LASAGNE AL FORNO - TRADITIONAL FROM BOLOGNA

LASAGNE AL FORNO - TRADITIONAL FROM BOLOGNA image

Yield 8 people serves

Number Of Ingredients 25

Serves 8
450g no-cook dried lasagne sheets (+-24 sheets) or fresh if you prefer
400g Mozzarella, diced or grated
110g Parmesan, freshly grated or shaved
For the Ragu
4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 large onion, peeled
200g sliced pancetta (or streaky smoked bacon)
2 fat cloves garlic chopped
350g minced beef
350g minced pork (use all beef if you don't want to use pork)
175g finely chopped chicken livers (trimmed and rinsed under cold water and dried thoroughly with kitchen paper)
1 x 400g tin Italian chopped tomatoes
1 x 230g tin chopped tomatoes
6 tablespoons tomato puree
175ml red wine
1/4 whole nutmeg
15g fresh basil
salt and freshly milled black pepper
For the Besciamella sauce:
6 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
4 cups of hot milk
2 teaspoons salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

Steps:

Ragu: Heat tablespoon of oil in your largest pan over a medium heat. Sweat onion. Grind pancetta in a food processor until finely chopped. Add to the pan along with the garlic and continue cooking 5 minutes. Transfer mixture to casserole. Add tablespoon of oil to the pan, turn up to high heat. Add minced beef browning. Transfer to casserole. Repeat with pork - transfer to casserole. And again for chicken liver. Place the casserole over direct heat, stir. Add tomatoes, tomato puree, red wine, a really good seasoning of salt and pepper and about a quarter of a nutmeg, grated. Stir, allow to come up to simmering point. While that happens, strip the leaves from the basil, tear them and add. As soon as mixture is simmering, cook slowly in oven for 4 hours without lid (stirring intermittently) When that happens, remove the casserole from the oven, taste to check the seasoning, then strip the remaining leaves off the basil, tear them into small pieces and stir them it. Besciamella sauce: Melt the butter in a large saucepan over medium heat. Once melted, slowly stir in the flour until smooth. Continue stirring as the flour cooks to a light, golden color, about 3 minutes. Increase the heat to medium-high and slowly whisk the hot milk into the roux. Bring to a simmer, then reduce the heat to medium low. Continue simmering until the flour has softened and become completely smooth, about