When I say I cooked, I really mean I constructed, because Mr.R had already made the most time consuming part for me. He'd cooked one of his seriously rich and tasty tomato sauces, which usually take hours and hours of simmering to reach the peak of perfection, so all I had to do was sauté the beef, make a white sauce, and layer everything...........
I didn't follow a recipe, because as I'm sure I've said in previous food posts I'm not good at being told what do. ;)
Plus I grew up watching my wonderful mummy make a lot of delicious meals, so I kinda picked up the ingredients, quantities, and methods as we happily chatted away in the kitchen.
Anyway, here's what I did - roughly.
Ingredients ~
For the ragu
Beef.
I used basic minced beef. Actually it was frozen beef mince, which we don't often use, but happened to have in the freezer for protein emergencies. :o
It wasn't the best quality meat, but when it was introduced to the rich tomato sauce it tasted good.
If I was rich I'd use a lovely bit of prime steak and mince it myself - Mmm!
Tomato sauce.
As I said, Mr.R had already made this sauce, so I didn't have to spend hours chopping and sautéing onions, garlic, and tomatoes etc.
Mushrooms.
Once again I just used basic mushrooms, not the more exotic varieties we used to eat a lot of when we lived in France.
Carrots.
I like to add extra vegetables to lasagne, and I especially like carrots, and we had lots of them, so I cooked a few carrots and chopped them up to add to the beef sauce.
Ingredients ~
For the béchamel sauce
Flour.
I used organic white flour.
Butter.
I used goats butter.
Milk.
I used goats milk.
Method ~
For the ragu
1. Sit down with a nice drink.
As I'd just got up, I chose a lovely cup of organic green tea, with organic honey. Yum!
This may not sound like the typical first step in a recipe, but as I appreciate eating much more than cooking, and I enjoy procrastinating, I felt the need to mention it, as it was an important step in the creation of my lasagne. ;)
2. This would normally be the start of the tomato sauce, but as it was already cooked, I started with the meat.
So, step 2, sauté minced beef until it's cooked and brown. I used olive oil.
3. Chop mushrooms, and add to the cooked beef.
Stir, stir, stir, until the mushrooms are cooked.
4. Add the deliciously rich tomato sauce (previously, and lovingly cooked by Mr.R) to the meat and mushrooms.
Stir, stir, stir, until it looks so good you want to scoff the lot right there and then.
5. Carrots. Or any other vegetable. Or none.
Add carrots, to the beef, mushroom, and tomato sauce.
Stir, stir, stir, until everything is combined, and the kitchen is full of taste-bud tingling aromas.
6. Turn the heat down low and leave the meat sauce to simmer gently while you make the white sauce. Or while you sit down and procrastinate some more. ;)
Method ~
For the béchamel
1. Melt some butter in a saucepan.
No idea of the measurement, because I judged by eye, by which I mean I used lots and lots. I love butter. :)
2. Slowly add the flour.
Once again, no idea how much as I just chucked what I knew was a good amount in to the saucepan.
Stir, stir, stir, until the melted butter has soaked up all of the flour, and formed a lovely looking yellow paste-type mixture, a roux.
Mmm, this smells so good.
3. Cook the roux for a few minutes, making sure to move it continuously, with a spatula or whatever you want to use.
4. Now it's time to add the milk.
Guess what? Yep, I have no idea how much milk I used, because I just added a little bit at a time, until I liked the consistency of the white sauce.
So, gradually add milk to the roux, stirring as you go.
Whisk, whisk, whisk, until your white sauce is lump free and covers the back of a spoon.
Actually I mainly used a spatula to make my white sauce, but I did briefly use a whisk because it looked better for the photo. ;)
Construction the lasagne ~
1. Grease an overproof dish.
2. Layer the bottom of the dish with the meat sauce, ragu.
3. Next is the lasagne. Cover the meat sauce with sheets of lasagne.
4. Now it's the white sauce. Cover the lasagne sheets with béchamel sauce.
5. Continue to layer; ragu, lasagne, béchamel.....
Until you've used all of your meat and white sauce, making sure that the last/top layer is white sauce.
6. Cheese.
Cover the top layer, which should be white sauce, with lots of grated cheese.
Or if like me, you realise at this stage that you don't own a grater - improvise.
I just sliced cheese, as thinly as I could, which wasn't actually all that thin, and dotted it across the top of the lasagne.
This took quite along time, mainly because my knife skills aren't good, and I kept eating the cheese, and stopping my slicing to feed cheese to Mr.R. :)
Mmm, cheese!
7. Chuck the fully assembled lasagne in the oven.
I set the oven to 180c, and cooked the lasagne for about 30 minutes.
And finally, *drum roll*
Serve!
This lasagne was a very basic one. I don't usually make it quite like this, but despite being in the mood yesterday, which was when I said I'd make it, today when I got up I'd gone off the idea, hence the basic, bung it all in, slap-dash attitude.
Usually I make lasagne using chicken, or good quality beef, or even vegetables, and I add decent red wine to the ragu, and cheese to the white sauce etc.
But, even this basic no-frills lasagne turned out well, it was very tasty indeed.
I would have added some bacon or chorizo to the beef to liven it up a bit, but I left it too late to text Mr.R and ask him to buy bacon, because he receive the text just as he returned home from shopping.
C'est la vie!
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