That old dish again!

Yes, we’ve all had bad versions of it – frozen and packaged or bought in foil trays from the supermarket and heated in the microwave. Even when we’ve had it at dinner parties it usually hasn’t been memorable. And let’s not forget the tired vegetarian versions that are trotted out as the stock-in-trade vegetarian meal.

I’m talking, of course, about lasagne. Probably very few of us have had it in Italy – I’ve been there many times and can’t recall ever having had it there. So it’s probably best not to warble on about authenticity and to focus on the version that you like.

Because, like many hackneyed and abused dishes – and leaving pretensions of authenticity aside – it can be really memorable and it’s a great party dish in that it can be made ahead of time and just need a salad to go with it.

My meat lasagne is based on the recipe given to me by my dear friend Veronica Cody nearly 30 years ago. Over the years, together with family and friends, I’ve adapted it more to exactly the way I like it. I usually make it in double quantities (enough for about 12 people) and freeze it when it’s assembled (to be thawed and baked in the oven later).

Here’s the recipe for the double quantity (quantities aren’t rigid):

900g minced beef

300g minced pork

3 large onions, chopped

300g mushrooms, sliced

1200g tinned and chopped tomatoes

4 carrots grated

5 garlic cloves or more, crushed

Fistful of fresh basil leaves torn

Other herbs as available (oregano, mint, bay etc)

Half a tube of tomato puree

1 l milk

50 g (or so) of butter

50 g (or so) of flour – enough to soak up the butter

12-15 sheets of pre-cooked spinach lasagne

500 g grated cheddar or gruyere cheese

120 g grated gran pandano cheese.

Pre-heat the oven to 180 deg. C. or equivalents if you’re baking it right away .

Fry the onions and mushrooms in a large saucepan, remove and reserve. Fry the minced meat. Add back in the onions and mushrooms. Add the tomatoes, puree, crushed garlic, grated carrot and herbs. Season with salt and pepper, and cook for about 20 minutes with the lid off. Meantime, melt the butter in another saucepan, put in enough flour to soak it up, then gradually add the milk, whishing it with each addition to keep it smooth. When you’ve added all the milk it may be a bit runny but when you bring it to simmering point it should gradually thicken, as long as you keep whisking it, making sure the flour doesn’t stick to the bottom of the pan. When it has thickened, take it off the heat and add half the grated cheddar or gruyere.

Spread a layer of the meat sauce thinly over the bottoms of two buttered lasagne or gratin dishes, follow with a thin layer of cheese sauce and then cover with lasagne sheets, taking care not to overlap but filling in spaces at the edge with broken sheets. Repeat the layers, ending with a layer of the cheese sauce. Sprinkle the rest of the grated cheddar or gruyere over the top of the dishes and the gran padano over that. If cooking straight away, 30 minutes in the oven should be enough. If the dishes are chilled – or frozen and subsequently thawed – the baking time should be increased by at least 15 minutes. When the cheese is melting and browning on top they are done.

A vegetarian version can be done by adapting Delia Smith’s Mediterranean roasted vegetable lasagne whereby the meat sauce is replaced by a mixture of roasted vegetables, doubling the quantities approximately as follows:

2 aubergines, cut into 1cm dice, sprinkled with salt and pressed in a colander for about 20 minutes

4 medium courgettes, treated the same way

1 kg cherry tomatoes (Delia says to peel them but life is too short);

2 yellow peppers, cut in 1 cm cubes

3 red onions, cut into 1cm squares

5 cloves of garlic, crushed

Fistful of basil leaves, torn

Put the cherry tomatoes in one shallow tin and sprinkle with the garlic and basil. Put the other vegetables in another similar tin. Sprinkle both tins with olive oil and get the vegetables coated. Season with salt and pepper and roast at 240 degrees C for about 30 to 40 minutes. After that, mix everything, and add about 100g black olives, pitted. Otherwise proceed as for the meat version, making the cheese sauce and assembling everything with the rest of the grated cheese on top and bake in the same way.