Nigella’s Recipe For Lasagne Of Love Is Long & Involved. Was It Worth The Effort?

Umm . . .

I have no idea why spending an entire day in the kitchen slavishly following Nigella Lawson’s recipe for Lasagne Of Love seemed like something I should do. I’ve made lasagna — my own recipe which isn’t written down anywhere and is wildly improvisational — countless times. People always like my lasagne. I like my lasagne.

I didn’t even like the name of Nigella’s recipe. Lasagne of Love. I mean, c’mon. She did say she makes it for her children’s birthday celebrations and special occasions so I’m sure a lot of love goes into it — more than say baked beans on toast or frozen pizza— but it’s just a bit. . . well, you know.

And yet I was tempted. Maybe I just wanted to get away from the desk. Maybe I also needed to make something with love — other than microwaving a frozen carton of parmentier de saumon from Lidl and going the extra mile with a sprinkle of parmesan cheese.

Also, I kind of like Nigella. In a New Yorker interview, she said, “You can’t rely on anything or anyone else in this world, and therefore you have to do it yourself.” Although she was talking about making chicken with lardons and lentils, her words resonated with me.

It all seemed reason enough to tackle her Lasagne of Love.

By 10:28 the following day, I was at the kitchen table drinking coffee and reading Nigella’s 15-step recipe for the fourth time. While it wasn’t complicated, it was, as she said, time-consuming and “. . .a bit of a faff.” And, every time I looked at the already lengthy list of ingredients I’d see something I hadn’t noticed previously.

“You’re making lasagna, my partner said, ‘Isn’t it obvious that you’d need pasta?”

He had a point. But since he was quite taken with Nigella’s recipe, or perhaps it was with Nigella herself, he sweetly offered to pick up the missing ingredients.

“Just make sure you’ve got everything,” he warned as he left. “I’m not going out again.”

By this time I was scared to look too closely at the damn recipe so I squinted at it while I drank coffee and . . . damn, I hadn’t seen the celery stick. Not to worry though, improvising is my favourite cooking concept.

Right, we start with step 1 — there are fifteen in the recipe — chopping onions. That seemed reasonable enough until I noticed that Nigella wanted me to drop the onion peels into a saucepan big enough to make a bechamel sauce. I was puzzled. Drop onion peels into a saucepan. And then make bechamel sauce?

Far too early in the process, but my enthusiasm for Nigella’s 15-step recipe was already waning. My lasagna, the one everybody likes, has ricotta cheese, grated mozzarella and, I think, an egg or two. No onion skins or bechamel sauce. I was almost ready to make my lasagna instead, but I had no ricotta because Nigella’s Lasagne of Love didn’t call for it. So bechamel sauce and onion skins it would have to be.

Like Nigella, who “adores pottering around the kitchen,” I was pottering — but adoring it less — when my partner returned with the missing ingredients, plus a small number of small charcuterie packages. Before leaving, he’d also checked my onion and garlic supply against Nigella’s recipe, then decided I didn’t have enough and bought extra.

He’s good like that. I offered to make him my sous chef, but he wasn’t interested.

So onions chopped. Skins in the saucepan, just as Nigella instructed. Excellent. But when I started chopping carrots, I remembered the celery stick I didn’t have. Cool as a cucumber (which I also didn’t have, but didn’t need) I finished chopping the carrots and gave them a liberal sprinkling of celery salt — really, what’s the difference? Then it was time to check on the onions, slowly softening and turning colour, although I’m not sure mahogany was the colour Nigella had in mind. Next up, stir some tomato puree into half a cup of milk.

And then back to the carrots again and the realisation that Nigella didn’t want them chopped after all but put into the food processor and . . . wait, something else about the onion skins. Surely they don’t go in the food processor too? Tempted by the wine — step 6 in the process, and quite a bit further down the list than where I was —I resisted and downed a mug of coffee instead.

At that point, it dawned on me, not for the first time, that I’m absolutely not a recipe person. Something in my brain baulks and refuses to absorb this kind of information. My brain is fine with me chopping, simmering, stirring and pottering but it will only follow my directions — not Nigella’s.

With no other option, I gave my brain free rein and managed to make some progress. Eventually, everything was simmering away and smelling quite appetising although I doubt whether Nigella would have recognised what came out of my oven as her version of lasagne. Oh well, my intentions were good, but the truth must be faced. I’d flunked Lasagne of Love Making. Perhaps that should be one word?

I remember having a similar experience trying to follow one of Julia Child’s recipes — I used to have both volumes of Mastering the Art of French Cooking — I can still see the turquoise cover printed, I think, with tiny fleur-de-lis. I loved reading through the index of recipes, salivating at the descriptions, imagining myself following the detailed instructions and making plans. Most of them remained unfulfilled.

I recall being seized with the desire to make Julia’s beef bourguignon. Over the years, I’d made beef stew. My kids will remember that I’d also opened more than a few tins of Dinty Moore beef stew — yes, yes, I was a terrible mother. What I’m trying to say is that I knew about browning meat and slow simmering, but I wanted to make this beef classic exactly as Julia had outlined. I couldn’t.

I’m sure her recipes, just like Nigella’s, are masterpieces of recipe writing, except that Julia was terribly long-winded. As I read, my patience and interest slowly disappeared. Enough already, it was all I could do not to throw Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume 1 across the room — just give me the ingredients and let me figure it out. Ultimately, as with Nigella’s lasagne, I gave up.

I have friends who say they can’t cook without a recipe — I’m just the opposite. I can just about manage to follow recipes in the New York Times cooking section, but even then I’ll start second-guessing and substituting.

The closest I come to an explanation is to compare it to writing. I’ve never been very good at following any of the ten or fifteen-step novel plotting plans. The four-act W plot affected me in the same way that Nigella and Julia’s recipes do. With all the best intentions, I just can’t follow the directions.

Perhaps that’s true in life too. I do frequently get lost.

And the verdict on the Lasagna of Love? Almost certainly not as good as the one Nigella made for her children and not as good as those I’ve made, sans recipe, over the years. I just hope I remember this the next time I’m tempted to tackle a lengthy recipe.

Perhaps instead of following Nigella’s recipe, I should remember something else she said. “In cooking, as in writing, you must please yourself to please others.”

Good advice Nigella. I still don’t quite understand the onion skins, but I think I get what you’re saying. And I’m sure if I’d been able to follow your Lasagne of Love recipe exactly, it would have been a lot better than what Martha Stewart calls her Famous Lasagna. And I also like you better than Martha.

Here’s the link if you want to try your hand at the Lasagne of Love. I’d love to know how it turns out.