Tuesday 18 June 2013

Lasagne

One thing you'll come to learn about me is my love for Italian food. There's a dish for ANY occasion. But if I could only eat one food for the rest of my life it would be Lasagne. Meat, Pasta, Sauce and Cheese. You CANNOT go wrong!

Serves 4
Ingredients:
800g Mince (Beef, Quorn etc.)
Lasagne Sheets (Enough to cover a dish three times over)
300g Closed Cup Mushrooms
400g bottle of Tomato Lasagne Sauce
400g bottle of Béchamel (White) Lasagne Sauce
150g Cheddar Cheese
150g Mozzarella
1 Red Onion
Balsamic Vinegar
4 Cloves of Garlic (or however much you like, to taste!)

Now, like me, a lot of you won't follow recipes "exactly", plus it all depends on how you like it, whether that be more saucy, more meaty, more cheesy, mushrooms, chillies etc.
Just play around with it and have fun!
Practice makes perfect!

Pop your oven on at 200c, get your ovenproof dish in there and get the hob on at medium high heat with a big deep frying pan on.

Chop your garlic and onions up very finely (skins off!), slice your mushrooms up and get them in your pan with the mince, a pinch of salt and pepper, and a few glugs of Balsamic Vinegar. The vinegar really gives the mince a juiciness so I'd really stress that, for Italian cooking, this is vital!

Make sure everything is nice and lightly browned (it will be cooking in the oven for a lot longer too!), mix in the Tomato Lasagne sauce and heat through. Pop your oven gloves on and remove your dish from the oven.

Here's where we start to build the lasagne!

If I recommend one thing with Lasagne, NEVER let the sheets overlap, otherwise you get undercooked pasta and it's quite chewy and unpleasant.

Start with meat at the bottom (about a third of the mince mix in the pan), a layer of lasagne sheets (don't be afraid of leaving a few teeny gaps or breaking the sheets, just try and keep them as big as possible!), then a thin layer of the white sauce (spread this with a spoon!)
Repeat this three times over.
It's not the end of the world if you move the sheets around with the white sauce, don't be afraid of getting in and putting them back!

Once the last layer of white sauce is there, grate the cheddar and roughly chops chunks of the mozzarella and spread these evenly all over!

Pop this back in the middle of the oven, usually for around 30-40 minutes, until its a dark golden brown .

Serve this between your guests, and prepare to receive silent admiration!

Thanks for reading, and if you have any questions, comments, tips or tweaks for your own recipe, please leave comments below!

Dan
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5 comments:

  1. I will look fwd to trying tgat with this nice Italian red I have!

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    Replies
    1. Absolutely mate! Glass or two of red after a hard day at work!

      Dan
      X

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  2. Also, a HUGE tip for cooking garlic bread.
    Like myself, you'll most likely buy it from the supermarket, when this is made, a blob of garlic butter is put on one side of each slice.
    Half way through it's cooking time, get a large knife and between each slice, split the bread open.
    The butter melts more and it soaked by the drier bread. It's a lot more succulent for no extra cost!

    Dan
    X

    ReplyDelete
  3. Wow that is genius. My boyfriend and I refer to the garlic bread at the store as crack bread, but in all the times we've enjoyed it, it never occurred to me to slice it to get the butter to melt down further! My world is forever changed.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It will genuinely change everything, you can buy a garlic baguette for 30p and with that little trick it'll taste better than something ten times the price!

      Dan
      x

      Delete