You’ll love Nigella’s fall comfort foods

Heat the broth until boiling.

Heat the oil in a medium saucepan that comes with a lid, and add the couscous and fry, stirring all the time, for about 2-3 minutes.

Pour in the hot broth, still stirring, and keep stirring over a very gentle heat until the stock is absorbed into the couscous, about 5 minutes.

Turn off the heat, leaving the pan where it is, with a tight-fitting lid, for another 10 minutes.  (If you cook on gas, you could leave it on the lowest setting with a heat diffuser under the pan, if you have one.)

Fork through the couscous, turning it out into a big bowl. Keep working the couscous with the fork to make it lump-free. Sprinkle in the lemon zest and juice, sliced scallions, and salt and pepper, to taste, before adding the arugula leaves and tossing together carefully to mix.

Put the peeled onion and the celery into a food processor and blitz to a mush. Reserve two tablespoons for the meatball mixture.

Warm the garlic-flavored oil in a large, heavy saucepan or Dutch oven, add the onion and celery mixture, along with the thyme, and cook at moderate to low heat, stirring every now and again, for about 10 minutes.

Add the cans of tomatoes, filling up each empty can with water to add to the pan. Season with the sugar, salt and pepper, stir and let it come to a bubble, then turn the heat down to simmer gently while you get on with the meatballs.

Put all the ingredients for the meatballs, including the reserved chopped onion and celery and salt according to preference, into a large bowl and mix together, gently, with your hands.

Don't overmix, as that will make the meatballs dense-textured and heavy

When all the meatball ingredients are just amalgamated, start rolling. The easiest way is to pinch out an amount about the size of a generously heaped teaspoon and roll into a ball between the palms of your hands. Put the meatballs on a rimmed baking sheet, lined with parchment paper, as you go. You should get about 50 little meatballs.

Drop these gently into the simmering sauce

Let the meatballs simmer for 30 minutes, until cooked through. Serve with rice or pasta. I sometimes give them an automatic upgrade by serving with the arugula and lemon couscous.

Put the porcini mushrooms, marsala, and water into a small saucepan and bring to a boil, then take off the heat and scissor the softened mushrooms into smaller pieces.

Warm the oil in a heavy-based saucepan with a lid, and finely chop the onion, carrot, and celery either by hand or in a processor and scrape them into the pan.

Let the vegetables soften over a gentle heat for about 5 minutes or so, then stir in the thyme and salt.

Add the ground beef, breaking it up with a fork, and let it brown a little. Then stir in the tomato paste, canned tomatoes, and bay leaf.

Add the porcini mushrooms with their dark, gorgeously flavored liquid and bring the contents of the pan to a boil. Once the sauce is bubbling, put the lid on, turn the heat down to very low, and leave to simmer gently for about 45 minutes to 1 hour. If you're using a wide pan, the shorter time should be enough; if the sauce is piled up higher, you'll probably need the full hour.

While the sauce is simmering, make the polenta layers. First dampen your chosen pans by letting some water from the cold tap splash them a bit.

Make up the polenta in a saucepan following the package instructions, but first dissolve a chicken bouillon cube in the specified amount of water, or use chicken broth instead of water.

Stir as instructed with your wooden spoon, and when the polenta has thickened, add, beating as you go, the tablespoon of butter and 1 cup of Parmesan. Taste to see if you want any more seasoning. Once the polenta is thick and coming away from the sides of the saucepan, quickly divide it between the damp pans, spreading each one to an even as possible layer using a silicone spatula you've passed under a cold tap. It will set almost instantly. You can put aside these polenta layers and your meat sauce for now.

When you are ready to assemble the lasagne, preheat the oven to 400°F. Using 1 polenta-lined pan as your dish, spoon half of the meat sauce over the polenta.

Deftly tip out (it's not hard) one of the other polenta layers and place this over the meat sauce in the pan you're working on and then add the last half of meat sauce.

Top with the final layer of polenta from the third pan, then sprinkle the remaining 1 cup of Parmesan cheese over the top.

Bake for 1 hour if your meat sauce was cold, and about 45 minutes if it was still warm. The cheese should have melted and become slightly golden, and the lasagne must be piping hot right through.