Leek Comté Beef Crème Fraîche Lasagne Smothered With Béchamel

I have a thing with and for lasagne. My long journey, torturous and doubtful, but eventually arriving at a happy ending, was told in this old post from 2013. Not surprisingly, since France is the home of béchamel, white pizza and lasagne are not hard to find here. Because my natal city, NYC, has such a strong Italian culinary influence, I stuck stubbornly to tomato-based pizza and lasagne. Until recently, that is.

I also have a thing with and for Comté, that is, when it is well aged. I described my infatuation in this post.

Ingredients
makes nine roughly 7.6 cm (3 inch) squares
a 25 cm (10 inch) x 25 cm (10 inch) x 4 cm (2 inch) ceramic pan was used

Comté, aged 20 months or the oldest you can find, 230 g, sliced thinly or grated
Crème fraîche, 200 ml (6.8 fluid oz)
Beef, minced, lean (I used 5% fat), 350 g (12 oz)
Leek, one, large
Lasagne noodles, 15 (I used egg-enriched)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Béchamel 

sauce, see below

Béchamel 

sauce
Butter, sweet, 120 g (8 T)
Flour, white, 12 T
Milk, whole, 1 litre (34 fluid oz)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

The night before, prepare the beef, leek, and the béchamel sauce. This can be done the same day as assembling the lasagne but it's less hectic if done earlier.

• 1) Saute beef in a skillet over moderate heat while stirring, about a few minutes. It doesn't need to be fully cooked, but most of the red should be gone.
• 2) Trim the tough, dark-green tops and the roots from the leek. With a sharp knife, slice vertically almost to the root end. Splay leaves open while rinsing under the tap. Be sure you get all the dirt out. Slice thinly and put into a skillet with a nice knob of butter, and braise, while covered, till tender, about ten minutes.
• 3) For the sauce, heat the milk till hot, but not boiling. Meanwhile melt butter over moderate low heat in a saucepan, add gradually the flour while stirring, and let bubble for several minutes, while stirring once in an awhile. Do not let the butter brown. In a steady stream, pour the milk into the butter and flour, while stirring. Turn heat up a bit to bring to a simmer. If there are lumps, then whisk well. Heat over low flame till smooth and thick. To reuse, reheat till the sauce is fluid.

Put the prepared food in covered containers and refrigerate until needed the next day.

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C (350 degrees F). Five stacks, each containing three noodles, will make four layers. One stack of three noodles are placed in a large frypan and covered with boiling water (I use an electric kettle). Cover with a lid or a plate. After a few minutes, remove them and put them in a bowl of cold water. They should be limp but not fully cooked. Put the next stack of three in the frypan. If necessary, that is, if it is taking longer and longer for the noodles to soften, then replace water with fresh boiling water. Meanwhile start making layers with the noodles that have been parboiled.

Coat the bottom of an oven-dish with some crème fraîche. Divide the cheese, leek, and beef into four portions. Use one portion of the cheese, the leek, and beef for each layer. Use one tablespoon of crème fraîche for each layer. Arrange a layer thusly: three overlapping noodles followed by crème fraîche by Comté by leeks by beef. Salt and pepper the layer. Keep making layers until the remaining three are done. End with noodles. 

The sauce was piled on and on and on and then some. Because of the oven dish being so full, I tucked a sheet pan underneath. It turns out that wasn't necessary because the sauce was too thick to bubble vigourously. Bake for around thirty minutes, until well browned. The top should be puffy and when inserting a knife into the centre, it should easily go right through the noodles.

After being cooled for around fifteen minutes, the lasagne was cut into nine squares. The sauce behaved in a generous manner, filling up every nook and cranny, resembling a custard in texture, and if that wasn't enough, embracing the Maillard Reaction like a champ.

Surplus pieces of cooled lasagne were each put into its own cozy ziplock bag and frozen. There's a nice pile of them for future meals! Though this dish was wonderfully earthy, I still felt like a queen. After all, it contained the King of Cheeses.

À la prochaine!