Eat along with Master of None season 2
The second series of Aziz Ansari’s creative Netflix series is a foodie’s delight – and here’s how you can make some of the most significant dishes in the hit series’ new episodes
If you watch the second series of Master of None, you’re going to end up hungry. So, so hungry.
While the first run of Aziz Ansari’s acclaimed Netflix series saw lead character Dev (Ansari) and his tuned-in friends show off their foodie credentials in many an episode, this return doubles down on the culinary chicanery as Dev learns to make pasta, discovers the world of competitive cupcake-baking, gets involved with a boorish TV chef and helps shepherd a friend’s romantic awakening over decades of Thanksgiving dinners.
But if watching the new episodes leaves your own dimly-lit meal for one looking a little dismal by comparison, never fear – over the next few pages we’ve teamed up with the cookery geniuses at BBC Good Food to show you how you can make your own versions of seven key dishes from Master of None season 2.
All together now – “eating like Dev, is my favourite thing….”
Home-made lasagne – Episode 1, “The Thief”
The first episode of the new season (called The Thief) shakes up the Master of None format in a big way, with the majority of the dialogue in subtitled Italian and every frame of the action delivered in a delicious black-and-white shading evoking classic Italian cinema like Vittorio De Sica’s The Bicycle Thieves.
Still, it’s not quite as delicious as one of Dev’s driving desires in the episode – the home-made lasagne created by his pasta teacher that, like his romantic chances, is somewhat squashed by the episode’s end.
PREP: 20 MINS
COOK: 1 HR, 40 MINS plus 1 hr for making sauces
Serves 6
Ingredients
- 2 tbsp olive oil, plus a little for greasing
- 750g lean beef mince
- 90g pack prosciutto
- ½ quantity tomato sauce
- 200ml hot beef stock
- a little grated nutmeg
- 300g fresh pack lasagne sheets
- ½ quantity white sauce
- 125g ball mozzarella
Method
- First make the ragu or meat sauce. Heat the oil in a frying pan, then cook the beef in two batches for about 10 mins until browned all over. Finely chop 4 slices of prosciutto, then stir through the meat mixture.
- Pour over the tomato sauce and stock, add the nutmeg, then season. Bring up to the boil, then simmer for 30 mins until the ragu looks rich and is well coated in sauce. Can be left for 3 days in the fridge or frozen for 3 months (although not if the tomato sauce has previously been frozen).
- Heat oven to 180C/fan 160C/gas 4. To assemble lasagne, lightly oil an ovenproof serving dish (30 x 20cm). Spoon over a third of the ragu sauce, then cover with lasagne sheets. Drizzle over about one quarter of the white sauce. Repeat until you have 3 layers of pasta. Cover with the remaining half quantity of white sauce, making sure you can’t see any pasta poking through.
- Tear the mozzarella into thin strips, then scatter over the top. Arrange the rest of the prosciutto on top. Bake for 45 mins until the top is bubbling and lightly browned. (The uncooked lasagne can be frozen. If baking from frozen, add another 45 mins to the cooking time).
Recipe from Good Food magazine, May 2009
