The brilliant thing about this dish is that unlike making your own fresh pasta sheets, it's really simple to add all kinds of extra flavours into your pancake batter and then just throw it all in a processor, blitz and cook like regular pancakes (Nigel Slater has written a brilliant guide to cooking the perfect pancake). I've gone for porcini and basil pancakes and then piled several of my favourite ingredients inside. It's so simple to make and you could use your favourite cheddar, gruyere or a combination of several of your favourite cheeses
Cheesy leek and mushroom pancake lasagne (serves 4)
You will need:
For the batter:
- 200g plain flour
- 1 medium egg
- 1 medium egg yolk
- 300ml milk
- pinch sea salt flakes
- few grinds black pepper
- pinch dried thyme
- 20g dried porcini mushrooms, blitzed to a powder using an electric coffee grinder
- large handful fresh basil leaves
- small knob of butter for frying
- small knob unsalted butter
- 3 leeks, chopped (use the green bit too as it has the most flavour)
- 1 teaspoon garlic granules
- 25ml dry sherry
- 500ml double cream
- 20g dried porcini mushrooms, blitzed to a powder using an electric coffee grinder
- 200g grated Emmental cheese
- pinch sea salt flakes
- freshly ground pepper
- 100ml milk
- 4 large flat cap mushrooms, sliced
- few basil leaves to garnish
- Preheat your oven to 190C/375F/Gas mark 5 then make your batter buy putting all the ingredients into a processor and blitzing for about 30 seconds and leave to rest until needed.
- Make the filling by frying the leeks in the butter for 2 minutes then add the garlic and sherry and cook for a further minute.
- Add the cream, porcini powder, cheese, salt and pepper and reduce the heat to low and stir as the cheese melts and the sauce thickens. Add the milk if the sauce becomes too thick and starts too stick and form into a solid. You will need to keep stirring as the sauce can catch on the base of the pan. Cook for 2 about minutes then remove from the heat.
- Make your pancakes simple by pouring out a small amount of mix (about 60ml) into a hot frying pan that has been greased with butter, turn your pancake over as it starts to brown then cook until done. Repeat with the rest of the mixture.
- To assemble your lasagne you will need a roasting tray no bigger than 15cm X 20cm, you can have smaller ones and just have more layers. Start with a layer of pancakes then spoon over some of your filling followed by some sliced mushrooms then another layer of pancakes and so on. You want to finish with a layer of pancakes then sprinkle over some cheese and bake for about 15-20 minutes or until the cheese is nice and brown and crispy. Then garnish with a few basil leaves and eat with a nice big salad and a glass of chilled white wine.
Would it work ok with normal lasagne sheets? I'm lazy!
ReplyDeleteYou can make a regular lasagne using dried, the whole point of this one though is that you make basil and porcini flavoured sheets.
DeleteIf you wanted to make a regular lasagne using dried sheets you would need to increase the cooking time otherwise you would still have crispy layers, I would say reduce temp to 180C and cook for 35mins or until you can put a knife through and feel that the pasta sheets are soft.