March 3, 2012
This recipe comes from the Bologna region of Italy. One of my missonary companions got the recipe from a Bolognese lady, who taught him how to make it. Then he taught me. I copied the recipe onto a 3 by 5 card. I lost the card for a while, so I had to recreate the recipe from memory. I did a pretty good job.
Then I found the card again. Here's the real recipe.
We start by putting on the water to boil (two quarts of water and 1 1/2 t of salt) and preheating the oven to 430 to 450 °F.
Now we make the sauce. You will need:
Chop the onion, the carrot, the celery stalk, and the parsley into tiny pieces using a chef's knife (you know, the big one) or a mezzaluna. (I'll talk about the blender alternative in a minute.) Heat 2 T olive oil in a skillet; add the onion, carrot, celery, parsley and 1 t salt. Brown lightly, and then add the tomatoes, breaking them up with a spatula or wooden spoon.
In a separate skillet, brown 2 T butter and 2 T olive oil. When it's gotten nice and brown, add the ground beef. Brown at HIGH for 3 to 5 minutes, then add it to the tomatoes. Add the basil and oregano. Add salt to taste. Heat to boiling (unless you're going to do the blender step here), then reduce heat and let simmer until most of the water has boiled off the top. You don't want watery sauce in your lasagne.
Here's the deal with the salt: if you don't add any salt, the sauce will taste surprisingly bland. Flat. Weak. Wimpy! If you add too much salt, it overpowers the other flavors. You want to add just enough salt to bring out the flavors of the ingredients, but not so much that you taste the salt. It should taste like a particularly delicious glass of V8. (What? You don't like V8?)
And here's the deal with the blender: I like my sauce with tiny chunks in it. Not big chunks, but stuff the size of chopped nuts. That's the way Elder Korth taught me. When my kids were young, they hated chunks of vegetable, especially onions. If they detected a chunk of vegetable, they would stop eating the lasagna right there. So, to accommodate them, we incorporated a "blender" step: After adding the meat to the tomatoes, pour the whole mixture into a blender and puree it. Then pour it back into the saucepan, add salt to taste, and carry on as described above. The air bubbles that the blender added to the sauce will work themselves out while the sauce simmers. (After the kids grew up, we went back to the chunky sauce.)
The best noodles to use are either homemade, or the flat lasagne noodles (egg noodles) you find in the refrigerated section of your grocery store. They're nice and thin, and they cook up quickly. Or you can use the regular American lasagna noodles. You'll need 1 pound (yes, a whole pound) of egg noodles, or two boxes of the regular American noodles.
Before you start, lay out two or three damp dish towels on the counter. Only cook 3 or 4 noodles at a time; otherwise, they stick together and become difficult to manage. The noodle is done when it is "al dente": when you bite off a corner of the noodle, it is firm between your teeth, and there's no uncooked part at the center of the noodle. Egg noodles cook REALLY fast; dry noodles cook somewhat slower.
As each noodle is done, remove it from the water and lay it flat on a damp cloth, then put another noodle into the boiling water. You can start building the layers while the noodles are boiling; you don't need to boil all the noodles first.
Notice that I haven't included ricotta. You shouldn't either. Ricotta does nothing to enhance una bella lasagnata, and can in fact ruin it. I lived in Italy for two years, and never had ricotta in a lasagna.
The trick to this lasagna is making lots of thin layers. I made a lasagna for the mission president at one zone conference, and he raved about that lasagna until the day he died. It had somewhere between 8 and 16 layers of noodles in it. Most Americans get impatient, and only do 3 or 4 layers. That's why the egg noodles are so much better.
Get a 9 x 13 x 2 inch cake pan, glass or sturdy aluminum or steel, and grease the bottom and sides with butter. Or margarine. Not shortening, and not oil.
Lay the first layer of noodles on the bottom of the pan. Do not overlap the noodles. Some gaps are okay, unless you're a perfectionist.
Using a small ladle or a large spoon, spread some of the sauce on the noodles. If you're going to do lots of thin layers, then you will just "paint" the noodles with the sauce. Don't make it thicker than one chunk of vegetable.
(I'm telling you now so you don't forget: set aside a handful each of Swiss and Parmesan cheese for the besciamella sauce that goes on the top.)
Sprinkle a thin layer of mozzarella on top of the sauce, then a thin layer of Swiss, then a thin layer of Parmesan. Add another layer of noodles and repeat the process, over and over, until you're within 1/2 inch of the top of the pan. If you get impatient and only do 3 or 4 layers, you will be forgiven, but if you do 8 or more layers, your calling and election will be made sure. Don't use all the Swiss or Parmesan. Save a handful of each for the besciamella.
Make the besciamella and pour it over the final layer of noodles. (See below for the besciamella recipe.) At this point, you can either put the pan in the preheated oven, or cover it with foil and put it in the fridge for another day.
Put the pan in the oven and bake, uncovered, for 45 minutes to 1 hour. Keep an eye on it. You will know it is done when the besciamella starts browning in spots. Remove the lasagna before the brown spots turn black. (If you pulled it out of the fridge, add 20 to 30 minutes to the cooking time.)
After removing it from the oven, let the lasagna sit for about 10 minutes if you've got the willpower. This will make it easier to cut and serve, and it will let the cheese cool to a temperature somewhat below that of molten lava. Personally, I don't have that much willpower.
Melt the butter in a small saucepan. When it starts bubbling, add the flour and whisk until the mixture is smooth. Gradually add the milk, stirring constantly, and cook over medium heat, stirring slowly until the mixture starts thickening. REMOVE FROM HEAT FIRST, then stir in the cheeses, salt and pepper. Pour the besciamella over the lasagna while it's still hot.
The original recipe called for twice as much besciamella – an entire litre of milk and a half cup of butter. You're welcome to try it, but this is how much I like.
Created by Ray Depew, 3 Mar 2012