Mary Berry’s a bit of a funny one when it comes to lasagne. First, we learned she puts crème fraîche in her midweek (chicken) lasagne to speed the cooking time up a bit.
Then, it turned out she put redcurrant jam in her spag bol.
So what about what she calls a kind of “Mexican lasagne”, which involves lobbing mango chutney into a chilli? What possible (delicious) affront to multiple cultures could lie ahead?
Well, it turns out the Great British Bake-Off legend uses “ready-made tortillas instead of sheets of pasta,” which she promises is “utterly delicious and very moreish!”
Hear me out...
...This sort of makes sense? I mean, isn’t it basically a slightly ungodly, but nonetheless delicious, nachos/enchilada/lasagne cross?
And as with the redcurrant jam in her bolognese, Mary Berry’s addition of mango chutney to her sort-of chilli mix offers a caramelising, sunny tang.
There’s a throwback to the Cordon Bleu-trained chef’s chicken lasagne in the recipe too, in that she uses mascarpone instead of a fiddly roux-based cheese sauce (the solution for her chicken option was crème fraîche).
Her recipe involves frying off your mince, then mixing it with garlic, pepper, spices, mango chutney, tinned tomatoes, and tomato purée before simmering the lot in the oven for an hour.
She then alternates that makeshift chilli layer with mascarpone, mozzarella, and Cheddar layers, each separated by a tortilla; she cooks the assembled dish in a preheated oven for just under half an hour.
Anything else?
Yep ― “if covered and chilled in the fridge, you can assemble this dish up to 6 hours ahead,” Mary Berry advises.
She’s also got tips for stiff, cold mascarpone. “If your mascarpone is firm, you might find it easier to spread the mascarpone on each tortilla first before adding to the dish,” the cookbook author says.
The recipe has earned a five-star rating from 113 reviews, so unorthodox as it seems, it looks like it’s worth a try.
And in the name of journalism, it looks like my dinner tonight has been decided for me...