It's a slightly chilly 5 degrees C outside but we still decided smoking a lasagne was still a really good idea. The benefits of the smokey flavour outweighed the slight discomfort of cooking outside on the first day of the new year!
The meat sauce was the first for the BGE treatment. two sausages removed from their skins, browned with 300g minced beef, a chopped onion, a grated carrot, a chopped clove of garlic, 1/2 tsp celery salt, a dash of red wine, 1tbsp tomato puree, one beef stock cube and a tin of tomatoes. We smoked it, indirect at 350degF over hickory, for 30 minutes until the meat was cooked and a smokey flavour had been absorbed by the food. I had coated the exterior of the cooking pot with a thin layer of washing-up liquid which makes the pot a lot easier to clean after use.
I brought one pint of milk to the boil with 1/2 an onion, a bay leaf and 1tsp black peppercorns and then remove it from the heat to leave it to infuse for ten minutes before straining. I melted 40g butter in a saucepan and added 40g plain flour. I cooked the flour for a few seconds and then, removed from the heat, gradually added the milk, little by little, stirring constantly. Once all the milk was added, I heated the sauce over a low heat, stirring all the time, until the sauce thickened.
I place a layer of no-soak lasagne sheets on the bottom of a greased oven dish, topped with a layer of meat sauce, then a layer of béchamel sauce, more lasagne, meat sauce, then béchamel. I continued building until I finished with a layer of béchamel and sprinkled the whole thing with some grated fresh parmesan cheese.
We placed the lasagne back on the BGE, with the hickory smoke still billowing, indirect at 350degF, for 40 minutes until it was golden and bubbling. The smokey flavour that the BGE imparted to the rich, beefy tomato sauce was amazing and took a favourite meal of ours to another flavour level!
