Lasagne

I've made many lasagna versions for you in the past with chicken, vegetarian, lamb. But today I wanted to go back to basics and cook a really classic lasagna. This one in particular has loads of vegetables. Now being a mum, I'm always trying to find ways to add more vegetables wherever I can and lasagna is a perfect opportunity to add more. So I've given myself a bit of a head start here and I'm cooking down an onion, a grated carrot and I like to grate it because it just melts into the bolognese sauce. I've got a zucchini, one large zucchini, some celery and lots of garlic, so three cloves of garlic. And I think this is the most crucial part of a lasagna, cooking down the sofrito, which is the combination of these vegetables. So this has been cooking for about 15 minutes. I've added a little bit of oil and some salt and now we're going to add our meat. Now I've got one kilo of beef mince here. It's your choice. You can make it 100% beef. Sometimes I change it up and I do 50% pork, 50% beef. It's totally up to you. And we're going to use our spoon to break that up and we want this to colour. Some thyme and I'm just going to pick the little leaves off the thyme so I don't have to find all the little stalks later on. And I'm also adding some bay leaves. Now I've got fresh bay leaves but you could also use some dried bay leaves. Two bay leaves for this and we will fish them out later on. All right, that's just changing colour now. Quite happy with that. In with some wine, just some white wine. Red wine works a treat too. And because there's some alcohol in that, we want to turn that heat up and just let that bubble away to cook off the alcohol. Smells fantastic with all those herbs. I like to use 700 grams of tomato passata, so just one jar. We'll pour that in. Because I want this to be extra saucy, one can of crushed tomatoes too. All right, first stage of our lasagna is on. We're going to pop the lid on and I'm going to move this to a lower heat and this needs to cook for a good hour. Even an hour and a half is fantastic. Low and slow is the key and that'll be rich and thick. And you can cook this bolognese ahead of time, a couple of days, two or three days. In fact, it'll taste even better if it's done ahead of time. Now on to the all-important white sauce or bechamel. I start with 80 grams of butter, a little bit just there. We're going to allow that to melt. And the first stage of a white sauce is called a roux, so it's a combination of that butter and flour. And it's the same amount, so 80 grams of butter to 80 grams of flour. So in with our flour and cook this off. So constantly stir it. Once it starts to sizzle, bubble, almost catch, see how it's just slightly catching there, that's what we're after. Now we'll gradually add the milk. So a drizzle of milk, give that a stir and you'll see it automatically start to thicken up. Begin with a wooden spoon, add some more milk. And then when you can see that there's some little lumps, just like this, and it's hard to remove those lumps, simply transfer over to a whisk and then get the whisk in there and start whisking. And that'll ensure we get a smooth bechamel. So I'll continue adding this milk. I'll bring it to the boil, allow it to bubble away and thicken. Then we'll just turn the heat off and we'll just wait for that bolognese sauce to finish cooking. All right, this bolognese sauce has been cooking for over an hour and look how cooked down it is. It smells very nice in here. You can see how thick and rich it is. I will take out the bay leaves. They've done their job. And just because I'm trying to get as much vegetable in this as possible, why not add a little bit of spinach? It cooks down as it cooks in the oven. So it seems like quite a lot, but even just by stirring it through that hot bolognese, it'll start to wilt. I've just reheated the bechamel. When it does sit there for a while, it does firm up a bit. So you just need to loosen it again. And that's the perfect consistency. I did add some salt. I'll also add some parmesan cheese at this time too. So a good handful of parmesan, just reserving some for each layer. Okay, we'll mix that in. Okay, now for the fun part, which is layering. So a little bit of olive oil into a dish of your choice. I like to use a rectangular. It's much easier to layer. And we'll just spread that on the bottom, not too much. And also on the sides. And I like to start with the sauce. So I'll grab a ladle. So one to two ladlefuls of the sauce. You don't want to make it too thick at this stage. You just want thin layers of meat, bechamel and the lasagna sheets. One thing I've forgotten with the sauce, nutmeg. I love nutmeg in the bechamel. So just a little grating of that. Okay, and just use a spoon to very thinly drizzle it over. Okay, pasta sheets. I love to use fresh pasta sheets because it ensures that our lasagna is going to stay super moist. These ones are great because they're made in the traditional way. It's a family recipe and there's no nasties whatsoever in them. And they're just so soft. And also because they're fresh, they're really easy to handle. So we'll start with our first lasagna sheet. We'll place that on top, press down. And the second one, we can just slice in half. It's a bit of a cut and paste scenario when it comes to lasagna. This bit's going to fit perfectly. That's looking good. And now we continue the layers. So more sauce, more bechamel. I've also got some mozzarella. So I'll add a little bit of mozzarella throughout the layers. And I'll finish off with white sauce and some more parmesan. Alright, we're up to the final layer of beautiful white sauce. So you can see I haven't gone all the way to the top because it will expand slightly in the oven as it cooks. So just give yourself a little bit of space, a little extra cheese, some of that mozzarella and also that leftover parmesan. And this now goes into the oven covered. So I'll cover it with some foil. It'll cook for about 40 minutes at 180. Take the foil off and cook it for a further 20 minutes or until it's golden brown. Well, isn't she beautiful? I always love a lasagna when it comes out of the oven. I'm just going to cut a generous wedge of this. A big lasagna like this will feed six to eight people easily. Alright, let's have a look at this. And look at that. Those stunning layers. And see how creamy it is, not dry. Nothing worse than a dry lasagna. Of course, we have to serve it with the obligatory greens. So just some lettuce leaves here. I've got some parsley, rocket, some cozz, a hint of olive oil. You could add some lemon juice, some vinegar, a bit of salt and I'll just lightly dress that because let's face it, it's all about that lasagna. A few little leaves on the side and there you go. I must have a taste of this. Oh, so perfect. Look at all those layers of fresh lasagna sheets. That's probably one of the best lasagnas I've ever made. Truly, it is so good because there's that perfect amount of meat sauce so that bolognese to the bechamel to those stunning sheets that are just so soft, not dry lasagna. It's a crowd pleaser, it really is.