Yotam Ottolenghi's Mushroom Lasagna

Last weekend I followed a recipe by Yotam Ottolenghi - the Israeli-born British chef, restaurateur, and food writer - for the first time. As well as creating a delicious dinner, I felt that I had reached peak adult.

It took almost three hours to prep and cook this mushroom lasagne, which is about six times as long as I normally devote to cooking a meal.

I kept thinking of shortcuts and then reminding myself that the guy knows what he’s doing, and I should surrender to the multi-step process. It created more dishes than a standard week’s worth of dinners. It used a heap of mushrooms, including expensive ones.

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Was it worth it? Absolutely! The result was a taste and texture sensation which I know I never would have achieved if I’d taken shortcuts.

I’ve been aware of Ottolenghi for a long time, but it was an email from an acquaintance saying they’d used Angel Food products to veganise his mushroom lasagna which prompted me to try the recipe.

Partway through cooking the recipe, I realised that this was the very recipe my youngest son had raved about. That son has just moved to Australia to study, so the sense of connection was a wonderful bonus.

And it got me thinking (there was lots of time to ponder as the mushrooms roasted and the sauce reduced to a ragù consistency) once again about how food is about culture, connections and love.

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Some days, you gotta make do with toast and supermarket soup for dinner. But some days, I hope you too get the time and inclination to cook something complicated and enjoy the fruits of your labour.

Here’s how I veganised the recipe:

Replaced double cream with Little Island cashew cream (soy cream or coconut cream should work too).
Replaced Pecorino Romano and Parmesan with a mix of Angel Food cheddar and Parmesan.

You can find the original recipe here.