Serves 4-6
New: January 2017
Ingredients:
For the sauce
125g butter
1 white onion, peeled and finely chopped
2 medium carrots, peeled and finely chopped
3 sticks of celery, trimmed and finely chopped
1 small fennel bulb, trimmed and finely chopped
a small bunch fresh parsley stalks
a sprig of fresh bay leaves (I used dried bay leaves)
a rasher of pancetta or bacon
10 whole fresh prawns, heads removed and reserved (I accidentally bought some cooked prawns and some fresh prawns - I just used them all the same way and they turned out fine)
100mL white wine (I used cheap carton wine)
850mL milk
80g plain flour
sea salt and ground black pepper
1/2 a nutmeg, grated (I used ground nutmeg to taste)
For the lasagna
600g fish fillets (Jamie suggests cod, red mullet, sea bass, bream or salmon but I used barramundi), skinned and cut into small chunks
300g cherry tomatoes, cut in half
70g freshly grated Parmesan cheese
the leaves from the bunch of parsley that you took the stalks off, finely chopped
250g lasagne sheets (I used fresh sheets that didn't require blanching but you should read the instructions on your sheets for advice on how to cook)
For the breadcrumbs
50g breadcrumbs
small bunch of fresh parsley, leaves picked
zest of 1 lemon (I couldn't be bothered zesting so I just used some lemon juice)
To serve
Fresh rocket, washed and dried
Procedure:
Sauce
1. Melt 30g of the butter (approx 1/4 of the total amount you're using) in a large, deep saucepan over medium heat. Add all the veggies for the sauce and leave for 10min.
2. In the meantime, you can wrap the parsley stalks with a piece of pancetta and tie with a string. If you're using fresh bay leaves, they should also be included in the herb bundle.3. Add the herb bundle and prawn heads (and dried bay leaves, if you didn't have fresh ones) to your vegetables and cook for around 15min until the veggies are soft but not browned and the prawn heads have turned pink (see pics 1 and 2 below).
4. Add the wine and boil with lid off until reduced (I turned up the heat for this bit)
5. Pour in the milk and bring slowly back to the boil (had heat on med-high). As soon as milk boils, turn off the heat, pop on the lid and let the flavors infuse into the milk (see pic 3 below).
6. In another deep saucepan, plop the rest of the butter.
7. Once that butter is melted and bubbling, add in the flour and stir until smooth.
8. Fish the prawn heads and herb bundle out of your milky stock mix. Squeeze out any liquids before removing because good flavors shouldn't be wasted!
9. Add the milk and vegetable mix to the flour and butter one ladle at a time. I had my heat on low to do this and remember to mix in each ladle until it's absorbed by the flour before adding the next ladle (see pic 4 below).
10. Once all the liquid has been incorporated, bring to the boil gently, stirring constantly and simmer for a few seconds longer to cook the flour.11. Remove your white sauce from the heat and season with salt, pepper and nutmeg. At this point, you can remove any prawn whiskers that may have fallen off. Blanch your lasagna sheets now if you need to
Building the lasagna
Before you start: preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius. I used the fan-forced + convectional mode on my oven
1. Ladle 1/4 of the sauce into your pan and smooth out evenly (see pic 1 below).
2. Scatter 1/3 of the fish and 1/3 of the prawns. What I did was chop the prawns up into nice chunks and combined with the fish chunks in 1 bowl so that I could layer them on at once (see pic 2 below).
3. Add 1/3 of the tomatoes, 1/3 of the chopped parsley and approx 1/4 of the grated Parmesan4. Cover with a layer of lasagna sheets and repeat 2 times till all your fish and tomatoes are used up (see pic 1 below).
5. Sprinkle the last of the parmesan over the top sheet of pasta.
6. Make your breadcrumb mix by popping the breadcrumbs, zest and parsley in a food processor. I just mixed by hand. Note: the breadcrumbs are REALLY YUMMY on the end product so I suggest you maybe up the amount. You don't want too much though because if it's layered on too thick on the top, it won't go crispy (see pic 3 below).
7. Sprinkle your breadcrumb mix over the top of the lasagna
8. Cover the dish with foil and bake in preheated oven for 45min. Remove the foil after the first 30min so that the breadcrumbs can go crispy and golden in the last 15min. Make sure the lasagna is piping hot all the way through (see pic 4 below).9. Serve with fresh rocket (really compliments the lasagna if you eat a bit of lasagna with the rocket at the same time). I also cut some peach wedges to eat with the rocket for a nice seasonal touch.
