Lasagne with Marcella Hazan’s Ragu Sauce.
Ragu
35g butter
3 tablsp extra virgin Olive oil
2 tablsp onion, Finely chopped
2 tablsp celery, finely chopped
2 tablsp carrot, finely chopped
350g minced lean beef, preferably chuck or neck.
Salt
300ml dry white wine
125ml fine Irish milk!
1/8 teasp grated nutmeg
1 x 400g tin Italian tomatoes roughly chopped or if in season whole ripe fresh tomatoes, peeled. (to peel a tomato, put them in just boiled water for exactly 10 mins, then remove and peel.)

White sauce (Béchamel)
300ml of milk
A few slices of carrot, onion, celery.
Some sprig of thyme, parsley.
3 peppercorns
35g roux
Salt and pepper.

Lasagne Sheets
Parmesan Cheese

As it says in the title, lasagne can be made one of three ways:

The first is to buy minced beef, ragu sauce and pasta. Make a white sauce and layer them together. I don’t recommend it.

The second is to buy minced beef and pasta and make the white sauce and a decent ragu. This is what I’d do if I was in a hurry. For the ragu basically gently soften a chopped onion and some garlic. Season well and add freshly chopped herbs. Then add the meat and fry off until just browned. Finally add in some ripe fresh or tinned tomatoes and reduce until you’ve either run out of time or are bored.

The third is to do as above except make Marcella Hazan’s Ragu from her Classic Italian Cookbook... This is what i get my wife to do for me for my birthday!!

RAGU
Heat the butter and oil in a tray and soften onions over a medium heat until just translucent. Add celery and carrots and cook for 2 minutes (Italians don’t seem to mix onions and garlic so no garlic). Next add the minced beef crumbling it into the pot with a fork. Add salt to taste, stir, and cook only until the meat has lost its raw red colour. Don’t let it go dark brown or apparently it will lose its delicacy.

Add the wine and cook over a medium high heat until the wine has evaporated, stirring occasionally. Turn the heat back down to medium and add the milk and the nutmeg and cook until milk has evaporated, again, stirring occasionally. Next add the chopped tomatoes and stir well. When the tomatoes have started to bubble, turn down the heat very low so as it barely simmers. Cook for hours... 3, 4 maybe even 5! But don’t let it dry out and add a little more water if necessary. When cooked, taste and adjust seasoning. If you use tinned tomatoes, you may want to add some sugar. If you do cook it out a little bit more.

Feel free to make 2 or 3 times the recipe as it freezes perfectly.

WHITE SAUCE (BÉCHAMEL)
First make the roux by weighing out equal quantities of flour and butter (i usually use about a 100g of each). But the butter into a heavy bottom sauce pan over a medium heat. When melted, add in flour and cook out the flour until it doesn’t taste raw any more, stirring all the time being really careful not to let it burn. Pop this two one side and any leftover put in the fridge for next time or for thickening gravy, etc.

Then put the milk into a sauce pan with all the other ingredients cold and gently bring to the boil. When boiling, take off the heat and allow infusing for a 10 minutes. Then sieve out the vegetables, bring back to the boil and add the roux whisking until desired thickness. You could also add a bit of grated cheese here if you wished. This will also thicken the sauce a bit.

To prepare your lasagne. Some people like to throw dry sheets into boiling water for a few seconds to soften but it is not essential. Instructions are usually on the packet. Grease the lasagne tray and layer the lasagne starting with béchamel, then pasta, then ragu, then some parmesan if you wish, and then repeat for 3 to 5 layers. Finish with a layer of pasta coated with béchamel. Sprinkle with cheese and add a few knobs of butter for the hell of it! Cook in a hot oven until brown on top and Pasta is just cooked. 15 – 30 mins depending on whether the pasta was dry going in or not. Serve with a delicious green salad.