This recipe uses the third, and last, portion of the ragu made earlier. The picture shows my portion, which is a quarter of the finished dish, not a half.
One third of the ragu mix £1.02
400ml skimmed milk, 2.27 litres/£1, 18p
100g + 50g flour, 45p/1.5kg, 5p
Total cost £1.25, serves 2, 62p a portion
Per portion, 656 cals, 43g protein, 15g fat, 86g carb
Put 50g of the flour in a saucepan and mix to a paste with a little of the milk. Add the rest of the milk and whisk well to incorporate. Now heat the milk mixture either in a saucepan or in the microwave until it thickens. Set aside.
Put the remaining 100g flour in a bowl and add enough cold water to make a pastry like dough. Knead a little.
Divide into 3. Roll out one third to the thickness of a credit card and approximately the shape of your dish.
In an ovenproof dish, the one I used is 9″/23cm x 7.5″/18cm, place one third of the ragu, top with one quarter of the white sauce.
Cover with the rolled out pasta.
Repeat… Ragu, white sauce, pasta
Repeat… Ragu, white sauce, pasta
Now top the final layer of pasta with the last quarter of the white sauce. Everything else is cooked, we just need to cook the pasta through.
Bake in a medium oven for 30-35 minutes until the top is browned.
If you have any Parmesan, grana padano or cheddar, sprinkle a tiny bit on top of each layer of white sauce.
I added a dollop of grainy mustard to ours, otherwise, it was the recipe here. I wanted to see what it would taste like.
Because of the restriction of ingredients on a meal plan, we are missing butter in the bechamel and cheese in the layers. I could taste that they weren’t there, but it was a tasty dinner anyway. Filling and satisfying.
As you can see from the pictures, this made a very large lasagna for two people and could easily feed four if you wanted to stretch it, especially if there was some kind of accompaniment. A green vegetable say, or garlic bread, oven wedges maybe or a jacket potato.
It was very tasty when I finally made this. I still have quite a bit of overdate lasagne sheets so didn’t make my own pasta. I used some celery, but kept the overall weight of vegetables the same. The proportion of lentils was not too great to be noticeable if you didn’t know. As you said the meat was probably stretched enough, so I only had one layer of white sauce on top and it was enough for us followed by crumble. I beefed up the sauce a bit with wine,marmite and finally crab apple jelly following your suggestion of red currant. I think it all helped. Thanks
Mmm, they sound tasty options. Thanks Katherine
Another alternative would be to use your crêpe-type pancakes either rolled up or in layers as a lasagne alternative – especially if you have a frying pan of similar diameter to an oven dish or the remoska. You can also alternate pancakes stuffed with a meat filling and pancakes stuffed with a vegetable and soft cheese filling.
I think mustard is a very good addition to the white sauce also fried breadcrumbs on the top are nice. I’ve seen some quite cheap yoghurt recently, which is another possible addition to the white sauce and useful to have in and eat with jam if nothing else. Enjoy the rest of the weekend.