Chard and cheese lasagne

There’s so much chard that even I’m starting to wonder what to do with it all. Still, it goes well with cheese and the weather calls for pasta. For fresh pasta, you’ll need a pasta machine, but it’s worth the extra effort, trust me.

Serves 2 For the pasta:

5 egg yolks

5 tbsp 00 pasta flour

Pinch of salt

1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil Semolina for dusting

A few fronds of flat-leaf parsley

For the sauce:

35g butter

35g plain flour

400ml whole milk

1 tsp chopped thyme leaves 1 bay leaf

75g cheddar, grated

1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil 1 large garlic clove, crushed 1 onion, diced

350g chard, washed and finely shredded

For the topping:

100ml double cream

125g mozzarella, thinly sliced 35g grated parmesan

1 Start by making the pasta. Combine the yolks, flour, salt and olive oil in a bowl until it forms a sticky, firm dough. Knead for 5 mins until smooth then wrap up and chill for 1 hr to rest.

2 Cut the dough in half. Take one piece and flatten it into a rectangle using your hands. With your pasta machine on the thickest setting, feed the dough through the machine twice. Sprinkle a work surface with semolina, lay the pasta on top and arrange a few fronds of parsley over one half. Fold the sheet in half then feed it through the machine again. The parsley will be sealed within.

3 Move the dial to the next thinnest setting and feed it through twice.

Repeat until you reach setting 4 and have a long, smooth sheet of pasta flecked with greenery. Do the same with the other piece of dough and cut all the pasta into sheets that’ll fit in a small ovenproof dish (for two people), dusting with semolina as you go.

4 Preheat the oven to 195C/fan 175C/ Gas 5-6. For the sauce, melt the butter in a pan then stir in the flour and cook over a medium heat for 2-3 mins, stirring constantly.

5 Gradually whisk in the milk, keep stirring so it doesn’t go lumpy, then add the thyme and bay and bring to a simmer. Bubble for 3-5 mins, or until thick, stirring regularly, then remove from the heat and add the cheddar. Season and fish out the bay leaf.

6 In a frying pan, warm the olive oil over a low heat then add the garlic and onion, sweating both gently for 10 mins until soft but not browned. Add the chard and leave to wilt for a couple more minutes. Stir this mixture into the cheese sauce.

7 To assemble the lasagne, spread a little of the sauce over the base of your ovenproof dish. Arrange a single layer of pasta on top. Repeat until you have used up all the filling and pasta and are left with a pasta layer on the top (I find this takes 3 layers of pasta and 3 of sauce). Pour over the double cream, then top with the mozzarella and sprinkle over the parmesan.

8 Bake for 30 mins, or until golden brown on top and bubbling.

Cook’s note: If you’d prefer to use dried pasta, replace the fresh pasta with sheets of white lasagne and increase the cooking time by about 10 mins or so.