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Lasagne Recipe
Lasagne, dear reader, is the path to someones heart. And that someone is looking at you right now. This is a dish that is made once a year - Christmas day. That's a great tradition because you look forward to this all year.
Men - there is nothing like a deep dish of piping hot lasagne to bowl the ladies over.
Ladies - there's nothing like a deep dish of piping hot lasagne to keep a man away from that footbal game or computer screen.
And there is nothing more of a test of love, because lasagne is rather labor intensive. But hey, I did this with a baby in my arms one afternoon. And I was drunk....just kidding. Anyway, be brave. Good luck. Oh, wait a minute, a question....Lasagne is plural for what? We really don't know.
Makes about 6 - 8 servings depending on the size, weight and hunger of your guests.
- Flat noodles
- Sauce
- Meat balls
- Couple of links of sweet sausage
- Mozzarella
- Ricotta
- 2 Eggs
- Parsely
- A bunch of spices There are three steps to this dance - zee sauce, da meatballs and le lasagne.
First, zee sauce. So importante the sauce!
Zee ingrediants: Garlic, some onion, basil, salt, pepper, a few diced chile peppers, whole peeled tomatoes and paste in a tube.
This is our basic ItalianVillas.com sauce. We use this for anything we cook or bake that requires a sauce...pizza, lasagne, ravioli, meatloaf, omlettes...anything. First chop some onions and garlic, and cook them in a decent amount of olive oil until tender. Add diced (in big chunks) peeled tomatoes, and cook that for a while. Add the rest of the ingrediants (salt, pepper, pinch of sugar, chile peppers) to taste. Thicken the sauce with tomato paste. We prefer paste in a tube. Really convenient, stays fresh and kind of fun as you squeeze it out like you are about to brush your teeth. Thicken the sauce, turn it off and put it aside. You will be adding the meatballs and sausage to it.
Second, meatballs.
Ingrediants: Pound of ground pork, one egg, 1/4 cup grated parmesian cheese, 2 tablespoons of diced parsley, 1/4 cup bread flakes.
Mix all the dry ingrediants into the ground pork, and mix the egg into it thoroughly. Make your balls, any size will do. Saute in some olive oil until golden brown, "golden meatball brown" is the technical color. It is important to NOT cook thoroughly. Brown some sausage in the skillet after removing the meatballs. Dump both meatballs and sausage into your sauce and cook for a while with the sausage. About 20 - 30 minutes will do fine.
Third, making your lasagne.
Ingrediants: Flat noodles, sauce, meat balls, chunks of fresh mozzarella and about 1 pound of ricotta cheese.
The noodles must be cooked less than al dente. Slightly limp, not done because they will continue cooking in the oven. Put them under cold water to halt the cooking and toss the cold wet noodles with some olive oil for purposes of non stick. In a separate bowl thoroughly mix a pound of ricotta, one egg and 2 tablespoons of parsely.
Now get your deep baking dish and start the layering that makes lasagne, "lasagne." On the bottom of the pan spread a thin layer of sauce and place a layer of noodles on the bottom, spread all of the ricotta mixture, another layer of lasagne noodles, 1/2 of the mozzarella cheese (cut into midsize chunks). Next a layer of the meat - slices of the meatballs and chunks of the sausage, a thicker layer of sauce, and then the rest of mozzarella cheese on top with sprinkle of parmesian cheese. We LOVE cheese.
Bake for one hour at 350 degrees covered with aluminum foil, last 15 minutes uncovered. That's it. Alot of work, but pretty tasty.
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