Don't Sweat the Aubergine

non-pre-cook variety; you’ll be able to cut the pasta if you’re using the other kind). Add a layer of Bolognese, then pasta, then Bolognese, then pasta, then Bolognese; that should use up the Bolognese. Put a last layer of pasta on top of it (you may not have needed all 400g), and cover the whole lot with the béchamel. 1 Sprinkle the Parmesan on top. If you’re using non-pre-cook lasagne, cover the dish tightly with foil, and bake in a gas mark 4/180°C oven for 40 minutes. 2 Test whether the pasta is cooked by inserting a knife. Brown the dish carefully – the Parmesan will burn readily – under the grill. If you’re using lasagne that you have pre-cooked, bake the dish at gas mark 6/200°C for 25 minutes, or until the top has browned.
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WHY YOU DO IT
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    1 • Layering . Most recipes tell you to put some béchamel on to each layer of Bolognese, but I prefer to retain more sauce for the topping.
    2 • Timing . The packet instructions on non-pre-cook lasagne may tell you that the pasta will be ready in 30 minutes, or even 20. It might be, if you drowned it in sauce. If you want the dish to have a more pleasing consistency, you need to get steam to do the work. Hence the foil covering. The process will take longer, though.
    When you boil the lasagne sheets first, all the components of the dish are cooked when you assemble it. The baking is simply a matter of merging the flavours and browning the surface.
MACARONI CHEESE
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HOW TO MAKE IT
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    For 2
    200g macaroni
    300ml béchamel ( see here )
    100g Cheddar, or other melting cheese, grated
    Pinch nutmeg
    1/2 tsp Dijon mustard
    Cook the pasta (see Dry pasta – how to cook it, here ). Meanwhile, make the béchamel. 1 When it is ready, stir in half the cheese, the nutmeg and the mustard. Check the seasoning; the cheese may have provided enough salt. When the pasta is ready (leave it
al dente
), drain it, and mix it with the sauce: either in the pan in which the béchamel cooked or, if that is not big enough, in the pasta pot. Tip the mixture into a warmed, ovenproof dish, and scatter the rest of the cheese on top. Bake in a gas mark 6/200°C oven for 20 minutes, or until the surface of the dish is brown. 2
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VARIATIONS
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    If you don’t mind a discoloured sauce, gently fry lardons of pancetta or bacon (100g, say) in a little oil or butter, then add the flour for the béchamel and cook the sauce in this pan. Or add the fried pancetta (but not its fat – there’s enough cholesterol in this dish already) to the cheese sauce when it’s ready.
    Some people put slices of tomato into a macaroni cheese. I don’t like the addition of acidic juices to a creamy dish.
    Leave out the nutmeg and the mustard, if you like. If you don’t like mustard, you might find it worth trying anyway: you’ll be surprised by how it loses its heat in the sauce, and enhances the flavour of the cheese.
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WHY YOU DO IT
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    1 • Pasta and béchamel . People usually describe macaroni cheese as comfort food, by which they must mean ‘a wodge of something rich and filling’. Of course, Italians do combine pasta and béchamel – a floury paste with a sauce based on a floury paste – in lasagne and other baked dishes ( see here ). But they make their cheese sauces for pasta with just cheese, butter and cream – a rich concoction, certainly, but not such a heavy one. Still, sometimes a good, old-fashioned, Anglo-Saxon macaroni cheese is just what you want.
    2 • Baking . When you put the macaroni cheese in the oven, the sauce dries out and the pasta sticks together. If you want to avoid those results, put the dish under the grill to brown instead. But a sticky lump of cheesy pasta represents the spirit of the dish more accurately.
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N OODLES
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    Packet instructions on Chinese noodles – the ones that come formed into rectangular shapes – tell you to pour boiling water over them, leave them for 3 or 4 minutes, and drain, perhaps rinsing them in cold water. Goodness knows why: it’s a disastrous policy. The noodles sit in a sticky clump in the cooling water. No amount of rinsing seems to get rid of the starchiness
.
    Instead, cook them as you do pasta ( see here ), stirring to separate them as quickly as possible, perhaps with a little oil in the pan; 1 most brands cook in 3 to 5 minutes. If you need to keep them for later, drain and rinse them, but don’t leave the noodles in a lump in the colander. Separate them out on paper towels. That’s fiddly, I know: