Make it as you please lasagna

As I child I hated lasagna. I loved spaghetti and bolognese, but couldn't bare the mixture of mince, pasta and cheese sauce. Why ruin perfectly good pasta with a white sauce? I couldn't get my head around it. For some reason my friend's mum made it her mission to make me at least tolerate lasagna and once made a sauce free version. It wasn't my favourite, but it was edible. I would go as far as to say that it was quite nice and it made me realise that lasagna wasn't necessarily bad. Perhaps I would learn to like it one day, even with the sauce.

Over the years my taste buds changed and my tolerance towards the dish grew. I still didn't like the slop we were served in the school canteen, but that may have been due to the fact that there was no real difference between the three main parts of the dish. Surely there should be some bite to the pasta and chunks in the mince. Perhaps a vegetable or two... The sauce shouldn't melt into the other parts, but be a layer in its own right. 

Was I too picky? Was lasagna meant to be a goo to inhale without effort, without awakening the taste buds? No, I was right and it dawned on me when we visited a friend who made her own tray bake, which included cheese sauce made from scratch. I watched her do it. It looked easy enough. I could do that.

I couldn't. Although I'm sure I did exactly what she did, my sauce was completely inedible. All wasn't lost though. I had discovered that lasagna was a dish to love and white sauce could be bought in a jar. Pasta sheets though, what a nightmare! My friend used dry sheets and they cooked perfectly in the oven. Mine didn't, probably due to not having enough liquid in the bolognese sauce. If pre-boiling the sheets I had to cook almost twice as many as I needed for the dish, as they stuck together and became unusable. Don't mention burnt fingers! Yes, I used oil in the water and utensils for separating the sheets while cooking and afterwards. Nothing worked. A lot of swearing and pain, as well as wasted money for the sheets I couldn't use.

Imagine the joy when I learned how to make pasta from scratch at a cooking course I got for Christmas one year. No, my partner didn't send me on a cooking class to be served better food. I asked to go, to learn how to cook properly instead of making things up as I go. Anyway, we made tagliatelle and ravioli, but let's not dwell on the stuffed pasta parcels. If I remember correctly, mine were the only ones that split and leaked... Never mind, I don't like ravioli anyway.

Back to the tagliatelle. It is basically pasta sheets that have been cut. What if they are not cut? Lasagna sheets! Yes, the home made pasta is more labour intense, but there is no swearing involved and no burnt fingers. I happened to attend the cooking course a week before my birthday and when hearing that, a couple of friends gave me a pasta machine on the big day. Woohoo! That took most of the effort right out of the procedure.

After years of making the pasta, but cheating with the white sauce, I was tricked into making sauce for another dish and didn't realise it was a lasagna sauce until it was too late. It was already a success by the time I understood what I had done. From that day there was no stopping me. I even invited a friend to teach her how to cook a lasagne from scratch, without batting an eyelid when it came to the sauce. It was a proud moment.

If you have read any of my other blogs and learned that I think twice when it comes to what to cook, how to cook it and what ingredients to use to make it healthier, lasagna breaks all the rules. My way of cooking it is not healthy, not in the slightest. The only way to redeem it is by having a small portion and serving it with a salad or serving it to others and fill up on the aroma alone.

For this recipe, there are no measurements, or at least very few. It is one of those dishes you have to find your own way, both in regards to ingredients and amounts. I will however share my methods in this step by step guide. 

1. For the dough, I use 1 medium egg per person and 3 heaped tbsp flour per egg. You can always add more flour afterwards, if needed. I like to insert flavour where I can, so I add salt, pepper, paprika and oregano to the dough mixture.

2. Stir with a spoon until it becomes less sticky, unless you are a savage who loves sticky fingers. I personally can't think of anything worse.

3. On a floured table, knead the mixture into a smooth dough. 

At this stage I always think of the cookery teacher at Food 52, the course I attended. We were told to press and roll the dough in the air, making a sausage until it became too long to handle. Fold it and start again, air-kneading the living daylight out of the dough. I was rolling the dough sausage for all I was worth when the teacher came to check on my progress and said: 'That's it, Mia. Use your arm muscles and knead it, like a Big Italian Mama.' To this day, I can't make pasta dough without having the Big Italian Mama comment bouncing around in my head and I always feel my arm muscles swell, even though I no longer air knead it. It works just as well to knead it on the table.

4. Once the dough is smooth and no longer sticky, but not dry, roll it in flour and wrap it up in cling film. If you forget to roll it in flour, it will stick to the cling film. Leave it to rest for an hour.

5. While the dough is resting, make the bolognese sauce. I always start with onion and garlic.

6. To the softened onion and garlic, I like to add mushrooms.

7. Then mince. We eat a lot of venison and I make my own mince. This is from a red deer, very lean. I have made a chicken lasagna before, using finely sliced chicken breast instead of mince. If that's your preference, simply make the swap at this stage. If you want a vegetarian dish, skip the meat altogether. Your kitchen, your choice.

8. Tomato puree, paprika, basil, oregano, salt and pepper are my go-to lasagna flavours. I add them to the half cooked mince to give them plenty of time to do their job.

9. Grated carrot and pepper are staples in our lasagna and if I have leek and courgette, they are fair game too. In a bolognese, most things are worth trying. Use what you fancy. Chop it super fine if you have picky eaters in your family, blitz it is needed. Get as much vegetables in there. Not only do you add healthy stuff to an otherwise heavy dish, you also add flavour.

10. Bung it all in there and mix with the mince.

11. Add chopped tomatoes, or ready made bolognese sauce if you want to cheat. I used to do that. I no longer spend money on a seasoned sauce when I have all the spices at home. Instead I go for the cheapest tin of chopped tomatoes I can get hold of. Basics can be inexpensive. Spend your money on good meat instead.

12. Cook the mince and adjust the seasoning until it is as tasty as you want it.

13. Now to the white sauce. I know that there is a fancy word for this, but I prefer to stick to a butter and flour mixture. I use one heaped tbsp flour per tbsp of butter. Melt the butter and stir in the flour until it looks like this. Take it off the heat if you risk burning it.

14. Pour in a little water and whisk like crazy until all lumps are gone. Once the sauce is smooth, add more milk and let it simmer to thicken. You may have to add more milk as you go, if it get too thick.

15. Some people leave it at butter, flour and milk, but by now you know me and can probably guess what I'm going to say. At this stage I want to mimic the flavours of both bolognese and dough and add salt, pepper, paprika and oregano, hence the pink hue and green flecks. My white sauce is pink.

16. This is how I like my sauce, quite thick.

17. If some people in this house made the rules, there would be a lot more cheese in the sauce, but I'm the queen of the kitchen and this is how much I used last time. Once it was added, I let it melt into the sauce while stirring.

18. Assembly time. 

Is this photo upside down? Never mind. Add thin layer of mince to an oven tray. You want to pick a try with high edges or you'll lose the benefit of a lasagna, the joy of layering.

19. This is when I would get my pasta machine out, if I hadn't dropped a few pieces of fresh pasta into it without noticing, leaving them to dry rock hard. They are now impossible to get out and the machine is inoperable. Well done, Mia! Luckily I have a rolling pin.

20. The great thing about rolling the dough by hand is that you can match the sheet to the size of your tray. Keep flipping it over on a floured table while rolling, to prevent it from sticking. You want it to be thin, but not too thin. I tend to aim for 2 mm.

21. Trim the sheet to make it fit the tray.

22. Slather white or pink sauce on top of the pasta sheet and that's the first layer done. Repeat until you run out of ingredients or space in the oven tray. I always finish with pasta and pink sauce.

23. Grated cheese finishes the dish off nicely. Again, if a certain someone had been in the kitchen at the time, I would have been asked if there were cheese rations in place. Apparently, when you think you have had enough cheese, add more and then some. This is far from enough.

24. Cook for approximately 20 minutes, until the cheese is golden. I recommend placing the tray onto an larger oven tray, covered in tin foil. It will save a lot of oven cleaning time.

25. I had enough of all ingredients by the time I ran out of space in the oven tray. Waste not, want not. With the spares I made to small portions, perfect to serve with a side salad.

26. Spot the mistake! Although I thought I was far enough from the edge with the sauce and the grated cheese, I was wrong. I should have used a tray underneath. Will I ever learn?