How to make a Chicken Lasagna

I was working on a cookbook, the idea came about as I had, at work, built up a reputation for being a good cook. A whole lot of my fellow colleges were constantly asking me how to prepare this, how do you make that, so the inevitable happened.

I picked up my thoughts, grabbed my camera, occasionally, then proceeded to write a cook book. This book was completed in February 2003, and was just over 100 pages long, it took about six months to layout and every so often I look back and now I have revised one of them for the hub.

Hope that all of you will enjoy this one.

Ingredients

1 batch of Hand Rolled Pasta see Pasta for the recipe, or you can use store bought lasagna

5 chicken breast fillets

1 medium onion, finely chopped

Salt and pepper to taste

10ml of olive oil

50g of grated mozzarella cheese

5ml of paprika

^{For the tomato base sauce}

5ml of oregano

5ml of crushed garlic

50ml of semi sweet white wine

2 to 3 large ripe tomatoes (depending on taste)

25ml of tomato sauce

15ml of Light Soya sauce

15ml of marjoram

5ml salt

2ml sugar

^{For the white cheese sauce}

100ml of white flour

250ml of low fat milk

100g of grated white cheddar cheese

50g of finely grated Parmesan cheese

5ml of mustard powder

2ml of salt

^{For the final topping}

100g of grated cheese, I find that a 50/50 mixture of cheddar and mozzarella works best

5ml paprica or cayenne pepper

Method

Wash the chicken breasts, and chop them into tiny cubes.

Place the olive oil in a large saucepan on the stove, set the heat to medium. Wash and dice the tomatoes and the onion. Once the oil is hot, add seasoning then lightly brown the chopped onions, add the chopped chicken to the saucepan.

Then add all of the sauce ingredients to the saucepan cover and let it simmer on medium for about 40 minutes, stir occasionally. Remove the lid and let the mixture simmer for a further 10 minutes, to allow the sauce to thicken.

While that mixture is simmering away,

Take the pasta dough and roll it out into rectangles, Blanche them for about 2 to 5 minutes in some boiling salted water, they will have just started to change their colour. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the lasagna sheets to a bowl of clean water.

^{Method for the white sauce}

Mix the flour, salt and mustard powder in a large measuring jug, slowly add the milk then blend the milk into the flour to form a smooth paste, continue to add until all of the milk has been blended in. Pour the mixture into a deep saucepan and place it on the stove on a low heat. Stir continuously, with a wooden spoon, until the sauce has started to thicken.

At this stage, slowly add a sprinkling of the grated cheese to the mixture. Stir the sauce and continue adding and blending a little at a time, to stop the sauce from forming lumps, until all of the grated cheese is in the sauce. Remove from the stove.

Take your lasagna pan or deep corning ware dish; you are now ready to build the lasagna.

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees, or gas mark 4.

Place sheets of lasagna across the bottom of the dish, each sheet should overlap onto its neighbour, a single sheet layer is all that is required.

Cover the sheets of lasagna with third of chicken tomato mixture, sprinkle the mixture with a third of the Parmesan cheese.

Then slowly and carefully cover the meat with a third of white cheese sauce.

Then carefully place another layer of the sheets of pasta on top of the white sauce.

Again, build a layer of chicken mixture, Parmesan cheese, white sauce, and the pasta.

To finish it off, add the last of the chicken mixture, Parmesan cheese, and white sauce.

Cover the top of the cheese sauce with a good layer of grated cheese and a good sprinkling of paprika.

Place in the oven and bake until the cheese is golden brown.

Serve hot.