Do you have a quirky recipe in your repertoire? Some sneaky spice or magic combo that just makes it? Maybe you like a dusting of chilli in your hot chocolate, a squirt of Marmite on your eggs, or a grating of nutmeg on your vanilla ice cream?
This is the concept behind Sainsbury’s Little Twists campaign. They floated the idea of roast lamb with ginger beer, eggs benedict with avocado, or a hot cross bacon butty. They asked me to come up with an dish with similar inspiration.
So here’s a classic lasagne al forno… with marmalade.
Before you turn your nose up at this combo, marmalade in a lasagne really works. The bitter, rich flavours give a wonderful acidity against beefy, tomatoey, creamy lasagne al forno. You can customise your usual lasagne recipe to accommodate this too, and adapt the vegetables as you like. I haven’t listed a recipe here for bechamel or white sauce, you can find one easily online or buy if you prefer.
You may usually associate orange marmalade with tea and toast, but this shows how it’s flavours can work well in savoury dishes too. Give it a try!
200ggrated cheese(I like a blend of mozzarella and cheddar, but whatever you like)
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 190C. Heat a splash of oil in a large saucepan and gently fry the onion and pepper for 5 minutes until softened. Put to one side.
In the same pan, fry the minces in batches until browned. Add the meats, onion and pepper into the pan along with the tomato puree and herbs and fry for a minute. Add the tomatoes and stock and bring to the boil. Simmer for 20 minutes and season to taste.
Get a large rectangular baking dish ready. Start with a layer of pasta, a layer of meat sauce and then a layer of white sauce. Add a layer of pasta and then spread your marmalade on this. Carry on with your layering until you reach the top, and then cover with cheese. Bake for 30 minutes or until a knife goes through easily. Allow to sit for five minutes before serving. Serve with a green salad and bread.
Lasagne has to be one of my favourite dinners. If I’m stuck for what to cook, it always pleases a crowd and satisfies. I like a lasagne with gutsy tomato sauce, plenty of layers of pasta and a bubbling, cheesy topping. I’ve tried all sorts, with Marmite in, with marmalade in, with soy sauce in… this version is about as traditional as I make mine.
On a whim, I picked up a jar of pre-made white sauce. Before I knew how to make bechamel I would use Ragu white sauce. I don’t know why I went for this; I haven’t tried it in maybe 12 years. But I was really pleased with the taste of it, slightly peppery and perfectly creamy. I didn’t dare look at the ingredients list but if I was running short on time I’d definitely use it again.
Big handful of grated cheese. Yes, cheddar will do
Get a large saucepan on a low heat, add a splash of oil and fry the onion gently for about 10 minutes. When softened, crank up the heat and add the mince, stirring frequently to prevent sticking. Add the garlic, tomatoes and stock and simmer for 20 minutes. Check for seasoning and take off the heat to cool slightly.
Preheat the oven to 180°C. Get an ovenproof dish and start with a layer of pasta. Add a thin layer of mince mixture, half the white sauce and top with pasta. Add more mince, more pasta and top with white sauce. Grate cheese over the top and bake for about 30 minutes until bubbling and golden. Leave out of the oven to set for a couple of minutes, it’ll be easier to cut.
I always mean to try interesting lasagna recipes – ones that aren’t classic lasagne al forno that is – but when I come to cook it I can’t resist meaty, tomatoey rich ragu topped with creamy bechamel. It takes Jamie Oliver to convince me to try it another way.
This Summer veg lasagne is inspired by one from his 30 Minute Meals book. It’s perfect for the Summer months and ideal for clearing out the fridge! I grabbed a bunch of things that needed using up for here and it came out lovely.
Summer veg lasagne (serves 4):
A bunch of spring onions
3 cloves of garlic
300g asparagus
Large handful frozen peas
Large handful spring greens
Large bunch of basil
150ml single cream
150ml veg stock
250g cottage cheese
250g fresh lasagne sheets
Parmesan
Get the kettle on to boil, get a large frying pan on a high heat and add a splash of oil. Put the oven on 180°C.
Slice up the spring onions and add to the pan. Crush in the garlic and toss well to prevent sticking. Snap off the woody bits of the asparagus then slice up the stems, but leave the tips intact and keep to one side for now. Add the chopped stems to the pan with a splash of boiled water.
Add the peas and greens and keep stirring. Chop the basil and add to the pan with the cream and add plenty of seasoning. Cover with stock and bring to the boil.
Get a roasting tray and start to layer up lasagne sheets and veg mix until you have used everything up. Finish with pasta. Add a splash of boiled water to the cottage cheese to slacken and then spread over your pasta. Scatter the asparagus on top of the cottage cheese and grate over plenty of parmesan. Transfer to the oven and bake until golden and crunchy. Serve with panzanella.
“Sweet sausage, in little pieces? And a layer of basil leaves right underneath the cheese? That’s Carmela’s lasagne.”
-Corrado “Uncle Junior” Soprano
I came to The Sopranos far too late. Early 2008 More4 ran every episode back-to-back and I devoured them all. I was utterly gripped by the boyish yet chilling Tony, the larger-than-life Paulie, sly yet affable Uncle June, the big mouth braggadocio Christopher, and the uneasy balance of family life with ‘mafia’ life. It’s easily one of the finest series every created, a masterpiece of character study and beautiful dialogue. If you haven’t tried it, I heartily recommend it.
And the food of the Sopranos is a thing unto itself. Whether’s it’s baked ziti, sfooyadell, cold cuts, Sunday gravy, moozadell, there’s barely a scene goes by without food being mentioned. I took the Sopranos bus tour while in New York, and ate onion rings at Holsten’s too 🙂
I also got given the Sopranos cookbooks for a birthday. It’s a little cheesy, part-written in character, but the heart and soul of Italian-American cookery is there, with it’s hearty and rib-sticking fare. As an existing fan of lasagne, I was keen to try the lasagne-with-layer-of-basil as mentioned in the show (it can be found in this volume).
In truth all the recipes are written by prolific author and cookbook writer Michele Scicolone. I can only imagine how much fun she must have had coming up with ‘authentic’ food as eaten by Tony Soprano. She has written over 20 books, won all sorts of awards for recipes and also lives in New York area so was an obvious choice to co-author this book. Even if the Sopranos stuff isn’t for you, they are solid recipes.
Like many Italian-American dishes, it requires a ‘gravy’ which is not the meat juice we might expect. I’ve simplified it down, veal is a pain to get hold of here and Italian sausage… sort of isn’t a thing here. Not in the way Americans mean. But sausages seasoned with fennel, and pork and beef mince hint in the right direction. Here it’s a meaty, tomatoey sauce that forms the base of lasagne. This gravy is the base for a lot of dishes, such as this lasagne and baked ziti.
“What, no f*!#ing ziti now?”
-Anthony “AJ” Soprano Jr
This takes a good couple of hours so it’s not a dish you can just bash out on a whim, because after that you’ve got lots of layers and another 45 minutes in the oven to finish it off. But it does have lots of hands-off time while it cooks so it’s a good one for a weekend.
The gravy is superb though, rich and flavoursome. I’ve kept some back for something else another day. And every time I use a ricotta instead of a white sauce I forget how good it is in a lasagne. And without the faff of a bechamel! The basil was nice though, a pleasing herbal aroma that carries through and it’s tender from cooking. Uncle June was right.
3sausagesif you can get them, Waitrose have incredible 'Italian' style sausages
400gmincebeef and pork
1oniondiced
3garlic clovesminced
1tablespoontomato puree
700mllitre passata
For the lasagne:
Lasagne sheets
A large bunch of basil
250gricotta
250gmozzarellasliced
25gparmesangrated
Instructions
To make the gravy, fry the onion and garlic until soft in a large pan with a little oil.
Skin the sausages and squish each into 3-4 hazelnut size pieces. Add these to the pan and brown a little on all sides over.
Add the mince and continue to cook until browned.
Add the puree and passata and bring to a simmer. Cook partially covered for 1½ - 2 hours until rich and thickened. At this point check for seasoning - plenty of pepper is welcome here.
Beat the ricotta with the parmesan, adding salt and pepper to taste (you may want to add a couple of tablespoons of milk to loosen it, as you're going to spread it in a minute). Preheat the oven to 180°C.
In a 6cm deep oven dish put a thin layer of meat sauce on the bottom. Cover with lasagne sheets, then another layer of meat sauce.
Top this with ricotta and some parmesan, then a layer of basil leaves. Top this with mozzrella, then lasagne. Start the layering all over again until you reach the top of the dish.
Make the top layer meat sauce, ricotta and mozzarella. Bung in the oven until you can push a knife through with little resistance, about 45 minutes - 1 hour. Cover with foil if it's starting to darken too quickly.
Leave the lasagna out for five minutes to allow it all to meld together - this makes it easier to cut up.
Video
Notes
The order you layer everything up in doesn't really matter. Just do what feels right.
