Four cheese lasagne
Passed down from dad, this dish for Mother's Day lunch or dinner will be loved by many. A lightly flavoured and simple four cheese filling for your homemade lasagne. Serve with a crisp green salad. Makes 6.
- Mar 26th 2014
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Ingredients
- 1 quantity prepared pasta dough* sheets prepared and set aside.
- Filling
- 1 tbs olive oil
- 5 spring onions, finely chopped
- 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
- 750g fresh ricotta cheese
- 200g fetta cheese, crumbled
- ½ cup finely grated fresh parmesan cheese
- 2 tsp finely grated lemon rind
- pinch freshly grated nutmeg
- freshly ground pepper and salt to taste
- white sauce
- 50g butter
- rounded ⅓ cup (50g) flour
- 500ml (2 cups) light milk
- 200ml (¾ cup) water ¾
- 500g grated Cheddar cheese
- 250g grated mozzarella cheese
- extra 125ml (½ cup) hot water
- Topping
- 6 small ripe red tomatoes
- ½ cup fresh basil leaves
- Pasta sheets
- 2 cups (300g) plain flour
- good pinch salt
- 3 eggs, lightly beaten
- 30ml extra light olive oil
- extra flour, for dusting
Method
- For the filling and sauce
- Heat the oil over a medium heat in a frying pan; cook the spring onions and garlic for 2 minutes or until just softened.
- Combine with the ricotta, fetta, parmesan, lemon rind, nutmeg and season. Cover and set aside.
- Melt the butter over a medium low heat, in a heavy based saucepan until foamy. Add the flour and cook stirring for 2 minutes.
- Remove from the heat, add the milk followed be the water slowly, whisking constantly until smooth. Return pan to the heat and cook stirring constantly until the sauce boils and thickens. Season well with salt and pepper. The sauce is a light consistency that will just coat the back of a wooden spoon or spatula.
- Combine the grated cheddar and mozzarella cheese.
- For the pasta sheets
- Attach the flat beater to the stand mixer. Place flour, salt, eggs and oil into mixing bowl. Turn mixer to Speed 2 and mix until mixture is well combined. Attach the dough hook. Turn mixture to speed 2 and knead 3-4 minutes or until the dough is smooth. Wrap in plastic wrap and rest (refrigerate if desired) for a minimum of 30 minutes.
- Cut dough into 4 even sections. Attach pasta roller to stand mixer. Take one section of dough and pat out to flatten. Adjust the roller setting to 1. Turn mixer to speed 4 and feed the dough into rollers. Fold dough in half and feed through again. Repeat this step twice. Adjusting the rollers to setting, 2 then 3, then 4, then finally setting 6 for each roll. Remove the lasagne sheet to a pasta stand or lightly floured surface. Repeat with remaining dough until you have 4 sheets of pasta.
- To assemble
- Preheat the oven to 180C (160C fan forced).
- Spread a thin layer of the white sauce over the base of a high sided lasagne dish. Trim the fresh lasagne sheets to fit side by side into the base of the dish - so that they completely cover of the base.
- Spread the pasta sheet with some of the spring onion mixture and drizzle over a little white sauce. Sprinkle with 2 tablespoons of the hot water and scatter over some of the grated cheeses. Repeat layers finishing with a layer of grated cheese.
- Bake 35 minutes, top with the tomatoes and bake a further 10 minutes or until golden brown and the lasagne is cooked through
Tips
- The lasagne sheets are not cooked before using.
- The white sauce is a light fluid consistency and extra water is sprinkled over each layer. The lasagne cooks through perfectly without the need to cook the sheets first.