Help me make a better lasagne.

Cafe Society
21

Best lasagna ever: Pizza, Pasta, Panini from the Angeli Caffe.

A couple of recommendations you might apply to your recipe:

[ul]
[li]Carmelize the onions. Carmelize the onions. Carmelize the onions. It makes all the difference.[/li][li]Go easy on the garlic, or roast it to take the bitterness out.[/li][li]Blanch and skin the tomatoes or use a food mill to remove the skins and seeds.[/li][li]Consider adding a little bit of fresh oregano and/or rosemary.[/li][li]As someone else mentioned, fresh egg pasta (a little laborous but not hard to make) will lighten it up considerably.[/li][li]Consider leaving out the meat, or precook ground sirloin as opposed to plain ground beef.[/li][li]Make a roux and add the cheese mascapone in it before applying to the lasagna. (It’ll give it more body with less “weight” and keep the flavors seperate, so when you bite into it you get the different layers of flavor rather than having them all mixed together.)[/li][li]Don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t used canned sauce, or tomato paste if you can at all help it. It makes a big difference.[/li][li]Serve with a good, appropriate wine. (Appropriate being what you think best enhances the flavor, not what some uppity winestia says is right.)[/li][/ul]

Mix and match as appropriate. YMMV.

Stranger

22

  • Don’t chop the garlic, and - do not - use one of those press thingamajiggies. Crush it, preferably using a mortar and pestle.

  • Don’t pre-boil the plates. The idea is for them to get taste from the white layer and the tomato sauce. If they’re pro-bioled, they’ll only taste like noodles.

  • Since the pasta is dry, you need to be liberal with the liquids, or everything will come out too dry. The white sauce and the red sauce needs to be very runny.

  • Cook it under aluminum foil. Add ½ hour under grill for browning at the end.

  • Stay away from traditional “Italian” spices- oregano, rosemary, basil, thyme. Good lasagna tastes of the food stuff, not the spices. Salt, pepper and garlic is more than enough.

  • To bad you don’t eat pork, or you could use my Secret Ingredient™: bacon. Try liquid smoke (even though it’s nowhere near as good).
    For a totally different take: Seafood lasagna.
    The white sauce as normal (cheese), but the other sauce made from a stock of white wine and crushed green pepper corns. Mix clams, shrimp and smoked salmon. Divine.

23

Just curious–I’m not contesting–but what difference does this make, exactly?

I have a press, which I use when I’m in a hurry and don’t want to bother skinning and mincing cloves. I really can’t tell the difference between garlic that is rammed through a press and garlic that is minced and mashed on the flat of a chef’s knife.

When I have the time, I like to slice the garlic, onionskin thin, like you see in Goodfellas, but that takes patience.

Stranger

24

You can sub in any other slightly fatty meat for the pork, if you wish. I recommend against turkey, because most ground/minced turkey in the US is just way too lean.

Marinara, the really non-cheater version. I’m not going to use a lot of measurements because everything is seasonably variable and just because I’ll use two heads of garlic does not mean everyone should.

In the morning, go out and pick as many really ripe tomatoes as you can from the garden. If you care, you can skin them by parboiling for a few seconds and rubbing off the skins. This will improve the result, but if you don’t have time you will still have edible sauce at the end of the day. Chop into smaller than thumb sized pieces and remove as many of the seeds as you can. Place all tomatoes in a big pot with at least two cups of liquid, preferably 1 3/4 cups of red wine and 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar. Set the tomatoes to simmer. Stir occasionally for the rest of the day or until the sauce reaches a consistency you like. In a small pan sauté onions and garlic in good olive oil. You can chop or mash the garlic however you like, I’m not religious on that topic. When done sautéing, add the garlic and onions to the tomatoes and stir. Give the sauce a good stir, check the flame under it and go out to the garden again to gather herbs. You will need (as much as you like of each) Basil, Thyme, Oregano, More Basil, Parsley (flat or curly is fine but not cilantro!), Rosemary, Sage (just a little), Fennel (if you like that sort of thing), more Basil and perhaps just a teeny pinch more of basil. Wash the herbs and chop them fine. Add to the pot. From the cupboard you can add dried garlic (yes, both fresh and dried; it provides a roundness of flavor I like), black pepper, a very, very tiny pinch of cloves and whatever dried herbs you didn’t have in the garden. You can also add sun dried tomatoes for a richer tomato flavor. Stir and watch, stir and watch. Chop the veggies. I use more onions, zucchini and whatever sounds interesting. My mother used celery, but the Devil’s Grandfather regards celery as anathema so I can’t. His mother added corn to marinara, which I regard as anathema, so we don’t use that either. Apparently some people, sad lonely people add roasted peppers or raw bell peppers to their marinara. I don’t know why, it’s not like bell peppers are even a food. I like to add chopped mushrooms, mostly porcini. I tried shitake mushrooms once, but he thought the result was not “Italian” enough. Whatever. Taste. If it needs salt (and it will, if you have not used any canned ingredients) you can either add grated parmesan or table salt. I like Parmesan better. One of my friends will run the sauce through a blender at this point, but I hate that. If I have to eat veggies, I at least want to know what’s there. Taste, add more wine or vinegar as needed and wait until it is the right consistency.

25

That sounds like a nice meal to make for a dinner party. :wink:

Thanks for all the suggestions, I’ll probably end up trying them out on the SO, so, if you hear of a doper in the UK, with gastro-intestinal problems, it may well be my fault. :wink:

26

Mind you, I can’t explain why, it’s just that in my experience, you get more flavor for less odor when crushing the garlic. Or put it another way. Two crushed cloves will give as much taste as four pressed, and the smell on your breath will not be as noticable. It also makes for a rounder taste, not as sharp as with pressed.

Finely sliced is great, but takes a lot of time, which is why crushing is a good compromise.

27

My methods are pretty simple, but I make massive quantities of lasagna at a time (4-5 standard pans, and 4-5 “loaf” pans worth for the freezer)

I make my standard red sauce. Oil, garlic (lots), onions (lots). Add crushed tomatoes (canned if not in season), add basil, oregano, and rosemary. Simmer for a couple of hours. For this purpose I make it a bit more watery than I would if I was going to use it for standard pasta.

While this is simmering, I make a couple of baking sheets worth of meatballs, and cook off about 4-5 lbs of sausages on the grill. Once everything is cooked, and cooled, I slice into pieces, and set aside.

I then get all my cookware together, and put my ricotta in a large mixing bowl. I then (this comes from an aunt of an Italian/greek gal I dated) add enough of my red sauce to make the whole mixture “pink” (this is subjective, but usually about 1cup to 1 large ricotta container 32oz (?) ).

Grease the pans, add a light layer of red sauce to the bottom, and layer on uncooked lasagna noodles (I like Prince, but other brands work fine). Then layer on some of the ricotta/red sauce mixture, add a layer of meats, then cheese. repeat the layering until it’s just below the top of the pan. Top with straight red sauce (enough to fill in all the air voids) press down (a bit messy), and sprinkle on more cheese.

For cheeses I use a combination of Mozzarella purchased at the deli (cut about 1/4" thick) and shredded pizza blend cheese.

Repeat untill out of ingredients! Bake and enjoy! (I like to let mine sit in the fridge for about 12-24 hours before cooking, but it’s not required). They will freeze well if wrapped tighly for about a year, but I’ve had some that sat in the freezer for longer.

It may not be the best in the world, but it’s better than most I’ve had at resturants, better than the FIL’s (professional cook, he’s given up making this after having mine), and does not have the huge clumps of dry ricotta that I loathe. My Brother-in-law gladly takes these as payment for HVAC work at my house! :slight_smile:
Good luck!

28

Lasagne can be frozen?

29

It is. I make massive amounts of lasagna just like butler1850. They freeze well, if you do not use tinfoil pans. I take one to my mother when I visit so she can have dinner parties witout having to cook. Add salad and bread and you’ve got a party.

30

Yes, Put saranwrap (plastic wrap) over the top. On top of the plastic wrap put a note of what’s in the lasagna (like if you tried a new ingredient or made a vegetarian lasagna). Cover tightly with tin foil and freeze. Make sure the lasagna is flat in the freezer so sauce doe not leak. Once solidly frozen, you can store it on it’s side.
Don’t allow the tinfoil to come into contact with the acidic tomato sauce.

31

I think I’m going to cry. :frowning:

Never mind. Everybody has their own opinions on taste, and you should do what you like, not what someone else tells you to do.

Even if it’s Velvetta and bologna sandwiches on Wonder Bread. :dubious:

Stranger

32

I’m sorry, Stranger. I don’t understand. What’s wrong with bread?

33

I apologize. That was really uncalled for.

The problem, IMHO, with bread, is that you already have one starch (the egg noodles or lasagna plates) and it is generally recommended by epicures to avoid serving two starches in one course, e.g. rolls with potato leek soup or bread with pasta. It just makes the course, well, too starchy, palate-drying, whatever you want to call it. When someone says “pasta” and “bread” in the same sentance I get a vision of people mopping up greasy institutional marinara with flavorless, floppy crusted “french” bread.

YMMV, and I have plenty of food habits that would turn a gourmand’s stomach right through his pancreas[sup]*[/sup], so I should just shut the hell up before I become more of a hypocrit. :smack:

Stranger

  • So does every cook and chef I’ve ever worked with or known well enough to find out. Making “fancy” food all day sometimes makes you just want to open up a can of tuna over the sink and eat with Wheat Thins and Newcastle. Not that I would do such a thing…no siree. :o
34

It’s Ok, Stranger. I thought it might be the starch, but I wasn’t sure. I thought you might be on the Atkins. If you have not, you must really watch a movie called Big Night. There’s a long scene about starch that’s hysterically funny.
Anyway, starchy objections aside, good bread can go very well with lasagna, specially if you go a little overboard with the sauce. Besides, since mom decided she doesn’t like to cook anymore, salad and bread are the only options for her.

What do other people use for side dishes with Lasagna?

35

Heavens, no; I’m all for fighting against ignorance. :smiley:

An absolutely fantastic movie. Another good food-themed film is Bella Martha. Good, realistic kitchen work, and I love the scene where she slams a raw steak on the table in front of a customer who chronically complains that the steak isn’t rare enough.

I never thought it needed one. A little wine, a plate of lasagna, and I’m set for the evening. But I’m kind of a minimalist.

Stranger

36

Salad, bread (unless stranger is coming to dinner! :slight_smile: ), perhaps a few extra meatballs, and perhaps some additional red sauce. We often have lasagna as one of many dishes at family gatherings, but that’s a different kind of dinner.

Most certainly! A very nice feature, as it takes about as much effort to make 5 lasagnai (plural :cool: ) as it does to make just one. They can be popped right into the oven and cooked off cold from the freezer (I start them low, then crank the heat to “brown” the top). I just remove the plastic wrap, and replace it with some foil “tented” over the top (don’t want it to stick to the cheese!)

37

Cool. I’ll add it to my must-see list. And as long as we’re hijacking, do you know the title of a Norwegian film about food that came out last year, or maybe the year before? My brother in law recommended it, but of course I promptly forgot the title.

38

adds thread to list of reasons why I love the SDMB

39

It sounds like sacrilege, but I recently tried a neat mixture- silken tofu mixed with frozen spinach made a wonderful glop to put between layers.

40

That looks really good, similar to a recipe I tried recently with good results. On your site, you mention a chicken parmigiana recipe too. Got that handy?
:slight_smile: