Lasagna

This recipe is relatively time consuming – but makes a fantastic lasagna which beats anything you can buy in the supermarket. I try to keep it as simple as possible by skipping some unnecessary steps (such as pre-cooking the pasta)

This recipe makes enough for 4-6 people depending on how hungry they are!

Ingredients

2 Onions
4 Sticks of celery
4 Carrots
6 Cloves of garlic (less if you don’t like it garlicky)
6 Sausages (preferrably ones with lots of herbs in)
1 Medium pack of beef mince (around 500g – possibly a little less)
2 Stock cubes
1 tbsp tomato puree
2x 400g tins of chopped tomato
150g Cheddar cheese
1 Ball of mozzarella
1 Generous glass of red wine (you can drink the rest of the bottle)
1 tbsp-ish of dried Italian herbs (from a jar)
600ml milk
35g butter
50g flour
10-12 Lasagne sheets
Olive oil

Method

Firstly, create the bolognaise:

Remove the skins from the sausages.
Grate the onions, celery, garlic and carrots and mix them all together.
Add some olive oil to your pan (enough to cover the whole pan) and then fry the grated vegetables for 5-10 minutes or so until they dry out a bit and start to brown.
Add the mince and the sausages (without skins) and brown. The sausages should break up into small chunks as you stir it around.
Add the wine and give a couple of minutes to evaporate off some of the liquid.
Add the two tins of tomatoes, one of the empty tins filled with water, the tomato puree, the two stock cubes, the dried herbs and salt and pepper.
Leave to bubble away until most of the liquid has gone but you still have a good amount of sauce. That will probably take about 30 mins and you’ll need to stir it every now and again.

Next, create the bechamel sauce:

Melt the butter in a pan.
In a separate pan warm the milk (but don’t boil it).
Once the butter has melted, keep the pan on the heat and add the flour and stir together with a spoon to make a ball.
Gradually add the milk to this and whisk together. Once all the milk has combined you will be left with a slightly thick sauce.
Add 100g of the grated cheddar and stir it in until it all melts.
Cook the sauce for a few more minutes until it’s thickened a little bit more.

Now, we can assemble!

Add a layer of mince, then a layer of the uncooked pasta sheets and then a layer of the bechamel sauce. Do the layers quite thin and repeat three or four times. You should be left with the white sauce on top.
Sprinkle over the rest of the cheddar and break over the mozarella. This will give quite a chewy crust on the top (Iike a pizza!).
Cook in the oven at about 175 degrees celcius covered in tin foil or the first 30 minutes so that the top doesn’t burn.
Remove the foil and continue cooking, checking on it every 5 minutes and take it out when the cheese is melty and browned slightly (this should usually take approximately 15 minutes).