Classic Gluten Free Lasagne

Instructions

1. Finely dice the onion and chop the carrots into very small pieces. Finely chop the celery and green pepper too if you are including them. Place then all into a large non-stick saucepan or high-sided lidded frying pan with a small glug of olive oil. Cover with the lid and sweat for 15 minutes over a medium heat, stirring occasionally, until everything has softened.
2. Add the minced garlic and stir through, cooking for a couple of minutes until fragrant.
3. Now break the beef mince into pieces and add to the pan, cooking over a medium-high heat until it is beginning to brown. Then add the finely chopped mushrooms if you are including them and cook until any excess liquid has evapourated.
4. Add the dried herbs, tomato paste, crumbled beef stock cube and red wine. Cook until the wine has reduced.
5. Crush the tinned plum tomatoes with your hands and add to the pan (you can use chopped instead if you wish, but whole plum tomatoes are generally better quality tomatoes and are skinless). Stir them through the meat along with the Hendersons relish and sugar, then leave the sauce to cook over a medium heat for at least 30 minutes, stirring regularly. The longer you can cook the sauce for the better, as it will help the flavours to develop (1 hour on a medium then low heat is ideal...or you can also make the sauce ahead of time and then let it sit with the lid on until needed).
6. Season to taste with salt and pepper, then set aside while you prepare the other elements.
7. Preheat the oven to 180C (fan) and ready a large oven dish - mine is 25cm x 30cm.
8. My trick for gluten free lasagane sheets is to precook them slightly before adding them to the lasagne. I find otherwise they can cook unevenly and you might end up with hard crunchy patches. Take a large heatproof bowl and fill with boiling water. Place the lasagne sheets standing around the edge of the bowl so they are at least half covered by water, then soak for 3-4 minutes before turning them over to soften the entire sheet. You could also place them fully into the water, but be careful as they can get a bit stuck together. While the lasagne sheets are soaking you can make the white sauce.
9. For the white sauce, at the butter and cornflour/gluten free flour to a medium non-stick pan and heat until the butter is melted. Use a small whisk or wooden spoon to mix the butter and flour into a roux (a thick paste) and allow to sizzle for a minute.
10. Now add the milk in stages, about 150-200ml at a time, stirring well and keeping the pan over the heat. At each addition, stir the milk into the roux, then whisk/stir quite vigorously to ensure the sauce remains smooth and lump free. Once all the milk has been incorporated in this way, you should have a thick, smooth white sauce (if not thick yet, keep heating and stirring to thicken - if a bit lumpy, don't fret, give it a good stir but no one will notice any little lumps in the finally dish).
11. Now to assemble the lasagne! Add a third of the meat sauce to the oven dish, spreading it out into a thin even layer. Cover with part-cooked lasagne sheets. Then top with one third of the white sauce. Repeat until you have three layers of meat sauce/lasagane sheets/white sauce.
12. Top the lasagne with grated cheese, then bake in the oven for 45 minutes. Test the centre of the lasagne with a knife, to ensure the pasta is cooked through (if not, give it an extra 15 mins at 160C), then serve!