A few posts ago I mentioned the Other Half and I were talking about a lasagne experiment and using tortilla wraps instead of pasta sheets. Well, I have now tried it!
The Other Half is far better than me at cooking bolognese, so last time I managed to persuade him into the kitchen I also asked him to double up the portion so we had some leftovers to freeze. I duly defrosted it ready for constructing a lasagne.
Next job was to make a cheese sauce (I prefer this to a traditional white sauce) so a good knob of butter was melted in a saucepan and a tablespoon of flour whisked in. I only let the roux cook for a minute or so before starting to add the milk slowly. This is usually the point I yell at Other Half to pour the milk whilst I whisk, it’s a faff but at least the sauce is never lumpy this way, the trick is to make sure you add the milk slowly. Once all the milk is added, the white sauce is simmered for about 10 minutes to get rid of the floury taste. After this it’s time to add as little or as much cheese as you want.
Now to the construction, I can never remember whether you are supposed to layer meat then sauce then the pasta or if the sauce goes immediately on top of the pasta. I always start with a meat (ragu) layer then sauce and, in this case, then wrap. Carry on until all the ragu is used and top the final wrap/pasta layer with cheese sauce and a good handful of extra cheese.
At this point I popped it into the oven at Gas Mark 5 for 30 minutes. Really I should have let it cool down for a bit before cutting into it as it always comes out better then, as it was we ended up with a delicious but not very attractive pile of slop. Interestingly (well to me at least) there was very little texture or taste difference between traditional dried pasta sheets and using the tortilla wraps. Certainly nowhere near the difference between shop bought dried pasta and the fresh home made stuff. Would I do it again? Probably, but only if we had leftover stale wraps that needed using, otherwise I’d either make the effort to make some pasta or just use the normal shop bought stuff.
There were two benefits to using the wraps though, firstly I could easily cut them to the size I wanted and secondly, I chucked the offcuts on a baking tray with a quick spray of olive oil and put them in the oven. They cooked far quicker than I expected so they were a little overdone but actually quite nice. Another trick I will use if we end up with stale wraps. The small person loved them!