Lasagna: eG Cook-Off 52

[nickrey]

Sounds more like Moussaka than Lasagne.

This was done in cook-off number 7.

[vice]

I'm on it: picked up a piece of beef chuck for sugo; storm coming into California this weekend. Lasagne will be made following Marcella.

Chris, judging by the meat combo, is that the Batali bolognese? Did you go ricotta instead of bechamel or both?

[Chris Amirault]

No bechamel, just the ricotta, parm, and red sauce. There was enough on our plate for this little father/daughter event without adding the bechamel.

As for bolognese, I'm not sure what Batali does, but I went with something along these lines:

Saute about 6 oz of diced pancetta in a T or two of olive oil. When it's just browning, add a large chopped onion and then a couple of celery ribs. Just before they brown add 2 lb beef chuck, 1 lb pork shoulder, and 1 lb veal shoulder that's been ground with a fine plate. When that's lost all pink, add a bottle of chianti, bring to a boil, then add two cans of ground San Marzano tomatoes, a couple of bay leaves, some ground red pepper, oregano, salt, and a pinch of ground clove and cinnamon. Simmer for four hours or so. The spices are a great addition: you can't tell they're there but they really bring out the pancetta.

[robirdstx]

Okay I'm in. Just received my copy of The Silver Spoon (a birthday gift from my son ). I will be making the Lasagne Alla Bolognese early next week. The recipe calls for 2 3/4 cups ground meat - any suggestions - I have ground chuck and ground veal.

Edited February 26, 2010 by robirdstx (log)

[Katie Meadow]

My preference is for a dried pasta, very thin. For the life of me I can't figure out what this shape would be called. Only one place I know of sells it. The sheets are far thinner than most commercial lasagna ruffle-edge types and does not have the ruffle. These sheets measure approx 3.5 inches by 7 inches. They cook quickly because they are thin and don't tear, and it is easy to cook them al dente. When cooked, they measure about 9 inches, which is perfect for laying them parallel to the short side of any 9 x 12 lasagna dish. I do them in two or three batches, and use a spider to remove them, then lay them flat on a wooden board to cool and dry. I double-layer them, staggered. Far easier to manipulate than the longer bulkier noodles that are sold as lasagna noodles.

Does anyone know the proper Italian term for this pasta shape? The package is no help. They are made in Gragnano, Italy, by Pastai Gragnanesi, and imported by AG Ferrari foods here in Northern CA.

I make a simple vegetarian tomato sauce from a Batali recipe, and my lasagna is vegetarian as well. No bechamel. Just modest amount of tomato sauce, three cooked pasta layers (each a double layer), the best ricotta I can buy, mozz, a little parmesan or pecorino, and one layer of spinach in the middle. If I'm feeling flush and have an extra hour to spare, I will saute fresh artichoke hearts, quartered, and then add them as well. Crunchy top layer of pasta is mandatory.

[slkinsey]

They are still lasagne -- just high quality dry lasagne.

Their web site calls it lasagna a sfoglia which doesn't mean anything special, it's just a way of saying "pasta for boiling in leaf (thin sheet) form. This is to differentiate it from pasta sfoglia ("thin sheets of dough") which is puff pastry.

[David Ross]

This should be fun. I imagine we'll see lots of variations of lasagna. I'll be into the challenge next weekend and I'll be sticking to a traditional rendition. I use a bolognese meat sauce and a bechamel sauce, dabs of butter and more parmesan than should be legal for a lasagna, (and homemade tomato sauce), so you can imagine how decadent it is!

It's a recipe out of the old Time-Life series of hard cover cookbooks the "Foods of the World," that came out in the 60's. My Mother was a member of the old Time-Life book club and she bought into most of the series and I've supplemented the missing editions out of her collection by scouring vintage bookstores. The lasagna recipe comes out of "The Cooking of Italy" edition.

[Katie Meadow]

Grazie, Sam.

[nakji]

Marcella Hazan decries the use of dried pasta at all for lasagna (though she accepts the dried in general), and instructs that you dunk it in cold water after boiling and bake for no more than... was it 15 minutes ?

Not only does she decry it, she writes,

Of course one can make lasagne, as I'm sure many will, utilizing packaged pasta from the supermarket. But those who do will have missed the point, as well as the pleasure.

I hate to be accused of missing the point! And I've never tried lasagne made with fresh pasta, so I can't help but feel I've been missing out on a whole lot of pleasure. I have a box of Barilla no-cook noodles in my cupboard, but I've been unimpressed with the results of using those. Unfortunately, I don't have other pasta options at my disposal.

May I call it lasagne if I use thinly sliced zucchini or eggplant? I press as much liquid out of the slices as possible, and grill them lightly before assembling the dish. (I use a bolognese sauce and spinach and ricotta.) Nah, I guess if the noodles are the lasagne, as slkinsey says, then my dish would have to be called Faux Lasagne (or maybe "Zuchini Sottilmente Affettato al forno").

I favour a mock-lasagne made with fresh vegetables over a poor-quality noodle version. I wonder if Marcella would concur?

[robirdstx]

Okay I'm in. Just received my copy of The Silver Spoon (a birthday gift from my son ). I will be making the Lasagne Alla Bolognese early next week.

I made my lasagne today. The recipe did not call for the fat to be drained off the meat so I didn't but I definitely will next time. The finished dish looked, and was, nice but ended up sitting in a pool of grease.

[Chris Amirault]

What kind of pasta did you use?

[robirdstx]

What kind of pasta did you use?

I made fresh pasta, which I parboiled for just a minute, then drained on a damp cloth. I think I had five or six layers of pasta. The outside crunchy parts were the best.

[Chris Hennes]

I agree, I'm a big fan of the crunchy parts. I often leave off whatever was supposed to go on the top layer and just leave the pasta bare so it crisps up.

[Nasi_Campur]

Reaally great step by step photo essay here!

And the result looks and sounds soo yummy! Thanks.

Edited March 4, 2010 by Nasi_Campur (log)

[Chris Hennes]

The recipe calls for 2 3/4 cups ground meat - any suggestions - I have ground chuck and ground veal.

I usually use a blend of beef, veal, and pork; I think this is traditional, or at least, it is traditional on the Italian side of my family. I've made it with just one or the other of them, and in the grand scheme of things it worked fine, but I prefer the texture of the bolognese when it includes all three of them.

[robirdstx]

The recipe calls for 2 3/4 cups ground meat - any suggestions - I have ground chuck and ground veal.

I usually use a blend of beef, veal, and pork; I think this is traditional, or at least, it is traditional on the Italian side of my family. I've made it with just one or the other of them, and in the grand scheme of things it worked fine, but I prefer the texture of the bolognese when it includes all three of them.

I ended up using 2/3 ground chuck and 1/3 ground veal. I had pork, and use it in my usual meat sauce for spaghetti, but the ragu alla bolognese recipe that I found elsewhere in The Silver Spoon specified ground steak so I left out the pork. I think I'll include the pork next time.

[robirdstx]

We reheated the second half of the lasagne tonight, minus the grease pool, and it was much better than the first night. The flavors were more developed and the pasta was firmer.

[Chris Hennes]

Did you reheat it in the oven, or the microwave?

[robirdstx]

Did you reheat it in the oven, or the microwave?

I reheated it, uncovered, in my toaster/convection oven at 300F for about 25 minutes. We even got some more crunchy parts!

[Blether]

Inspired by this recipe, I made lasanyuh du pesky.

- with seasonal baby clams, squid and piece of cod. Otherwise for ingredients I pretty much followed the recipe, with quantities by eye and seat-of-the-pants.

I don't hold with stewing the bejesus out of beautiful fresh fish, so where their method says "fry onions & garlic - add squid & shrimp, cook, add tomatoes, wine and other fish, stew", I did, fry onions & garlic - add squid, fry briefly - add tomatoes and wine, stew for 10-15 minutes - add clams and cod, cook a couple of minutes till clams warmed and cod done.

Again per the recipe, half the clam juices went in the seafood sauce, half in the bechamel. I seasoned the bechamel with a bay leaf.

Squid from the Japan Sea, baby clams from Aichi, Hokkaido cod:

Opening the clams in wine:

Precious clam meat:

Cleaned and skinned squid:

I wanted to cut the squid in very thin rings, about 1-2mm. So I did. Except I thought I'd also make half-depth cuts from head to tail, to increase surface area and give more texture - but my first head-to-tail cut went right through one side of the bag and into the one below, so that first one ended up in strips, and the others in plain rings. Just as well I wasn't using a high-performance Japanese knife, I might have cut my apartment in half.

Prepping the cod:

The pasta dough, I mixed up last night and rested overnight in the fridge. I made the dough up from 12oz of flour with four eggs (added one more after the first mix):

- and rolled it out today using my Mark 1 Wooden Pasta Machine:

In the meantime I made the seafood sauce:

One nice thing about the hand-rolled noodles is that you can cut your coat according to your cloth, as it were: each piece just the right size for the tin:

Assembled:

and baked:

The home-made pasta certainly is lush, and the seafood sauce very successful. I'm pleased that I got the seasoning in all the three elements just right and the consistency of both sauces spot on, and the whole thing is really delicious. Thinking I'd struggle to finish one, in the end I ate two whole portions.

The pasta off-cuts make tagliatelle which I'll leave out to dry on a wire rack:

Edited March 5, 2010 by Blether (log)

[Chris Hennes]

Very nice use of the Mark 1 - impressive to say the least. Did you blanch the pasta, or just layer it in raw?

[Blether]

Thanks, Chris. I blanched each sheet till it floated, dropped it in a bowl of cold water, rubbed my fingertips over it to get rid of any flour wash, and dried it in hand, on a teatowel. So much easier than (a) wrangling the hot stuff and (b) trying to cut the jigsaw pieces wet... once you get it all rolled out, of course

[Chris Hennes]

Did you cut it size after boiling it then? Or does it not expand much when you cook it? I always think I've got my lengths cut right, and I never actually do, after blanching...

[Blether]

I put the tray on the first (uncooked) pasta sheet and eyeballed for width, then did the same for length, and I winged it and cut it to be somewhere about 1/8" to 1/4" shorter and narrower than the inside of the base of the tin. That was about right - I wasn't cutting with a set square or anything, anyway.

Subsequent sheets, I used that first as a template - having made two, I cooked one up and fit it into the tin. That proved OK so I went at it. The tin being slightly flared, using previous sheets as a template for following ones worked out well.

ETA: I picked up the tin when I was out at the home centre on the holiday this Wednesday getting some new herb seedlings & whatnot.

Edited March 5, 2010 by Blether (log)

[elliotw1]

You're fortunate to have such a talented and thoughtful daughter! BRAVO, to you and to her.