Beef Lasagna

Tags

claras corner, Lasagna, naija blog, naija food blog, Nigerian beef Lasagna, Nigerian food blog, ragu white lasagna sauce, ShopRite, Spar, white sauce, Worcestershire sauce

Hello! 🙂

It’s a brand new week and I’m excited at this weeks recipes. Top on the list is today’s recipe, lasagna which I promised a friend I’d share a while ago, thanks to Garfield and his love for lasagna,  her kids have fallen in love with it as well.

This one’s an easy recipe because I used a ready made white sauce which was really good, I had planned sharing easy steps to making your own white sauce later but the creaminess of this sauce is giving me second thoughts. I had also planned on using pizza sauce from a jar but I changed my mind and used tinned whole tomatoes instead, made my job easier but no worries, I will give approximate measurement should you choose to use all fresh ingredients.

I know most people will term this way too foreign and yes I agree it’s not Nigerian but so are the cartoons and movies we and our kids watch….hehe… 😀 . I want to use this oppurtunity to re-emphasize that Clara’s Corner wants to bring fun into homes. I have spoken to several people and one thing they all agree with is that we need more variety of food. Lovely food pictures on Food Network or BBC Lifestyle makes ones mouth water and the good thing is that thanks to Shoprite, Spar and Ebeano Supermarkets we have at our disposal a lot of foreign ingredients we can transform into Nigerian tasting dishes. While lasagna sounds extremely foreign its the same ingredients as most pasta dishes, you can call it a deconstructed pasta and meatball dish.

Enough said! Unto the recipe,  all I’m saying is let’s be open to change and new ideas in order to break monotony of eating same dishes everyday, that said suprise someone special this holiday with this awesome looking dish!

Ingredients : ( serves 8 small /4 large portions )

9 Lasagna sheets – Spar/Park n Shop VI, Lekki

500-600g minced beef – Shoprite

12 large tomatoes + 6 small tatashe + 8 fresh atarodo + 1 medium onion = 4 cups tomato puree

1 jar Ragu white lasagna sauce – Spar / Park n Shop VI, Lekki

1 1/2 cups freshly grated mozzarella cheese- Spar / Park n Shop VI, Lekki

1 cooking spoon vegetable oil

3 cloves of garlic

2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce – Shoprite

1 teaspoon thyme

2 Maggi crayfish cubes

1 teaspoon dry Cameroon pepper

1 tablespoon freshly chopped coriander –Shoprite

1 tablespoon freshly chopped garlic chives / spring onions – Shoprite

1 teaspoon salt

Method :

Heat oil in  a wide pan, add tomato puree season with Maggi cubes,  thyme and Worcestershire sauce.

Fry for 10 minutes then add the minced meat and continue frying while breaking up clumps of meat. Add the dry Cameroon pepper and salt,  stir and let it simmer on low heat for 20 minutes. Turn of heat thenvstir in freshly chopped coriander,  set aside.

Empty the white sauce into a bowl and add the chopped chives, stir and set aside.

Now the fun part begins! Layering the lasagna.

In a square cake pan spread out a tin layer of tomato minced meat sauce, followed by 3 sheets of lasagna placed side by side then a then layer of white sauce.

Repeat with a layer of meat sauce, lasagna sheets and white sauce, the layering should end with white sauce.

Grate cheese all over the white sauce covered lasagna sheets.

Bake for 35-40 minutes or until golden brown in an oven on gas 5 or the big flame sign if is your cooker is like mine.

Once cooked, take out of the oven and let it sit on the counter for 10 minutes…cut in squares and enjoy!

After it has cooled down.

Do have a great week!

Azu 🙂 .