Lasagne

Lasagne is one of the most satisfying meals you can make at home. It fills you up, is really easy, has very few ingredients, and you can chop and change it to create different flavours. The only problem is that it takes a bit of planning and time.

It is pretty much two things mixed together: spaghetti bolognaise and white sauce. Baked. So if you can make those two things, and have an oven, you can make lasagne.

So you need these things (clockwise from left): a bottle of passata (tomato puree), a 400g can of roma tomatoes (you can get chopped ones, or you can chop them up yourself, or you could, horror of horrors, use actual tomatoes), a small tin of tomato paste, grated cheese (a pizza cheese mix is good, gives lots of flavours, or you can use plain cheddar), two or so packets of lasagne sheets (you might have spares), 400g or so of beef mince, some butter, two cloves of garlic, and an onion. You'll also need olive oil (not pictured).

Chop the onion into thin pieces, as small as you can get, and crush the onion. Melt the butter in the oil (a couple of table spoons) and start cooking the onion and garlic until it goes nice and golden.

Then chuck in the meat and break it up into little pieces and cook until it browns all over. Then tip in the tomatoes - the paste, the passata and the tinned tomatoes. Stir this around until it is all mixed in well. Bring it up to a boil - it will start to plop and spit little volcanoes of red sauce at you and start making a mess. Put a lid on it, lower the heat as far as it will go. The amazing thing about this part is that you can leave this sauce for as long as three or four hours, just simmering, and it will get richer and richer and richer. But you don't really need to do that for the lasagne, only for bolognaise (and even then you have to be really keen). It will look like this:While this is simmering, you can make the white sauce (see last post). Below is a picture of the various elements of the lasagne up until this point:From the left, clockwise, is the bolognaise sauce, the white sauce, the cheese, the lasagne sheets and the dish. I hope you have a dish ready. At a pinch you could make it in a pyrex bowl.

So now you need to construct the lasagne. First, lay a thin layer of sauce on the bottom of the pan. This will cook the bottom lasagne sheets. Now lay the sheets on top of this. You can either go all out and cover every square centimetre of the pan with the sheets (which is hard, because lasagne sheets don't split easily or neatly), or just lay three or so overlapping slightly. Next, pour some of the white sauce over the lasagne sheets, and spread it all the way to the edges. Then sprinkle some cheese over that:
So you keep making these layers until you run out of sheets. After you lay your last lasagne sheets, pour the rest of your sauce over, then the rest of your white sauce, then the last of your cheese. If this layer is nice and thick, so much the better. Pour some more parmesan and pepper over the top if you have it, and put it in the oven (which you have of course preheated to 180C) for around an hour, or until it starts to brown on top. It will look a lot like this:So that's that. Cut it up, serve it, and enjoy. It will make around eight slices. One is probably enough per person.

Result
My wife says this was delicious, and I would have to agree. Lasagne is really impressive, and is really difficult to wreck - just don't burn it. The top will be really nice and crispy, and the insides really soft and delicious. All the flavours will mingle together, the white sauce will melt into the cheese (or is it the other way around). You can freeze the remainder happily, or it will make lunch for a few days.

For the ultimate lasagne meal, make a tiramisu for dessert. But you'll have to wait for that recipe, it is for special occasions only. Enjoy!

White sauce

This is a component of the lasagne I cooked later on this evening. I thought I would separate them because white sauce is an important thing to know how to cook. You can add extra ingredients to it to make different sauces without too much trouble, and it is great on its own with vegetables like cauliflower or with corned beef.

You need but three ingredients: 60g butter, 60g flour, and 500ml of milk. Heat up the milk in the microwave or on the stove until it is just short of boiling. Melt the butter in a large pot (you'll need room to stir). Make sure it is bigger than this one. I had to switch pots later. Once melted, turn the heat down a bit and add the flower. Stir it in completely. It will turn into a dough that looks a little oily and shiny. Now you have to cook it for around 3 minutes or so over low heat. Stir it constantly to avoid burning it. Once it starts going, you'll get a nice biscuity smell out of it.

Once the three minutes are up, and the mixture ("roux") has become a little powdery and is starting to whiten, add your milk. Do it little by little, and stir it in each time before adding more. Do this over a very low heat. As you add more milk, the roux will thicken and thicken and thicken, until eventually you are left with a nice, creamy white sauce. You can refrigerate it happily, though a skin will form on top which you can peel off. You might find you need to add a bit more milk to thin it, depending on how you want to use it, and heat it up if you have put it in the refrigerator.

Unfortunately my camera ran out of batteries in the middle of the process but you get the idea. Just make sure that a) you don't burn the roux; b) you heat the milk up; and c) you add it slowly and stir it right in each time. You'll be fine.

To make some other sauces, you can add parmesan or cheddar to make a nice cheese sauce, add peppercorns or cracked pepper to make a nice pepper sauce (add this before you start adding milk, and cook it a while with all the milk in it). You can also make bechamel sauce by cooking in the milk a peeled onion with cloves stuck all over it. You'd have to do this on the stove.