The best party in London is called Dessert Heart and happens just after Ireland traditionally beat England at the rugger, third Saturday of March.
Highlights from a night of voltaic privately educated raving included a polyphase alternating performance from The Egg, slap and electromagnetic tickle from Jolyon & James Cadisch, and yet another three-phase power distribution from Tripswitch; rather like the Pied Piper, Nick Brennan lures your innocent conscience to an altogether darker chaparral, and at the same time appears to navigate his way around the mixing desk with the algorithmic efficiency of traffic logistics system Waze; if it wasn’t Monday afternoon, I’d recommend he give himself the rest of the week off.
As with most of these sorts of things, the longer they go on the grubbier they get, and the after-party in Bethnal Green provided a particularly rakish mise en scène, opening with a warming down pulse from the palpitating Peter Michael. Things moved up to a “fourth-down conversion” when Chicago’s very own Konal took to the field. Not since William Perry, defensive tackle for the Bears powered his way to Super Bowl XX has the Windy City produced a more entertaining cool compartment; Konal AKA the Pie is one refrigerator I was happy to chill with until the end of early morning.
Arriving at home by 09:00 AM, and the only dish on the menu was hangover food lasagne, the inspiration for today’s recipe.
Lasagne
Serves 6-8
For the bolognese:
Ingredients: 20g unsalted butter, extra virgin olive oil, 1 large diced white onion, 2 cloves diced garlic, 40ml red wine, 2 x 400g tins of chopped tomatoes, 600g minced beef
First melt the butter in a pan, add the olive oil, and gently fry off the diced onions until translucent, followed by the diced garlic. Sweat off for a further 2 minutes then pour in the red wine until reduced in volume by ¾; tip the tinned tomatoes in the pan and blitz with a stick blender. In a separate pot, add a few glugs of olive oil and fry off the minced beef until browned making sure all excess moisture reduces. Mix the beef into the tomato mixture and cook on a gentle flame until reduced in volume to a thick consistency (1-1.5 hours).
For the béchamel Sauce:
Ingredients: 60g unsalted butter, 60gx plain flour, 1 3/4 pints full fat milk
Add the butter to the pan until melted, then the flour; mix to a paste, pour in the milk and continue to stir until the back of the wooden spoon can be coated.
Additional ingredients: 300g dried lasagne sheets, 150g Parmesan cheese, seasoning (Malden sea salt/cracked pepper)
To build the dish first add a layer of the bolognaise sauce to a 2.5L/3.5-pint medium lasagne dish and lightly season, then top with sheets of lasagne and lightly season, cover with béchamel and lightly season, then sprinkle with the parmesan; repeat three times.
Place dish in a pre-heated oven at 150cC/gas 4 for 1 hour.
