Vegetable Lasagne
Vegetable Lasagne
Steve Lister
This recipe is not vegan, unless you use vegan cheese. 3 hours from start to going in the oven + 1/2 hour baking in the oven. The read sauce here will be great for Spaghetti Bolognese.
Serves 4-8 people, depending on what else is served with it.
Ingredients
For the main red sauce
100 ml. olive oil for frying
750 gm. onions, diced
350 gm. carrots, finely diced
300 gm. red peppers
200 gm. celery
2 tsp. oregano
2 tsp. smoked paprika
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. yellow mustard seeds
4 cloves garlic
1/2 red chilli
2 tbsp. tomato purée
500 ml. vegetable stock
250 ml. red wine
2 tins chopped tomatoes (roughly 400gm. per tin)
Salt to taste
For the white cheese) sauce
75 ml. olive oil
200 gm. onions, really finely diced
500-600 ml. milk
3 heaped tbsp. strong bread flower. You can use plain white flour but strong flour seems to be less likely to make lumps in the sauce.
1 tsp. mustard powder
1/4 tsp. pepper
50 gm. Parmigiano Reggiano or Parmesan cheese, grated
100 ml. of hot water (not always needed)
For Layering the Lasagna
250 gm. mushrooms, sliced
50 ml. olive oil for frying the mushrooms
150 gm. fresh cherry tomatoes, sliced
150-200 gm. cheese, grated (I used Cheddar but Mozzarella would be better)
375-400 gm. pasta sheets
Instructions
Making Red Sauce
Brown onions (took about 15-20 on high heat, with lots of stirring)
Add carrots and soften.
Add peppers and soften.
Add celery and soften.
Add spices, tomato pur?e, garlic, chilli, cinnamon, mustard seeds and mix in. Cook for a few minutes. Take out in a bowl.
De-glaze the pan with wine (add wine to pan, stir, and use it to get all the bits that are sticking, off the bottom of the pan).
To this, add tinned tomatoes
Add vegetable stock, stir well and cook down until the sauce is nice and thick (about an hour).
Taste and add salt if needed.
Meanwhile, make the White Cheese Sauce
Soften onions well on a low-medium heat (don't brown them).
Add the mustard, pepper and flour and stir in well. It should form a paste with the oil.
Add cold milk a little at a time, keep stirring. Once you have all the milk added to the sauce, turn the heat down to low-medium and keep stirring until sauce thicken.
Add the Parmesan cheese and stir well for about 5 minutes. Handy tip: add a little extra hot water if you find its too thick.
Put to one side stir occasionally to stop a skin forming.
Layering up the Lasagne
Fry the mushrooms, drain and put a side for a moment.
In a large lasagne dish, put a layer of red sauce, about 10 mm. deep.
Put a layer of the fried mushrooms on top.
Cover with a single layer of the lasagne sheets. When using dry pasta sheets, add a few splashes of hot water once pasta is in place. Or, you can soak them in warm water for 15 minutes. This works too.
Cover with another layer of red sauce.
Top the sauce with the sliced cherry tomatoes
Cover again with lasagne sheets (and drizzle with a little water).
Keep building up the layers until nearly at the top of the dish. I usually do 2 layers, then the final layer of sheets on top
Then add the white sauce, about 10 mm thick.
Cover with a sprinkle of grated cheese.
Bake in oven at 180?C/350?F/Gas Mark 4, for about 25-35 minutes, depending on pasta type, until golden brown on top.
Notes
Hints/Tips
When serving, make sure that you cut through the entire thickness and go around the edges of the dish with a knife, so it doesn't fall apart, when you are trying to lift it out.
Dried pasta tends to dry the sauce out a little so either make the sauce a little wetter or splash the pasta with hot water as you are layering it up. Fresh pasta wouldn't need this and cooks much quicker in the oven.
When layering up the main sauce, I like to also put some baby spinach leaves between layers and sprinkle fresh chopped basil, even add a sprinkle of finely chopped sun-dried tomatoes. You can experiment with things a little.
