How to make lasagne

Comfort is baked cheese. I don’t care what form it needs to take, but if you have some crispy, golden baked cheese over the back of something, you will be comforted. Throw some pasta and bolognese sauce with a little white sauce into the mix and you will be in comfort PLUS. Put your soft pants on before you start to eat this lasagne because you won’t be able to stop at just one piece.

A lasagne is basically just spal bol with different pasta. And some cheese. Oh and white sauce. OK, so it’s nothing like spag bol, but you do use bolognese sauce in it. If you know how to make bolognese, then you can do this. You just can.

Lasagne

500 grams mince meat
1 brown onion diced
2 cloves garlic crushed
Olive oil
Tomato paste
Tinned tomatoes
Dash of red wine
Lasagne sheets (fresh or dried – I usually just use dried)
Mozzarella cheese

White sauce
125 grams (half a stick) butter
2 tablespoons plain flour
Milk

Now my bolognese sauce is bog standard. It doesn’t have hidden goodness in it, no carrots or mushrooms or anything healthy in it. It’s meat. Onion. Sauce. And it’s good. My all means if you fancy some carrot or othr veggies in yours, then knock yourself out. Kids won’t see that shit hidden in a bolognese sauce so do it if you can. For me I just don’t fancy carrot in my sauce, so I don’t add it in. Simple!

Dice your onion, crush your garlic and fry them off in a good drizzle of extra virgin olive oil. You want to just cook it until the onion is translucent, without any real colour on it – say for 2 minutes.

Then add in your mince and brown it off until you can’t see any pink colour left.

Throw in a good splash of red wine, and pour yourself a glass to drink at the same time. It helps with the cooking. Once you can’t smell that alcohol anymore add in a small tub of tomato paste, then the tin of tomatoes. Season with salt & pepper. That’s the sauce done – just let it to simmer for a while as you get onto the white sauce.

White Sauce

I can’t believe that this is even available as a packet option. Promise me you will never buy that shit, it’s not white sauce. It’s packet weird sauce. White sauce is just a bechamel – FANCY FRENCH WORD FOR WHITE SAUCE. It binds the pasta to the bolognese in some kind of magical, cheesy way. It’s like bacon, it just makes things better, don’t question it.

To make the sauce you need to start by combining butter and flour which is another fancy french word called a ROUX. Add that half a stick of butter into a saucepan.

Wait for it to melt and start to bubble and then add in your 2 tablespoons of flour.

Using a whisk, stir this until combined and then keep stirring it over the heat so that the flour cooks off a little. You want to do this for a few minutes before adding in the milk, a bit here, then stir, wit for it to thicken and then a bit more. Or, like me, add in as much milk as you think you will need, then keep stirring. It will eventually thicken and then start to bubble – once it has done this, take it off the heat and set aside. YOU MADE WHITE SAUCE.

Construction

Now it’s construction time. Get yourself a lasagne dish in front of you. Get your bolognese saucepan, and your white sauce saucepan and your mozzarella cheese.

Now you cn add in other stuff if you like – how about some char grilled eggplant? Or zucchini? If I want it to get eaten in my house I sure as shit better not be messing around with that stuff though. Meat. Sauce. Pasta. Cheese.

In the bottom of the dish add in a layer of bolognese. Spoon in a good few and then spread it around with your spoon.

Then spoon on some white sauce. It doesn’t matter if it’s too thick, or too thin, just pour some on, or if it’s thicker then add then dabs on it on.

Then add on the pasta sheets until it’s all covered. Do the same again.

Bolognese.
White Sauce.
Pasta.

Until you are at the top where the final layer is just bolognese and white sauce – then you go crazy with the mozarella. You can add in some basil leaves on top if you want to be fancy.

Cover it loosely with foil (if it’s too tight the cheese will stick to it and it will be ruined and you will have a sad face which is not fair given all the hard work you have put in). Cook for 20 mins covered at 180 degrees, then take that foil off and wait for it to go crispy and golden like.

My favouite bit is now you get to wash up all those dishes now. And while it’s a bit of a pain in the arse that you have to keep working, if you wash them up now it’s done by the time the lasagne is ready and you have no washing up to do after that – except for that dish that can just soak in the sink overnight.

Let it cool down, check you have your soft pants on and demolish. Dead set, I have been making this for years. It costs nothing, takes a little bit of time but everyone will be stoked at how delicious it is…and the fact that it’s home made. If you ever have to make someone a meal to drop off at their house – new baby, death in the family, just being a nice person – THIS is it.

[gmc_recipe 9997]

Do you roll out the odd lasagne?
It’s worth the effort right?