Szechuan lasagne

What you’ll get

This is a lasagne with a kick. It’s the usual rich and savoury, with added fermented flavours, heat, and that indescribable experience that is Szechuan pepper.

I like to serve this with a pickled cucumber salad that I make just before starting cooking (thinly sliced cucumber, rice vinegar, salt, pepper, a little sugar, and a little sesame oil). I like how the acid freshens up the meal and cuts through the heaviness of the lasagne. A leafy salad with a strong vinaigrette would do the same job.

What you’ll need

Ingredients

  • onion
  • ginger
  • spring onions
  • garlic
  • oil
  • vegan mince - my preferred mince is Meatless Farm’s plant-based mince but use whatever you’re comfortable with
  • doubanjiang
  • tinned tomatoes
  • rice wine - preferrably Shaoxing wine - or white wine if you can’t get it
  • rice vinegar or white wine vinegar if you can’t get it
  • soy sauce
  • mushrooms
  • red pepper
  • fresh parsley or coriander
  • flour
  • plant milk - I use Overherd (use code BRD12160 for a discount), and you will need a lot
  • cheese - this is my one break from vegan ingredients because I’m still not satisfied with vegan cheese options for a cheese sauce, so I use a mature cheddar
  • Szechaun pepper - normally a little goes a long way, but I’ve found this recipe calls for more than you might think
  • lasagne sheets

Tools

  • sharp knife
  • chopping board
  • 2 saucepans
  • 2 cooking spoons
  • rectangular oven dish

Appliances

  • 2 hob rings
  • oven

Time

~1.5 hours

What to do

  1. [Active] Preheat the oven to ~180˚C (for a fan oven).

  2. [Active] Chop up the onion, ginger, spring onions, garlic, mushrooms, and red pepper.

  3. [Active] Add a glug of oil to one of the saucepans, put over a medium-high heat, and fry the chopped onion, chopped ginger, and chopped spring onions until the onion starts to go translucent.

  4. [Active] Add the chopped garlic and vegan mince and fry it until the mince starts to brown, stirring often.

  5. [Active] Add doubanjiang, tinned tomatoes, rice wine, rice vinegar, and soy sauce, chopped mushrooms, and red pepper, and turn the heat down a little to bring to a simmer.

  6. [Active] While the meat sauce is cooking - making sure to stir it occasionally - add oil to the other saucepan, put over a medium-low heat, and add a roughly equal amount of flour (by weight). Cook for a few minutes, stirring frequently.

    Tip: You’re making a roux and the amount of flour you add determines how much sauce you’ll end up with. It takes some practice to work out how much to use, and it’s difficult to adjust later. If you find you’ve made too much, discard some of it as soon as you realize or you’ll use a lot of milk and have a lot of sauce. If you find you’ve made too little, put what you’ve got aside, make more, and combine the two.

  7. [Active] Slowly add plant milk, stirring until completely combined and smooth. Keep going until you have a thick, but fluid, sauce.

    Don’t forget to keep checking on the meat sauce.

    Tip: Add the milk as slowly as you can cope with. If you add too much milk, your sauce will get lumpy and you’ll need to beat the lumps out of it, which gets tiring quickly.

  8. [Active] Grate the cheese and add to the white sauce you’ve just made. Stir until it’s melted and incorporated.

    Remember to stir the meat sauce.

    Tip: You want this sauce to be pretty cheesy. Taste it and add more as needed.

  9. [Active] Grind the Szechuan pepper and add it to the cheese sauce.

    Tip: Add half a teaspoon at a time, stirring and tasting in between. You want to get to the point where the Szechuan flavour is nice and present, and you can feel the tingling, numbing effects from a small taste. I suggest creating combined tastes with the meat and cheese sauce in the same bite to simulate the finished product when working out how much to add.

  10. [Active] By the time your cheese sauce is ready, the meat sauce probably is too. Turn the heat off both sauces. Roughly chop the fresh parsley or coriander and add it to the meat sauce. Stir it in.

  11. [Active] Assemble the lasagne by adding alternating thin layers of meat sauce, cheese sauce, and lasagne sheets. Make sure to leave enough cheese sauce for a final layer on top of the last lasagne sheet layer with good, but thin, coverage. You should have at least 3 of each layer before the final cheese sauce layer.

    Tip: Spoon out and spread the meat sauce layer on solid base of the dish or lasagne sheets, but drizzle the cheese sauce layer, so it sits on top of the meat sauce but doesn’t get mixed in. It will spread out during cooking, so don’t worry too much about totally even coverage except on the final layer.

  12. [Waiting] Put the lasagne in the oven and cook it for however long the lasagne sheets say they need to be cooked. This will probably be between 20 and 35 minutes depending on the pasta. You want to cook it until the top layer is golden brown, but not so long that the pasta gets soggy.

  13. [Active] Remove the lasagne from the oven and cut it into squares to serve.