Lasagne

I love lasagne but I don't eat it very often. I love it a bit too much, and if I made it any more than perhaps once a month I think I'd become rather pillowy. But anyway, it's a treat and as such it employs all of the major food groups of joy: cheese, pasta, beef and a little piggy additive I like to throw in for good measure. The ingredients list will be tricky because I rarely measure when I made lasagne, which I know doesn't exactly lend itself to an easy recipe. But in my house we tend to play the guessing game a lot of the time, which I can imagine would be quite irritating to those who like a fixed list of stuff. I'll try my best!

Ingredients (to fit a standard 9x13x2 baking dish):
100g slices italian smoked pancetta (aforementioned piggy additive)
500g lean mince beef
1 large onion, peeled and finely chopped
1 large carrot, peeled and finely chopped
2 celery stalks, peeled and finely chopped (it may seem odd to peel celery but the outer layer is quite chewy and I don't really want that in my lasagne
3 cloves of garlic, peeled and minced
1 tablespoon tomato puree
75cl bottle of full bodied red wine
1 tin chopped tomatoes
Salt and pepper to taste
One packet of dried lasagne sheets
1 cup of shredded mozzarella cheese

For the bechamel cheese sauce (this part of the recipe was swiped from YouTube amazingness Titli Nihaan. The woman's a genius http://titlisbusykitchen.com/archives/lasagne):
1 litre of milk
500g of strong cheddar cheese, grated
80g butter
80g plain flour

I like a lot of cheese sauce in my lasagne but if you want to halve the recipe that would give a sparing, but still tasty, amount of sauce for this recipe.

Method:
1. Cut the pancetta into small pieces and place in a large pan. Turn on the heat up to medium-high and allow the pancetta to fry off until the pieces become crispy and the fat has imparted into the pan. This will be used to cook the rest of the ingredients.
2. Throw the onion in and allow to sweat until translucent. I don't like brown onions but you can brown them if you prefer.
3. Throw in the carrot and celery and sweat until they start to become tender as in the picture below. Once tender, throw in the garlic and stir round for a minute, but don't let the garlic brown.
4. Remove the ingredients from the pan and set aside. Throw the mince beef into the pan and cook until browned. Return the onion/celery/carrots/garlic mixture to the pan and season with salt and pepper.
5. Make a well in the centre of the pan and chuck in a dollop of tomato paste. Let the paste cook in the direct heat of the pan for a minute, then stir into the rest of the mixture.
6. Pour in the bottle of red wine and the tinned tomatoes and bring to the boil. Allow to boil for a few seconds before turning it down to a gentle simmer. Simmer for about 30 minutes uncovered until the mixture has thickened slightly and the sauce has reduced somewhat. Stir occasionally. You can then set this mixture aside until you are ready to assemble your lasagne.
7. Meanwhile, make your cheese sauce. Add the butter to a saucepan and melt on a medium heat. Add the flour and stir vigourously for a few minutes, combining the butter and flour to form a paste.
8. Turn down the heat and stir continuously for another minute or so to allow the flour to cook. Then add the milk bit by bit, stirring or whisking to combine.
9. When all the milk is combined, keep whisking until the sauce begins to thicken. It may appear as though it will never thicken but trust me, all of a sudden you'll start to see it getting thicker.
10. Once the sauce has thickened, take it off the heat and add the grated cheese and stir to combine. The residual heat in the pan will melt the cheese. 
11. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees centigrade. Assemble your lasagne. Add a ladel of meat sauce to the bottom of the dish and spread it out. This will prevent the lasagne burning on the bottom. Add a layer of lasagne sheets, then another layer of meat sauce, then cheese sauce, then lasagne sheets, and so on until your dish is full.
12. Add cheddar and mozzarella to the top and cook covered with foil for 25 minutes and uncovered for 20 minutes until the pasta is tender and the cheese topping has browned.

Pancetta, onions, garlic, carrot and celery, fried until softened

 Cheese sauce

 The finished article. Leave to rest for about fifteen minutes before cutting into it as it will help you to get even, layered slices