The Best Lasagne

I love lasagne, and I've been making it for years, but I think I've finally figured out the best way to make it. It's not an exact recipe since I tend to just throw things in haphazardly, but it should be a pretty good guide for anyone who wants to make good lasagne.

Behold the glory!

Meat sauce

• 1 head of garlic
• 1 onion
• 1kg of minced beef (or kangaroo, or chicken or whatever)
• 1600g (2 large cans) of chopped tomatoes
• 170g (1 little can) of tomato paste
• 1 heaped tsp of cocoa
• Oil
• Red wine
• Italian herbs (marjoram, basil, capsicum, rosemary, oregano, parsley, thyme)
• Paprika
• Black pepper
• Fish sauce

1. Put a little splash of oil in a large frying pan and put it on low heat.
2. Peel and crush one head of garlic and throw it in the pan.
3. Cut up an onion and throw it in too.
4. Let those cook a bit, then dump in the meat, some herbs, paprika, pepper and the cocoa.
5. Add a splash or two of fish sauce and a bit of wine.
6. Turn up the heat and mix it all up as it cooks.
7. Once your mince is all broken up and everything's pretty well mixed, add the tomatoes and tomato paste.
8. After its cooked a bit, give it a taste and add salt if necessary, remembering that the finished product will contain cheese, which will add a bit of saltiness anyway. You can preempt the need to add salt here by adding more fish sauce earlier (or now).
9. Turn the heat down if necessary and leave it cooking while you move on to the next step.

Béchamel sauce

• 50g of butter
• A quarter cup of plain flour
• 2.5 cups of milk

1. I literally just followed the easiest recipe I could find on taste.com.au, except that I kind of half-arsed it and it still worked out fine.
2. Melt the butter.
3. Mix in the flour.
4. Add the milk half a cup at a time, mixing between each addition.
5. Leave it on low heat for a little bit.
6. Don't bother with pepper and salt, those are already in the meat sauce.

Construction

• 700g of grated cheddar
• 250g of grated parmesan
• 375g (1 box) lasagne sheets

1. Start with a little bit of meat sauce on the bottom.
2. Pasta.
3. Meat sauce.
4. Cheddar.
5. Pasta.
6. Meat sauce.
7. Béchamel.
8. Pasta.
9. Meat sauce.
10. Cheddar.
11. Pasta.
12. Meat sauce.
13. Parmesan.
14. Put it in the oven at 200° for 40 minutes. If your oven's fan-forced you might want to lower the temperature or cooking time. If your oven heats unevenly you may want to turn it around half way through. Figure it out.

Serves eight.