Roast pepper ‘Nduja lasagne with scamorza and jammy leeks

In an ideal world recipes shared with a base of subscribers are thoroughly tested. Thing is though, testing takes time, and time takes planning ahead, and like you’d expect of any professional yet unpaid recipe developer, planning ahead is not really how we do. I’m not saying most of the recipes are created on the same day as the newsletter ships, but I’m also not not saying that you know. More structured souls might argue that this approach gives little room for error, but they just don’t understand the exhilarating feeling of living on the edge like that. Aiming to better my habits for these last 3 weeks of the year (sorry to hit you with that crushing piece of reality) I made some coq au vin on Tuesday, planned to take a picture in daylight on Wednesday, so I’d have this volume all wrapped and ready to go before Friday even came along. Then disaster struck. I didn’t love the coq. It wasn’t bad, but just didn’t blow me away like a great coq should, you know? There I stood with my good intentions, guess planning takes the fun out of it huh…

Not to worry: I dreamt up this absolutely mind bending lasagne yesterday evening and cannot wait for you all to try it. It’s so so so good.

Ingredients #

For 4-6:

• 2 red peppers
• 1 leek
• 50g butter
• 500ml heavy cream
• 50g Parmigiano Reggiano
• 800g canned tomatoes
• 3 cloves garlic
• 300g ‘Nduja
• 500g fresh lasagne sheets
• 150g scamorza (or mozzarella)
• Salt
• Black pepper

Method #

1. Heat up the oven till 200 degrees. Cut the red peppers in large chunks and roast in the oven until blistered, about 20 minutes.

2. Cut the leek in half lengthwise and rinse away any dirt from the top. Cut in thin half rings. Melt the butter in a small pot over medium low heat and add the leeks to slowly soften them, for about 20 minutes.

3. When the leeks are softened, add the cream and grate in the parmesan cheese. Season with some salt and lotsa black pepper, then keep over low heat, stirring regularly.

4. When the peppers are ready, blitz them up in a blender together with the garlic cloves and the canned tomatoes.

5. Heat up a large skillet over medium heat and add the ‘Nduja. Break it up in pieces, until it’s almost melted into a homogeneous substance. Add the tomato/pepper sauce and bubble together for a few minutes.

6. Assembly time! Build your lasagne with alternating layers of the two sauces you’ve made between pasta sheets. I haven’t taste-tested different orders of layering, but can promise you with relative certainty that you’ll be okay either way.

7. Top the lasagne with scamorza, I’ve cut the hard skin off, but Google tells me it’s edible so I guess you can skip that step if you want. If you can’t find scamorza, mozzarella will do just fine.

8. Bake the lasagna in a 200 degree oven covered with tin foil for 30 minutes, then uncovered under the broiler for another 15, or until nice and golden brown.

9. Hardest part: leave the lasagne sit for about 10 minutes before you dig in. This will help with both not scorching the inside of your mouth, as well as the structural integrity of the pieces you’re about to cut.

This indeed made for a very, very delicious leftover lunch on Friday.