Lasagne
On New Year’s Eve I cooked my tried and tested lasagne for our very good friends. It’s not the first time I’ve cooked it for them, and they’ve liked it every time I’ve cooked it, this time so much that they asked me what recipe I use. The answer is that I don’t: it’s a personal method that I have developed and refined over many years. Refined might not be the best word: my goal is to create a very big, umami-packed flavour. Every change I’ve made has been in the service of this goal.
A word about ‘tradition’. I love Italian food, but I abhor the typical Italian attitude to innovation in food. For example, one of my favourite things is to sprinkle fresh parmesan over spaghetti alla vongole in bianco. Italians will tell you that you should never put cheese on fish, but this is just total bollocks, a respect for tradition over taste. Both parmesan and clams are umami packed, so the combination is ideal. Accordingly, you will not find here an ‘authentic’ lasagne recipe. I don’t think such a thing is either possible or desirable.
I have found that the best results come from using a mix of minced beef and pork. I use roughly three times as much beef as pork. The key is to brown both these meats adequately, not just to turn them grey. An important part of the flavour of the finished dish comes from caramelising the meat, so I tend to use a steel wok on the highest heat my hob can produce with a very small amount of light olive oil. The oil should be so hot that there are swirling ribbons in it and smoke pouring off it. Brown the meat in very small batches, and make sure you break it down as you do so so that it is very granular. This is particularly important with the minced pork because it tends to clump into big popcorn sized pieces. You don’t want big gobs of meat in the finished dish.
I have a big (very big – it almost takes up the whole oven) casserole dish that I put the browned meat in, gradually building up the quantity as each batch is finished. While this is happening, I chop some onions very finely. As with all the vegetables I put in the dish, the key is that they should be so finely chopped that they disappear in the finished dish. If I use around 1kg of meat, I tend to use 2-3 red onions, depending on size. Once the meat is browned, fry off the onions in the same pan. Don’t worry of they burn ever so slightly; that just increases the umami potential.
While they’re frying, finely chop some celery stalks – I tend to use about 3 or 4 based on size. Again, make sure they’re chopped very fine. I look to have pieces no more than about 2mm cubed if I can manage that. I find the best way is to cut the celery in to thin strips first and then chop crosswise.
Once the onions are browned, put them in the casserole with the meat and then fry off the celery in the same pan (the wok, for me). Make sure you scrape out the last of the onions; you don’t want them turning into carbon as you cook the celery. While the celery is sweating, chop 3 or 4 carrots into the same sized cubes. Put the finished celery in the casserole and then fry off the carrot.
While the carrot is cooking, finely chop 5 or 6 fat cloves of garlic and add to the carrots. You do not want the garlic to burn at all. As soon as the garlic has fried a bit, put the carrots and garlic into the casserole. Give it a good mix while you’re at it.
Now for the final bit of pre-cooking. Very finely chop 2 or 3 chicken livers; again, we’re looking for cubes of about 2 or 3mm, no more. Season the livers with a good pinch of salt and then fry them over a high heat int he wok with a little oil. Again, ensure that the garlic is completely gone before you do this, or you’ll burn it and introduce an acrid taste.
The livers won’t take long at all – two minutes maximum. When they’re done, throw them in the casserole. Now, crack open a bottle of red wine and deglaze the wok. Once you’ve got all the meaty scrapings off the sides, chuck the wine and scrapings into the casserole.
Ensure that your oven is heated to at least 210C or higher if you like. I tend to heat it to 230C, but it’s up to you. I’ll say a bit more about that in a bit.
We’re nearly there with the preparation. I used to use tomato puree in my ragù but now, thanks to my friend Chris, I use passata instead. Napolina do it in 500g cartons – I tend to use two of them, or if you’re particularly energetic you could make it yourself. I find that it gives a slightly cleaner and fresher taste than the heavier puree. Open the cartons and pour them into the casserole. Open a couple of cans of tinned plum tomatoes and empty them into the casserole as well, and roughly crush the tomatoes against the side of the casserole. At this stage I chop up a couple of chicken stock cubes and put them in too, or you can use Knorr Stockpots, or even your own chicken stock if you’re more organised than me. (Top tip: freeze your chicken stock in ice cube trays and then decant into a freezer bag for homemade stock cubes.)
Now, grate a good quantity of nutmeg into the casserole. I use at least half a piece, if not more. Nutmeg is the characteristic flavour of cooking in Bologna, and you don’t want to stint on it. Grind a good quantity of black pepper in too. Chuck in a very good quantity of Maldon salt, although don’t worry if you haven’t given it enough; you can always adjust at the end of cooking. Bung in a small handful of dried marjoram or oregano too. Finally, put the rest of the bottle of red win into the casserole and give everything a really really good stir.
Well, not quite finally. The last step is to put a single piece of star anise into the mix. I put it in the centre just under the surface so that I can locate it again easily. This is a tip I picked up from Heston Blumenthal’s programme on making the perfect Spaghetti Bolognese, and it works brilliantly to boost the umami potential. When I first used it, I used too much of it and the dish actually tasted of aniseed, which I hate. As a result, I decided to only use one piece and only for a portion of the cooking time. I take it out after two hours, absolute maximum.
[Update: make sure you leave the lid off the casserole for cooking. You want the liquid to evaporate, not to make sloppy stew. Nothing, absolutely nothing wrong with sloppy stews, you just don't want a watery lasagne. Trust me.]
So, cooking time. Ideally, you want to cook the sauce for at least six hours, but you can get away with four if you have to. Some recipes (Delia’s, for example) tell you to cook the sauce on a moderate heat of about 160C, but I think this is a mistake. Cooking it at a higher temperature allows you much more timing flexibility and also produces a much more umami packed taste thanks to the little burned bits that develop on the surface of the sauce and where it meets the sides of the cooking dish. The vital thing is that you must stir it regularly, at least once per hour. Stirring more can’t hurt though, just don’t do it so often that the oven can’t maintain the target temperature. Be gentle with the stirring while the star anise is still in there; you don’t want it breaking into pieces and being impossible to remove again.
That’s it for the ragù. In four to six hours, the sauce will reduce, and you’re looking for a sauce with almost no liquid left in it. It should be very dry – the moisture for the lasagne will come from the béchamel sauce. Once you’ve finished cooking, allow it to cool and then adjust the seasoning. The goal is to not be able to taste the salt or the absence of salt. That’s the perfect balance. You’ll notice that the flavour just seems more intense when you’ve achieved that equilibrium. The resulting sauce should be very rich, almost too rich, and should feel like it’s sucking your cheeks in when you taste it. That’s the umami effect.
Now to prepare the rest of the dish. You can use a classic béchamel recipe, but only start it when you’re ready to make the dish up. I do mine by sight and taste, using about half a pack of butter, enough plain flour that the mixture with the butter becomes granular, let that cook for a minute or two, and then gradually stir/whisk in enough milk to produce a glossy, thickish sauce. Bear in mind that it will thicken substantially as it cools, so you actually want something slightly too runny at this stage. Grate in more nutmeg, and season with salt and black pepper.
On a couple of occasions, I’ve made my own pasta sheets for the lasagne, but I now think that’s a bit of a waste of time, and they tend to need so little cooking that at the extended time required to brown the top they overcook. I just get a large lasagne dish, and then put a layer of ragù, a layer of béchamel and then a layer of out of the packet egg lasagne. I never use lasagne verdi, but that’s a personal preference. I continue layering up until I’m out of béchamel – the last layer needs to be of béchamel, so don’t end up with a layer of pasta or ragù, or you’ll need to make more béchamel. You’ll probably have some sauce left over. Save it for spaghetti bolognese, or serve it on toast with some grated parmesan. Either is delicious.
Finally, I grate over enough parmesan to completely cover the béchamel layer. Now I whack it back into the oven for about half an hour at 210C. You want a lovely browned top layer and the rest of the dish to be piping hot. If your sauce is very dry, which it should be, you’ll end up with perfectly al dente pasta sheets too.
That’s it. I serve it with a very simple salad of peppery watercress in a classic vinaigrette and pour some robust red wine. Enjoy!
