Gemüse-Salagne (Chard Vegetable Lasagne)

As a follow-up to my last post about childhood recipes, I'm kicking things off with probably the recipe I request most when I go back home: Gemüse-Salagne. Since we are not optimising for SEO here, the recipe follows now immediately.

Recipe

Ingredients

• 100-120g onions
• 270g carrots
• 500g chard or spinach
• 200g heavy ream
• 200g milk
• ~10g starch to thicken
• 200g emmentaler cheese
• ~12 lasagne sheets
• ~1,5g curry powder (yes I actually measured it)
• oil
• salt
• pepper
• nutmeg

Tools

• stove
• oven
• casserole
• pot

Step 1: Peel and chop ingredients

Peel and slice the carrots. Then, roughly chop the green part of the chard and slice the stems. Dice the onion fairly finely.

Step 2: Sweat the onions and cook the vegetables

Heat a tablespoon of oil in a pot over a medium heat and sweat the onions for a few minutes without letting them take on any colour. Then add the carrots and chard stems. After about five minutes, add a splash of water and the rest of the chard. Cook until the chard has wilted and the carrots have softened slightly. Season with salt as you go.

Step 3: Add milk and heavy cream

Add the milk and heavy cream now. Bring everything to a boil.

Step 4: Add spices and thicken

Add the curry powder, nutmeg and pepper. You want there to be a hint of curry, not for it to dominate the dish completely. Start with around a gram and then add more if necessary. Then add some nutmeg and salt. Afterwards, mix the starch with a little cold water to thicken the mixture.

Step 5: Layering

Now we can start layering the ingredients. Begin by placing a small amount of the sauce on the bottom. Then add the first layer of lasagne sheets. If you are lucky, your dish will fit exactly three sheets per layer; mine doesn't, so I need to make the last one fit. Add the sauce and alternate until you reach the final layer, then top with the remaining sauce.

Step 6: Adding cheese

Now add the cheese on top. While grating is always an option, I have also found that you can achieve an even coverage of cheese by simply layering slices on top. The end result is roughly the same.

Step 7: Bake

Cook for around 45 minutes at 175°C, or until the lasagne sheets are cooked and the cheese is lightly browned.

Step 8: Wait and eat

Now comes the hardest part: waiting. You should wait until the bubbles have stopped, or for about 20 minutes. This allows the sauce to thicken and prevents you from burning your mouth on the cheese. Then slice it into pieces and either eat the whole dish immediately, begrudgingly share it, or freeze the rest for later in the week (or day).

You can use all the tricks from the Serious Eats recipes, but this recipe already results in a good dish without any extra steps that make it more complicated. What are childhood recipes?