It’s quite a lot of work, but I think this is nicer, and summerier than the standard beef mince version. It’s good with a watercress salad, or also the peppery-pea salad
for ten (it’s not really worth making for less)
1.8 litres/3 pints/7½ cups white sauce:
- 150g/6 oz butter
- 6 tbsp flour
- twenty grinds of white pepper and some salt
- 6 bay leaves
- fifteen grinds of nutmeg
- 3 stock cube
- 1.8 litres/3 pints/7½ cups of milk
- 3 banana shallots
- 9 tbsp (135ml) single cream (it’s not a disaster if you don’t have any of this to hand)
- 500g/1 lb 2 oz lasagne sheets
- 250g/9 oz mozzarella
- 250g/9 oz grated cheddar, plus an extra 100g to put on the top
chicken sauce:
- flesh of two small roast chickens (or this is a very good way of using up leftover chicken)
- 200g diced pancetta or bacon
- 8 oz/225g Philadelphia cream cheese
- grated zest of two lemons
- thyme – good handful
- 1 red onion peeled and chopped
- olive oil to fry
- preheat oven to 180ºC
- in a large casserole fry the pancetta/bacon and the onion, remove
make the white sauce:
- put the bay leaves, milk, shallot, and nutmeg into a saucepan, cover and leave to infuse for about 30 minutes – or an hour if you have the time.
- in another saucepan, melt the butter and stir in the flour. cook this mix (roux) for about three minutes – don’t let it go brown.
- strain the milk a little at a time through a sieve into the roux – STIR WELL AFTER EACH ADDITION OF MILK OR IT WILL GO LUMPY!
- bring it to the boil, stirring ALL THE TIME, and simmer for about three minutes
- add salt, pepper and the cream
- mix the chicken sauce ingredients in with two thirds of the white sauce
- then layer:
- chicken sauce in the bottom
- then mozzarella/cheddar
- then lasagne
- then chicken sauce again
- then mozzarella/cheddar again
- then more lasagne
- then the rest of the white sauce
- then sprinkle on cheddar cheese
- put in oven for forty minutes, and if the cheese needs a bit more temperature to get golden turn the oven up, or move to the roasting oven for five minutes or so
Don’t worry if it’s a bit wet when you put it into the oven, the lasagne soaks up a lot of the moisture.
This post is dedicated to Felicity Daniell
