MAIN: BEEF LASAGNE & GREEN BEANS
MODE: Intensive wash TEMPERATURE: 75c TIME: 2 hours 15 minutes
Cooking lasagne in a dishwasher sounds, let’s be honest, absolutely vile. But plenty of amateur chefs have tried it — and apparently been pleased with the results.
First things first; I need to lower my expectations. A dishwasher may be able to ‘cook’ food, but it certainly doesn’t work as well as an oven. There will be no crispy cheese, no golden topping and no bubbling bechamel sauce . . . the best I can hope for is passably cooked pasta and meat cooked well enough not to poison me.
I start by assembling my lasagne in a 30cm x 20cm heavy-duty foil tray. I use fresh pasta sheets, brown my mince in a pan with some onions (to make sure it’s not raw), and cheat by using shop-bought tomato and bechamel sauces.
I layer up pasta, meat and sauce three times, before topping with grated cheese. Three is the optimum number; any more and it’s too thick to cook properly. The next stage is wrapping it up. I use almost an entire ten-metre roll of extrastrength tin foil, wrapping it both ways over the tray.
now for the weird bit: devotees of this bizarre method say you should place the lasagne in the bottom tray of the dishwasher (where it’s hottest), upside-down. This will prevent moisture from collecting on top and seeping into the parcel. There’s an unedifying ‘splosh’ as I flip the lasagne upside-down and lay it flat. I can only pray I’ve wrapped it tightly enough for the sauce not to leak out. I’m serving this with green beans, which I trim and place in a ziplock plastic bag, along with four tablespoons of water, a teaspoon of wholegrain mustard and some seasoning. These go on the top rack. I opt for the longest cycle — 2 hours 15 minutes — shut the door and hope for the best. I don oven gloves to take it out and tentatively unwrap the foil, which is both wet on top and blackened on the bottom. There are so many layers it takes the best part of ten minutes. I’m astonished. It might not have a crispy top, but the cheese is melted, the sauce is hot — and the mince looks brown and flavoursome. But it doesn’t taste as good as it looks. The pasta is chewy and the sauce is claggy. I can’t manage more than one forkful, and instead fill up on beans, which are beautifully steamed with a little bit of crunch.
VERDICT: 2/5