Legendary chef Mary Berry has spent years perfecting her ultimate mouthwatering lasagne that is packed with Mediterranean flavours and oozes white sauce and cheese
If the pasta layers in your lasagne are always a bit chewy and hard in places, celebrity chef Mary Berry has solved the problem with her faultless method for the perfect Italian dish.
There’s nothing better than coming home on a cold day to a hearty, warming, home-cooked dinner you’ve already prepared. Lasagne is the ideal dish to whip up at the weekend when you have more time to enjoy the cooking and if it doesn’t all get gobbled up then, you can freeze some for those busy week nights further down the line.
Celebrity chef Mary Berry is the Queen of cooking and she first showcased her recipe for lasagne on TV in the 70s when she used dripping to fry the meat and vegetables. She still recommends this method if you want a “really meaty flavour” but recognises that olive oil is the healthier and preferred option these days. And, for the “perfect” results, she suggests leaving it to set for six hours before tucking in.
Since then she’s spent a lot of years nailing her method for the perfect lasagne and there’s one area she urges caution over if you want satisfyingly soft pasta layers. If you follow her recipe, which involves letting the finished dish sit for six hours after preparing and before cooking, she says you won’t ever need to pre-cook your pasta sheets. As well as the resting period she allows, the ratio of sauce to pasta means the sheets will be cooked to perfection.
However if you don’t have time to wait before cooking, or prefer more pasta to sauce, she advises pre-cooking your sheets so they don’t end up chewy. You could also use fresh pasta which never needs pre-cooking. Mary’s recipe below serves 8-10 so is ideal for a big dinner party or for batch cooking. You could also use it to make two separate lasagnes – one for dinner and one for the freezer.
Here are the ingredients you’ll need for Mary Berry’s ultimate lasagne
For the ragu:
2 tbsp olive oil
900g/2lb beef mince
2 onions, roughly chopped
4 sticks celery, diced (optional)
2 garlic cloves, crushed
2 level tbsp plain flour
150ml/¼ pint beef stock
1 tbsp redcurrant jelly (optiona)) or 1 tsp caster sugar
3 tbsp tomato purée
1 tbsp chopped thyme
2 x 400g tins chopped tomatoes
For the white sauce:
50g/2oz butter
50g/2oz plain flour
750ml/1¼ pints hot milk
2 tsp Dijon mustard
50g/2oz Parmesan, finely grated
salt and freshly ground black pepper
For the lasagne:
12 lasagne sheets
75g/3oz mature cheddar , grated
Here’s the method:
Preheat the oven to160C/140C Fan/Gas 3 while you prepare the ragu. Heat a large frying pan until hot, add the oil and cook the mince until browned all over. Remove it from the heat and transfer to a plate. Add the onion, garlic and celery (if using) to the pan and cook until soft. Return the cooked mince to the pan and stir in the flour before adding the stock – bring to the boil. Add in the redcurrant jelly or sugar, tomato purée and thyme and mix well. Stir in the tinned tomatoes and bring to the boil. Cover and allow to simmer for 1.5 hours in the oven or until the meat is tender.
For the white sauce, melt the butter in a saucepan and add the flour. Cook over the heat for one minute before gradually whisking in the hot milk until thickened. Add the Dijon mustard and parmesan cheese and season well with salt and pepper.
To assemble the lasagne, put one third of the meat sauce in the base of a 2.3 litre/4 pint shallow ovenproof dish. Spoon a third of the white sauce on top of the meat, season with salt and pepper and place a layer of lasagne sheets on top. Now spoon half of the remaining meat sauce on top, then half of the white sauce on, season again and add another layer of pasta sheets. Add the rest of the meat sauce, followed by the remaining white sauce and sprinkle over the cheese as the final layer.
Leave for six hours before pre-heating the oven to 200C/180C Fan/Gas 6. Cook in the middle of the oven for around 45 minutes or until the top is golden brown and the sauce bubbling. You can cover with foil for the first 30 minutes and uncover for the last 15 minutes to ensure a soft lasagne with slightly crispy edges.
What is your favourite recipe to batch cook? Let us know in the comments below.
