Chicken and Vegetable Lasagne with Warm Potato Salad

It's mid-autumn already!  I guess everyone would love to have something nice and warm for dinner.  For those people who have not made lasagne, you may wonder if you need to cook the pasta before hand.  I was one of those people until my friend, Pam taught me how to make this yummy dish.  There's still a lot of work whether you make it from fresh or instant sheet.  I prefer to use instant one before it has a long shelf life but it takes longer to cook.  Pam's original recipe uses beef only and I have changed it to chicken and adding more vegetable to fool my kids.  The kids love the cheese sauce and I make it with plain flour which takes a while to prepare. You can use cornflour instead but the texture is a bit different.  Although it's hard work to make lasagne, you always have easy meal the next day with the left over or it is a rather easy meal to serve up to 12 people at once.

     

Chicken and Vegetable Lasagne with Warm Potato Salad
(make 12)

Ingredients:
6 sheets of Instant Lasagne
550g chicken mince
700g pasta cooking sauce
1 can of 400g diced tomato
5 tablespoons tomato paste
2 carrot, peeled and diced
1 onion, chopped finely
1 zucchini, diced
1 celery stalk, chopped
1/2 red capsicum, finely chopped
4-5 button mushroom, finely chopped
5-6 brocoli florets, chopped
1/2 cup corn kernel
2 teaspoons minced garlic
1/4 cup white wine (optional)
1/4 teaspoon of basil
1/4 teaspoon of oregano
3 teaspoons salt
pepper

For the Cheese Sauce:
50g butter
1 1/2 cup plain flour
6 cups milk
1 cup shredded cheese
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
3 teaspoon salt
pepper
extra shredded cheese
extra nutmeg

Warm Potato Salad:
(serve 4 only)

6 small washed potatoes, cut into half or quarters
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon paprika
1 tablespoon olive oil
Rocket leaves
1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds
1 tablespoon of mixed nuts (pine nuts, pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds)
1/2 tablespoon olive oil
pinch of salt

Method:

1. Heat oil in a large saucepan, cook chicken till it is nearly cook, break up the big lumps of mince.  Add in garlic and onion, stir for a while than add in the rest of the vegetable and keep stirring until the vegetable starts to soften.
2. Pour in the pasta sauce, tined tomato, add tomato pasta, herbs, white wine and let it simmers for 20 minutes until the sauce thicken.  Season with salt and pepper.  The sauce should be quite thick but not dry, simmer for longer if needed.
3. While the meat sauce is cooking, prepare the cheese sauce in a medium saucepan.  Heat butter in pan, add in flour into 2 lots.  Then add in a little bit of milk several time to form a rather smooth paste.  Try to remove lumps if possible.  Add in the rest of the milk, nutmeg, cheese and let it simmer until the sauce becomes heavy and thick.  Season with salt and pepper.  The sauce should thicken more once it is cooled down.  If you drop some of the sauce onto the surface with a spoon and it sits there, the sauce is thick enough.  If not, you have to add more flour to thicken the sauce.  A quick fix is to add some cornflour mix with a little water to thicken it at the stove.
4. Spread 1/3 of the meat sauce onto the baking tray, then place the lasagne sheets over the meat sauce.  Break the sheet into pieces to fill in any gaps.  The first layer is done.
5. For the second layer, spread another 1/3 of the meat sauce over the pan, then spread 1/2 of the cheese sauce over the meat sauce and cover it with another lasagne sheets.  This finishes the second layer.
6. For the last layer, spread the remaining meat sauce over the pan, then spread the rest of the white sauce over.  Sprinkle some shredded cheese and more nutmeg over the top.
7. Bake in a 180c preheat oven for about an hour.  To test if the lasagne is done, inset a knife through the pasta, if the knife gets through easily then the pasta is cooked.   
8. Let the lasagne cool for a while before serving, a hot lasagne is very meshy.  Let it cool completely before putting into the fridge or freeze.  A day old lasagne tastes better than the fresh one as the flavour develops.
9. For the salad, place the potato onto a grease lined baking tray.  Toss through with olive oil, salt and paprika.  Bake in a 180c oven for 30 minutes or until the potato is cooked.  Mix the nuts, mustard, oil and salt with the rocket leaves.  Toss through with warm potato and serve it with the lasagne.

Note: If you are using cornflour instead of plain flour, mixing some water to make a paste with a cup of cornflour then stir it into the warm milk. Keep stirring and let it simmer but not boil until it feels heavy and becomes thick.  Add more cornflour mix if needed.

first layer

                                                         second layer

                                                            top layer

                                           hot lasagne straight from the oven