The Viking Goes Italian – Lasagna al Horno

I’m going to admit something to you all today.  Many of you will know, if you stop by regularly, that I’m a bit of a geek.  If you don’t, well, you do now – and it may be worth mentioning that the way my geekery manifests itself most plainly is in the reading of comics.  Yes.  I like Batman and X-Men and Hellboy and Maus, but I really like cartoon strips in the paper.  I’m not talking about George and Lynn or Striker here, either. I’m talking about funny comic strips – three or four panels, quick joke, and move on to the next one.  I used to, as a child, wait patiently for Dad to finish reading the paper so I could get to the cartoons until the Times started doing the Funday Times, at which point I believed I had achieved Nirvana.  Or I would have done, had I known of the word or the concept.  I devoured Hagar the Horrible (what self respecting Viking wouldn’t?) and feasted on Fred, but there was one strip that stood head and shoulders above all of the others – Calvin and Hobbes.

I’m telling you all this so you can understand my next point.  There was one strip, one character, which just left me cold.  His smug musings and terrible jokes turned me immediately off, as did the art style and the fact that he was an incorrigible git.  Worse than anything else, though, was his disrespect for my most favourite of Italian dishes.  A dish rich with meaty ragu, thick white sauce, perfect al dente pasta and a hint of nutmeg to be enjoyed slowly with a glass of wine and the garlickiest of breads.  A dish to be pored over, enjoyed, and savoured, not walloped down the gullet with all the grace and finesse of a clown being thrown through a plate glass window.

Pictured – a git showing us how not to eat Lasagna

Yes, I’m talking about Garfield, and yes, my hatred of this orange feline is pretty much solely based on the fact that he can’t eat Lasagna (its favourite food, the one thing I have in common with it) with a knife and fork and a glass of Merlot like a civilised human being.  Er.  Cat.  Erm.  Cartoon.  You know what I mean.  It’s offensive to the people of Italy, their food, their culture, and cartoon comedy as a whole.

Would you trust a cat that would so gleefully kick such an adorable dog?  You would!  You heartless cad!)

With all of that in mind (and I have spent over 400 words talking about my hatred of a cartoon cat), I suppose I had better get on with it.  So, madams et monsieur’s, I present for your delectation:

The Viking Goes Italian – Lasagana al Horno

(Get it?  Because of the horns on a Viking helmet?  No?  Oh, fine.)

To make this meaty feast, you will need the following bits and bobs (to feed four hungry people):

For the Ragu:

750g Minced Beef

Chopped Tomatoes – 2 small cartons should do it

Bacon lardons

Chorizo sausage

Tomato Puree

4 large cloves of garlic

Mushrooms, chopped

One large onion, sliced or chopped

Beef stock (I used 2 knorr stock pots, but a couple of OXO cubes will do the job)

A teaspoon of Paprika

A pinch of chilli powder

A dash of Tabasco

A dash of Worcester sauce

For the White Sauce:

35g butter

35g flour

750ml milk

Salt

Pepper

Nutmeg

You’ll also need:

Fresh Lasagna sheets

Grated cheese – preferably mature cheddar

Got all that?  Then let’s get on.

Method:

Firstly, let’s make the white sauce.  You can do this the day before if you like; just make sure you put it in the fridge overnight.  It will set, but once you heat it up again it will go runny just like you need it to – just be patient!

1)      Melt the butter in a saucepan

2)      Stir in the flour bit-by-bit and cook for 1 or 2 minutes

3)      Take the pan off the heat, and gradually whisk in the milk

4)      Return to heat, and bring to the boil

5)      Simmer for around 10 minutes, or until the sauce has thickened and coats the back of a wooden spoon

6)      Season to taste with salt, pepper and grated nutmeg

Now that’s done, we can get on to the ragu.  If you’re in a rush, you can cook this and throw it straight in to a lasagna.  Or, if you have a little extra time, try to keep it at the simmer for a couple of hours so the flavours in the sauce really intensify.  Either way, this will be a gorgeous, velvety, spicy, dribbly, come-back-for-more sauce.  Promise.

1)      Over a medium heat, gently cook down the onions and garlic

2)      Set aside, and over a high heat cook off the lardons and chorizo

3)      Once the lardons are browned, add the beef mince and brown

4)      Add the onions and garlic back in, followed by paprika and chilli

5)      Stir so the meat is covered by the spices

6)      Add chopped tomatoes, mushrooms and tomato puree (about a tablespoon) and stir

7)      Add beef stock, Worcester sauce and stir

8)      Bring to the boil and then return to the simmer, and leave for as long as you can, but around 20 minutes should do it

In the meantime, whip two crushed cloves of garlic in to butter, and slather over thickly sliced wedges of French Bread.  Cover and set aside.

Now build your Lasagna.  Preheat your oven to gas mark 7 (220c), and get the biggest dish you have available.  Then, like a pasta bricklayer, fill that dish as follows: 1 layer ragu, then lasagna sheet.  Then, white sauce, ragu, lasagna, white sauce, ragu, lasagna until the dish is full.  As you layer up, use the white sauce and ragu to stick down the layers of pasta, trying to make sure they don’t curl up at the edges.  Make sure the last layer is lasagna, with enough white sauce to cover the whole of the top layer.  Cover liberally with grated cheese, ground pepper, and ground nutmeg.

This goes in to the oven for about 30 minutes, or until the top is crisp and golden.  Remove from the oven, and let it sit for five minutes so it sets together – this will make it much much easier to serve.  While the lasagna is resting heat the grill and throw your garlic slices under it for a couple of minutes, until the butter has melted lovingly in to the doughy bread beneath it.  As they turn golden, remove from the grill and get ready to plate up.

Carve that lovely Lasagna in to equal, hearty portions, and place pleasingly ‘pon a pretty, perfect platter prior to pigging out.  Or, just whack it on a plate and stop alliterating.  Serve with slices of garlic bread, a poncy bit of green, and a lot of booze.  I watched How to Train Your Dragon while I was eating it.  You, too, could watch the best animated film ever while you eat your lasagna but, you know, there’s no pressure.

There’s nothing classic about this lasagna – I’m sure a proper Italian would either have a heart attack or commit an act of violence upon me if I served it to them – but it’s tasty, comforting, chunky, homemade and bloody brilliant.  I hope you enjoy your version of it as much as I do!

And look.  Not an orange-furred git in sight.  That’s a perfect day.

The Viking Reviews: Back Inn Time

I must be honest with you all before we get started in this review.  This isn’t so much a review as it is a love letter to my absolute favourite restaurant.  Tucked away behind the hustle and bustle of Essex’s county town, a short hop from Chelmsford train station, you will find an unassuming cream building with a clock on its face.  It’ll only be on closer inspection as you approach that you will notice that the clock is turning backwards.  As you get closer, you’ll notice the faint glow of red neon in one of the windows, simply advertising the wares to be had inside: “Eats!” the sign proclaims.  Brown shutters offer glimpses of gingham table cloths, whirling waiters, and slices of retro Americana.  Heading around to the rear, and the entrance, you’re assailed by the sounds of good old rock and roll and, more importantly, the sound of people having a good time.

You have found yourself at Back Inn Time, one of Chelmsford’s oldest and (in my case at least) best loved restaurants.  I’ve been coming here since I was seven – that’s twenty four years of loyalty to a place that is bordering on the fierce.  Sure, sometimes I won’t get to go there for a couple of years, but every time I return it is like coming back to an old friend: the bar staff always greet you with a smile, making you feel welcome the very second you walk through the brass handled door.

Immediately, there’s a lively buzz.  There’s nothing staid about Back Inn Time – the walls are red brick, covered in an explosion of American number plates, postcards, cola adverts and beer signs.  There’s a cute little train that chugs about the restaurant at ceiling height.  The lighting is low, and as you take a seat at the bar for a long, cold beer (served in an iced glass, no less) or one of the best cocktails in town, you know that you’re in for a treat.

So it was that I found myself at Back Inn Time last weekend.  After a long day out on the road looking for a new house myself and three companions found ourselves in Chelmsford and hungry.  We didn’t want to eat mass-produced chain food and we knew that there was only one place to go.  We were very lucky – this was a Saturday evening and I have never once been able to walk in and get a table (booking in advance is always recommended) – they had a spare slot for us and so we sat down for the feast to end all feasts.

The menu is huge, delivered to you on a Moses-esque style tablet – the commandments of eating, if you will, one side covered in ‘Good Beginnings’ and ‘Final Flings’, while the other is choc full of the House Specialities – Steakside, Southwestern, Chicken and Ribs, All American, and some things called ‘Garden Salads’ – although why you’d want one of those is anyone’s guess.

Good Beginnings, then, and my – was the beginning good.  For myself, I ordered loaded potato skins:

A hollowed out, family sized potato stuffed with, in this case, cheese and chilli beef.  The cheese was smooth, flavoursome and stringy, the chilli fiery but tempered beautifully by the creaminess of the cheese, the crispy potato skin adding a charcoal crunch to the whole affair.  The cold bite of the sour cream adds a level of acidity that really takes the edge off of the spiciness – the only problem with the dish being that perhaps a little more in the way of chilli could be added.  But that’s mainly because I am a fool for chilli, and always want that little bit more.

One of my companions went for a real classic: Love at First Bite:

Mushrooms, stuffed with Pate, breaded and then fried, served with a garlic dip.  There are no words to describe this adequately.  The light crunch of breadcrumb gives way to smooth, meaty pate, delightfully complemented by a rich, powerfully garlicky dip that makes you wish there was a vat of it nearby to dive in to.

Chicken fingers were the order of the day for Mrs. Viking:

Very simple, breaded and fried chicken strips served with a BBQ dippin’ sauce.  Simple, but pleasurable – the chicken is moist, the bread crunchy, and the BBQ sauce just on the right side of tart. 

Finally, for the starter at least, out other companion bravely went off piste, going for the Specials board.  Tempura Prawns with a sweet chilli dip were delivered to him:

The tempura was reported to be light and crisp, the prawn having a little bite to it and the chilli dip to be more hot than sweet.  I dipped a finger in it myself, and found that yes, maybe a little hotter than it was sweet, but if anything that’s a minor niggle to a group of people who have a taste for spicier food anyway.

On to mains, then, and I was delivered half a cow, sorry, a New York Strip.  ½ a pound of prime sirloin, cooked to absolute perfection.  Honestly.  Show one of these steaks a knife and it will pretty much cut itself for you and throw itself in to your mouth.  You probably won’t even need to chew, as the meat is deliciously tender, with the juice of a perfect medium rare piece of meat bursting inside your mouth.  It even has perfect, diamond char strips that impress the heck out of the seven year old in me.  Chips are crisp on the outside and fluffy on the inside and the salad crisp and refreshing (if you’re interested in that kind of thing).

Again, someone decided to be Avant-Garde in the group, and ordered from the specials board.  Chicken breast topped with field mushrooms and spinach, topped again with melted mozzarella.  This, it has to be said, seemed to be the lowest point of the evening.  The chicken was a tad on the dry side while the cheese seemed ever so slightly watery.  That said, the general flavour was (I am told) good, the mushrooms working well with the mozzarella to provide an earthy bite against the rich flavour of the chicken breast which had been seasoned very well indeed.

Despite my requests, Mrs V and our other friend both had ribs, the only difference being one of them had curly fries while one went down the traditional route and went for good old fashioned chips.  But the carbohydrate is the chorus line to the ribs’ star turn – a whole rack of ribs served up on a plate that wouldn’t look out of place in the hands of a giant, lovingly coated in a sticky, homemade hickory smoked barbecue sauce in which the ribs are cooked for hours and hours on end until the meat is rich, tender, and fit to fall straight off the bone.  Served with a whole box of tissues and a dog food bowl for the bones, this dish is an evening’s entertainment in itself.  The flavour assaults your tastebuds while the sauce carries out a surprise attack against your whole face.  The chips, almost forgotten, play their part by adding a little much-needed crunch against the endless soft meat, and the clatter of bones against porcelain as you cast one rib aside before diving in to the next one is like listening to the music of a supergroup formed of Dave Grohl on drums, Slash and Pete Townsend on guitars, Flea on bass and Freddie on vocals, only it’s a million times better than that.

In conclusion, then, Back Inn Time is a great place to eat.  It’s unpretentious, it’s fun, the food is damned tasty and, if it’s your birthday, the whole staff get around your table and sing Happy Birthday to you.  OK, you might think that’s tacky and over the top – and if you think that, then you’re probably dead inside, and you need to learn how to have a little fun every now and then.  The next time you’re in Chelmsford (or, really, anywhere in the South East), give ‘em a call and get yourself a table.  Tell them I sent you.  They won’t know who the hell you’re talking about, but it’ll make me feel important.  Anyway, you won’t regret it, and don’t forget that they do huge, delicious deserts too – unfortunately, we couldn’t handle them due to the massive amounts of meat we had consumed…  Afterwards, when you’re sitting at the bar sinking a cold Budweiser, you’ll already be planning your next visit.  And wondering how you can get a cool little train like that in your house.

Back Inn Time, Chelmsford: Four and Three-Quarter Vikings out of Five

Website: www.backinntime.co.uk


I'll be back next week with big food, big flavour, and more Vikingy things.  Until then, take care!


Viking