Spinach and Pine Nut Lasagne

[bupster]

Spinach and Ricotta Lasagne with Pine Nuts

This is Delia's recipe; I generally cheat and make the bechamel into a cheese sauce with some cheddar and parmesan, then leave out the ricotta and blue cheese. Much as I like both cooking and cheese, I tend to think that three is plenty, and I usually have these three around.

Also there is nothing wrong with either ground nutmeg or dried pasta, whatever Delia says.

Serves 4-6

For the sauce:
11/2 pints (850 ml) milk
2 oz (50 g) butter
2 oz (50 g) plain flour
1 bay leaf
21/2 oz (60 g) Parmesan (Parmigiano Reggiano), freshly grated 
salt and freshly milled black pepper


For the lasagne:
1 lb 5 oz (600 g) young leaf spinach
8 oz (225 g) ricotta (see recipe introduction)
12 fresh lasagne sheets (weighing about 9 oz/250 g)
2 oz (50 g) pine nuts
thingy of butter
1/4 whole nutmeg, grated 
7 oz (200 g) Gorgonzola, Shropshire Blue or Cashel Blue cheese, crumbled
7 oz (200 g) Mozzarella, coarsely grated
salt and freshly milled black pepper


You will also need an ovenproof dish measuring about 9 x 9 inches (23 x 23 cm), 21/2 inches (6 cm) deep, well buttered.

Pre-heat the oven to gas mark 4, 350°F (180°C).

Begin this by making the sauce, which can be done using the all-in-one method. This means placing the milk, butter, flour and bay leaf together in a saucepan, giving it a good seasoning, then, over a medium heat, whisking the whole lot together continually until it comes to simmering point and has thickened. Now turn the heat down to its lowest possible setting and allow the sauce to cook gently for 5 minutes. After that, stir in 2 oz (50 g) of the Parmesan, then remove it from the heat, discard the bay leaf and place some clingfilm over the surface to prevent a skin from forming.

Now you need to deal with the spinach. First of all remove and discard the stalks, then wash the leaves really thoroughly in 2 or 3 changes of cold water and shake them dry. Next, take your largest saucepan, pop the thingy of butter in it, then pile the spinach leaves in on top, sprinkling them with a little salt as you go. Now place the pan over a medium heat, put a lid on and cook the spinach for about 2 minutes, turning the leaves over halfway through. After that, the leaves will have collapsed down and become tender.

Next drain the spinach in a colander and, when it's cool enough to handle, squeeze it in your hands to get rid of every last drop of liquid. Then place it on a chopping board and chop it finely. Now put it into a bowl, add the ricotta, then approximately 5 fl oz (150 ml) of the sauce. Give it a good seasoning of salt and pepper and add the grated nutmeg. Then mix everything together really thoroughly and, finally, fold in the crumbled Gorgonzola.

Now you need to place a small frying pan over a medium heat, add the pine nuts and dry-fry them for about 1 minute, tossing them around to get them nicely toasted but being careful that they don't burn. Then remove the pan from the heat and assemble the lasagne. To do this, spread a quarter of the sauce into the bottom of the dish and, on top of that, a third of the spinach mixture, followed by a scattering of toasted pine nuts. Now place sheets of pasta on top of this â€" you may need to tear some of them in half with your hands to make them fit. Now repeat the whole process, this time adding a third of the grated Mozzarella along with the pine nuts, then the lasagne sheets. Repeat again, finishing with a layer of pasta, the rest of the sauce and the remaining Parmesan and Mozzarella. When you are ready to cook the lasagne, place it on the middle shelf of the pre-heated oven and bake for 50-60 minutes, until the top is golden and bubbling. Then remove it from the oven and let it settle for about 10 minutes before serving.

[bupster]

[moonbells]

oh YUM!

Perfect  - I have a lot of spinach I want to do something with - thanks!

moonbells

[aquilegia]

my mouth really is watering now. must swollen before I start to drool!

[moonbells]

Well I tried this last night, with a few changes. I picked what I thought must be the right amount of spinach but it turned out to be half what I needed, so the rest was made up by grated yellow and green courgettes (not as if I haven't enough of them!). I read how much cheese went into it - 24oz - and heard the sound of my arteries going CLANG (which, given ricotta is pretty much the worst cheese you can have for saturated fat, was scary). Compromised by putting half a pound of cheddar in the sauce as per bupster's suggestion, and then only used mozzarella. I also used dried lasagne sheets.
Worked really well! Though I suspect it would probably have worked slightly better with a layer of tomato puree in there too. Needed the tang to offset the rich cheese.

moonbells (second helpings tonight!)

[bupster]

There's a recipe up here somewhere that has tomato sauce in it; I haven't tried it yet. I tend to use tomato purée in my meat lasagnes, which contain minced beef, minced pork and hand-minced chicken livers and take two days to make :D. If anyone's interested I can post a recipe for that too, though it's a bit low on allotment ingredients, unless anyone out there is really stretching the livestock thing...