Fresh from the garden: Deb enjoys adding home-grown produce, including fresh herbs, to her dishes.
Photo by
Rechelle Zammit
Ready to eat: Deb’s lasagne can be made a week ahead and frozen.
Photo by
Deb Quinn
Debbie Quinn has a lifelong love of food and cooking, nurtured in her parents’ restaurants and in her own family’s kitchen. Every fortnight she shares her passion and expertise with our readers, bringing her best recipes, tips and tricks to the table.
Deb’s Chicken and Bacon Lasagne
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This is Mum’s recipe. I would have first tried this when I was about 15 years old. I had forgotten about it for many years then found the recipe recently. It’s a winner.
Ingredients
1 packet (375g) Latina fresh lasagne sheets
Chicken and bacon sugo sauce:
2 tbsp olive oil
20g butter
3 medium onions, diced
4 bacon rashers (rind off and diced)
1kg chicken mince
4 or 5 large cloves garlic crushed
1 tbsp chopped fresh sage
1 tbsp chopped fresh oregano
1 cup white wine
1 cup chicken stock (1 cup water mixed with 1 dessertspoon Massel chicken stock powder) or liquid chicken stock
1600ml passata
1 tsp sugar
Sea salt and white pepper to taste
Bechamel sauce:
1 litre milk
1 small onion, cut into quarters
1 bay leaf
1 clove
80g butter
80g plain flour
⅛ tsp nutmeg
Sea salt and white pepper to taste
1¾ cups grated fresh pecorino cheese to assemble
Chopped: Bacon and onion add flavour to Deb’s lasagne.
Photo by
Deb Quinn
Method
Chicken and bacon sugo sauce:
Sweat the onions and the garlic for around 5 minutes on a medium to low heat then turn up the heat, add the bacon and sauté for around 5 minutes until its slightly brown.
Then add the chicken mince half at a time, breaking up the mince and browning in between each addition. Add the fresh herbs, then the wine and sauté until the wine has evaporated by half (about 4 to 5 minutes).
Add the chicken stock and the passata, salt and pepper. Simmer for 1.5 hours.
Layering: Dobs of Bechamel Sauce layered throughout the lasagne.
Photo by
Deb Quinn
Bechamel sauce:
In a medium saucepan, bring milk, onion, bay leaf and clove just to a simmer. Turn off the heat and rest for 15 minutes then strain, discarding the onion, bay leaf and clove.
Melt the butter in another saucepan, add flour, stir with wooden spoon to a smooth paste. Cook stirring continuously, for 2-3 minutes, without colouring.
Stir in milk half at a time mixing well after each addition. It will thicken quickly so add the next half as soon as it has thickened and bring back to a simmer, stirring vigorously.
Add salt, pepper and nutmeg and simmer on a very low heat for 10 minutes, stirring regularly.
Covered: The final layer of pasta is added, which is followed by more bechamel sauce.
To assemble:
In a 35cm x 23cm lasagne dish, lay a small amount of the sugo sauce on the base. Cover with a layer of pasta.
Add a third of the sugo sauce and dot about 3 dessertspoons of the bechamel sauce around the surface and sprinkle with a third of a cup of pecorino cheese. Cover again with a layer of pasta.
Then add another third of the sugo sauce, sprinkle a third of a cup of pecorino cheese, then another layer of pasta.
Next add a third of the sugo sauce, dot another 3 dessertspoons of bechamel sauce and sprinkle a third of a cup of pecorino cheese.
Then cover with a final layer of pasta, followed by the rest of the bechamel sauce, spread evenly over the pasta and sprinkle with the remaining pecorino cheese.
Bake in a 180°C oven for 30 to 35 minutes.
Topping it off: Sprinkle on top a layer of pecorino cheese.
Photo by
Deb Quinn
Deb’s tips
Europa Deli has a lovely passata that I like to use — Carmelina home-made passata. You will need about 2.5 bottles for this recipe as they come in 630g bottles. They also stock a lovely pecorino cheese.
The middle layer of the lasagne doesn’t need the bechamel sauce added. It balances the dish out better and allows enough bechamel to cover the final layer of the dish.
The first step of the bechamel sauce is just to warm the milk, infusing the milk with the onion, bay leaf and clove which gives the milk a lovely flavour. Once you add the milk to the butter and flour make sure you use a wooden spoon to scrape around the edges as it is cooking because it tends to catch around the sides.
A sprinkle of finely grated fresh nutmeg is nicer than the dried nutmeg spice mix.
Remove the lasagne sheets from the packet and wrap in plastic cling wrap. Microwave on high for 1 minute. This stops the sheets from sticking together and makes them easier to work with. Unwrap and unfold the sheets and cover with a damp tea towel so they don’t dry out while you are assembling the dish. Use the complete sheet where possible and cut the rest to fit the requirements of the dish.
Our kids love this lasagne, and I regularly make it a week or so before they come home and freeze it. If you want to try this, just cook it for 15 minutes then allow it to cool completely. Make sure you cover well with plastic cling wrap and foil and pop in the freezer. Take it out the day before you are ready to serve and bake in a 170°C oven for 30-35 minutes.
