Grim up North Heath

Lasagne

Written by

Fraser Steele

in

Mrs S asked for this for Mother’s Day. How could I refuse? (I could have said ‘no’, I suppose)

Timings: Prep: 50 min. Cooking: 35 min Rest: 15 min Eat: 10 min

Ingredients

500 g beef mince (5% fat)

One onion, diced

4 gloves garlic, chopped

Tin chopped tomatoes

Herbs – using dried herbs, basil, oregano, thyme and parsley. A teaspoon of each.

Chili flakes because we like them

veg stock and tomato puree

2 tablespoons oil (peanut, vegetable or whatever is to hand)

500 ml full fat milk

75g cheese (mix of cheddar and parmesan because that was what was in the fridge), grated.

2 tablespoons sauce flour

Lasagne sheets – at least 6, maybe 9, but buy a box of them.

Sorry, no photos because I was listening to Iron Maiden while I was cooking and forgot.

Oven to 180 C (fan).

Meat sauce

Brown the mince until it goes uniform brown and no red bits.

Meanwhile, fry the chopped onions in the oil until they go translucent, then add chopped garlic and fry for another minute1. Add the dried herbs and stir these in to release the aroma.

Add the tin of tomatoes and a squeeze of tomato puree. Add the browned mince, veg stock and stir well. Turn off the heat.

Cheese sauce

Pour the milk into a pan and add the sauce flour2. Heat the milk and stir constantly, chanting the mantra “this won’t work. It never does” until all the flour disappears and the sauce is thick. Add most of the cheese and stir to melt in.

Assemble the lasagne

Pour a thin layer of the cheese sauce into a suitable ovenproof dish. Smear the dish with butter if you like, it may reduce sticking.

Add lasagne sheets over the cheese sauce and then one third of the meat sauce and a bit of the cheese sauce – don’t use too much for the layers. Continue to layer up until you run out of meat sauce.

Add a final layer of lasagne, pour over the rest of the cheese sauce (about half should be left) and completely cover the top layer of pasta. Sprinkle the remaining cheese on top.

Shove it in the oven for 35 minutes. Check that the pasta is cooked by prodding it with a fork.

Take out and leave to rest for 15 minutes while the garlic bread is cooking.

OK, I lied, there is a picture. This is what was left when we’d had enough. Normally the whole thing goes, but oldest is at Uni so they weren’t around to eat it. More fool them.

  1. We got this tip about adding garlic well after the onion from the TV show ‘Pie in the Sky’ about a food-obsessed police detective (Richard Griffiths) and his crisp-mad wife (Maggie Steed (who also played Dr Hildegard Lanstrom in Red Dwarf)) ↩︎
  2. We have used sauce flour for many years and it is the best thing for thickening sauces. You can make a roux, by all means, but it’s a pain in the arse and risks burning. ↩︎

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