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If you love pesto and you love lasagne…you’ll love my Lasagne alla Portofino. This recipe comes from Liguria in the north of Italy (the home of pesto Genovese!) and is made up of layers of pasta, homemade basil pesto and a creamy béchamel sauce. Then it's topped with extra cheese so that it forms a beautiful golden crust in the oven. Fresh basil pesto should never be cooked to preserve the freshness and aroma of the basil but this recipe is the one exception. Baking it together with the béchamel and pasta creates a delicious combination but in a way that still preserves the essence of the basil, resulting in a rich and flavourful dish.
To make the pesto, add the basil, olive oil, pine nuts, garlic and a pinch of salt to a blender and blitz until smooth. Add the grated cheese and blitz again until a thick pesto has formed. Taste and adjust the seasoning if needed.
To make the béchamel, heat a medium pan over a medium heat and melt the butter. Add the flour to the melted butter and stir constantly until it forms a smooth paste, this is also called the roux. Keep cooking it for 1 minute.
Add the milk gradually, stirring constantly with a whisk to avoid any lumps. Continue to stir and cook for about 6 - 8 minutes until the mixture starts to thicken. If the béchamel becomes too thick, you can add a little more milk to reach the right consistency.
Turn the heat off and season with salt and a pinch of nutmeg. Give it a good stir and make sure the béchamel is nice and smooth. The consistency should be between a custard-like texture and double cream (heavy cream). If the are lumps at this point you can also use an immersion blender to blitz the sauce and achieve a smooth béchamel.
Boil the lasagna sheets in plenty of salted boiling water until still firm and al dente (or following the packaging instruction) and drain. Turn the oven on at 200°C fan mode.
Once you have the pesto, the béchamel and the cooked pasta at the ready all you need to do is to put your masterpiece together.
Butter a large casserole dish or baking dish (roughly 25cm by 30cm) then pour and evenly spread a thin layer of béchamel at the base. Cover the béchamel with one layer of lasagna sheets, so they are slightly overlapping each other.
Now pour another portion of the béchamel and spread evenly, follow by some of the pesto dotted all around and a generous amount of grated cheese. Repeat the same method working in layers and creating around 4 to 5 layers and finishing with generous layer of béchamel and grated cheese on top.
Bake for about half an hour to 40 minutes or until the lasagne is golden on the surface. Let it rest for 10 minutes before cutting into portions and serving.