Thanks Martin. We used to make the mushroom lasagna from the Greens cookbook for Christmas every year, until we decided it wasn’t worth the labor. We’ve kept the mushroom lasagna as a tradition though, trying new recipes every year. I’ll check out this one for this year’s feast.
There is no question that this recipe is time consuming with a lot of ingredients which is typical for Ottolenghi. I wouldn´t make it every week. But once a year, YES.
In addition it is a good recipe to feed a crowd of vegetarians, as up to 6-8 people will leave full&happy the table.
I didn´t watch the time. You have to grate the cheese which takes some time, 15-20min. The Bechamel, 10-15min. Cooking the mushrooms, 10-15min. Arrange everything in the form, 15-20min.
Oven time 50min.
I would say that nothing could be done a day before. Maybe the grating of the cheese?
I assembled this the night before we planned on eating and it turned out very well. I used some additional heavy cream and used regular lasagna noodles instead of “no boil”. The noodles in the photos, to me, look like “no boil” noodles. I debated on boiling the noodles, but I decided against. I figured that the noodles would soak up some liquid overnight. Everyone enjoyed this dish and it was different than what we normally cook.
I also recently made a variation of this recently and it came out amazing. I roasted some Cornish hens and pulled the meat and added that into the filling as well and also added a black truffle cheese grated with the others and amped up the mushroom flavor by soaking some dried trumpet mushrooms and adding the resulting stock into the bechamel. Really quite good.
The Greens mushroom lasagna is an all-day thing, which doesn’t bother us, but it has to live up to the labor we put in. We’ll see with this one on Christmas day!
I would say that you don´t have to worry about the wine pairing. Red and white works. Maybe a red from Piedmont? In case of white, maybe a Chardonnay?? I think you can drinking any wine you like with this dish.