is all crispy & nicely brown).
It's done (maybe could've kept it in the oven a few minutes longer, but this was good as well)
I don't think food photography is my strongest skill ;<
NOTE: you can also easily replace the tofu with some kind of soy meat. You can, of course, also use some other mushrooms than what I used, if Chanterelles aren't available in your region.
I hope there aren't too many typos/unfinished sentences or silly errors in the recipe/instructions above. ^_^;
