Lasagna with Sausage and Mushrooms

Remove the sausage meat from its skin, put in a bowl and mash roughly with a fork. Finely chop the onions, celery, and carrots. Heat oil in a large saucepan, then add the chopped vegetables and cook over low heat for about 10 minutes.

Add the sausage and brown evenly. Add wine and cook over low heat for at least 2 hours, stirring occasionally. If the ragù becomes too dry, add a ladleful of vegetable stock whenever needed.

Clean and slice mushrooms. Add them to the meat for the last 15 minutes of cooking. Add some more stock if necessary. Stir well. Season lightly if needed (keep it conservative, as the ragù is already quite savory due to the seasoning in the sausages). Once cooked, cover and set aside in a warm place.

Prepare the béchamel. Melt butter in a saucepan on low heat, add flour and stir well. Keep cooking for a couple of minutes, always stirring, then add a little milk at the time, incorporating it well into the roux before adding some more. Once all the milk has been added, raise heat to medium and stir until thesauce has thickened. Season with a little salt, pepper, and nutmeg. Cover and set aside in a warm place

Prepare the lasagne sheets. Even though it might be indicated on the package not to pre-cook them, I do advise cooking them in boiling salted water (about 9 minutes for dried lasagne and a couple of minutes for the fresh lasagne). This is because the sauce used to season the lasagne is rarely watery enough to cook them thoroughly, and you will end up with uncooked, hard pasta that will ruin your lunch experience. Be careful not to overlap the cooked sheets, otherwise they will glue together making it impossible to handle them.

Preheat oven at 170ºC (325ºF or Gas 3). Take an oven dish roughly 30cmx23cm in size. Spread a little béchamel sauce over the bottom. Cover with a layer of lasagne, then evenly spoon a third of the ragù over it and drizzle some béchamel sauce over. Finally, sprinkle it with the mixed grated cheeses. Keep layering this way—lasagne, ragù, béchamel and grated cheese (you should get three layers)—until all the ingredients are finished. Terminate with a layer of lasagne, the béchamel and plenty of grated cheese. Put it in the oven and cook for 60 minutes.

Your lasagna is ready when the top has taken a lovely golden color. Take the lasagne out of the oven and let it rest for 10 minutes before serving. Enjoy accompanied by a nice glass of Merlot.