Leek and Crab Lasagne

Karen Martini on Better Homes and Gardens is a bit hit and miss for me.    But when she hits, she hits it out of the ballpark.  I saw this recipe on the show a few weeks back and thought it looked interesting and mentioned it to hubby.  He was practically drooling just talking about it so I picked up this months edition of the magazine and gathered the ingredients. The original recipe uses fresh lasagne sheets and capers - hubby detests capers so I didn't use them and I had some dried lasagne sheets to use...

Crab meat my friends isn't cheap though - and although the recipe calls for 200g, I used 400g.  And that cost me a bit - but in hindsight totally worth it - it made enough for us, a leftover lunch and gave some to Nanny.   This would impress the pants off friends at a dinner party I'm sure (well hopefully not literally) but Hubby has already told me this is his new birthday meal - he's pretty impressed!


Ingredients:
4 leeks, sliced
4 cloves of garlic
200g crab meat
100g butter
700ml fish stock
1 bay leaf
1/4 cup plain flour
100ml cream
1 packet large curly lasagne (or whatever you like!)
1 tub baby bococcini
180g mascarpone
fresh grated parmesan


 Method:
In a saucepan place 30g of the butter with garlic and leek, over medium heat cook until the leeks are soft and a bit golden on the edges.

In another saucepan (hope your dishwasher is empty!) bring your fish stock up to a boil with the bayleaf (I used 2 small fresh ones from the garden..)

In another saucepan (yes I'm serious) heat the remainder of your butter until it starts to bubble and go golden, add the flour and whisk quickly - add the stock bit by bit still whisking until all the stock is in the mixture and it's like a gravy.  Discard the bayleaf.

Add the cream and then pour the leek into the sauce or vice-versa.

Preheat oven to 190 degrees c.

Put a bit of the leek sauce on the bottom of your baking dish and put your lasagne sheets on top.

Then start layering.... 1/3 at a time - crab meat, baby boccocini, dollops of masarpone, leek sauce and then sprinkling of freshly grated parmesan and black pepper.

Keep going, layer after layer until all done.  Cover with baking paper (will stop the cheese sticking to the top) and then a layer of aluminium foil.

Place in the oven for 50 minutes with the foil and baking paper on and another 15-20 minutes with it off.

Let it sit for about 15 minutes before serving.  Oh my - you're going to congratulate yourself (and by then you've done all the washing up too!)

OK, who wants some?

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