Lasagne, Lasagne, Lasagne
So I do love a Lasagne. Who doesn’t? I remember going out with the kids, and we stopped for lunch in one of the museums in London. My youngest is super obsessed with pasta, and saw a lasagne on the menu. I leant over and said (“it’s vegetarian though”) and he looked at me with a stupid grin and said along the lines of “I want it”.
From the moment his fork went in, the disappointment was real. Not because it was a vegetarian lasagne, but because their version of vegetarian lasagne was: mushroom pasta. Literally, layers of mushrooms, and pasta. Very little cheese sauce, very little anything else. It was, bizarre. Consequentially he didn’t eat much of it (as he doesn’t like mushrooms, d’oh).
Anyway, I meant to take 300 photos of this process as I thought about documenting it, but I was really busy whilst doing this one so didn’t get around to it. Because I was recovering from the night before (and I knew I would be, as I was cooking this on New Year’s Day) I planned the lazy version for the ragu.
- 1.5Kg of Beef Mince (I meant to get some pork mince in it too, but forgot until about 10 seconds ago and now realise it’s still in the freezer)
- Garlic Salt, Pepper
- One large jar of Bolognese sauce, One small jar of bolognese with chilli sauce
- One tin of tomatoes
- 1 Litre of Beef Stock
- 0.5 – 1Litre of Water
- 1/2 Bottle of Red Wine
First off I started frying off the beef until it was looking reasonably cooked, and let some of the fat cook off too, then added in the garlic salt, pepper, and 1/2 bottle of red wine
I let that cook for 5 minutes or so, before adding in everything else, brought it to the boil, then let it simmer for about 4-5 hours. The most important part of this for me is: it must have fully reduced, i.e. no liquid settling on top at all. If it’s too liquidy, the lasagne will not hold its structure.
Now… the ‘secret’ for me with a good lasagne, is a ridiculously luxurious cheese sauce. You don’t want it runny, or at least, not too runny – as it can help keep the structure of the lasagne.
So my ingredients for the sauce at to make this lasagne were:
- 150g Butter
- 150g Flour
- 1 Litre Blue Milk
- 100g ish of Parmigiano Reggiano
Easy to make – simply melt the butter, add the flour and whisk into a paste, let it cook a little, then add the milk bit by bit – as you add it, it’ll get thicker and thicker very quickly. I go for the texture of a thick custard. I wish I’d taken photos at this stage, but hey ho. When all the milk is added, mix in the cheese and you’re done! Time to construct.
I don’t mean to teach a grandmother to suck eggs (do grandmothers even do that any more?) but to construct, a very thin layer of meat at the bottom, then layer the pasta, then a good layer of the meat, topped with the cheese sauce. Because this cheese sauce is a bit thicker than you might usually use, I actually put a big blob in the middle, then use a knife to spread it nicely. Then layer of pasta, etc, repeat. Until the top, where you top with grated cheddar, grated mozzarella, and some fresh shredded mozzarella, so it looks like this:
Then, slow cook. I put it in around gas mark 3-4 for around 40+ minutes. I can’t remember I didn’t time it – I just let it cook until it looked like this:
Then, I took it out, put in the garlic bread and cooked that whilst it ‘rested’. I’d say this lasagne could easily feed 8 people. We had a load left over, even with a monster portion. I meant to get a nicely staged photo in the kitchen but forgot until I was sat down and frankly, at that point, I wasn’t going to get up and go and stage this just for a photo, so you’ve got a photo of it on my lap:
And so there you have it. A super luxurious, tasty lasagne!
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