I made Lasagna last month and it turned out pretty awful. The meat sauce was so-so and was too salty. We ended up with a yuks Lasagna.
Earlier this week I found an Italian food website with a Family Style Lasagna recipe. I thought of giving it a go again yesterday and it turned out YUMMY!
Recipe Serves 2 to 3 (made some minor changes to the original recipe)
Meat Sauce:
Onion, Finely chopped
Carrots & frozen peas
1/2 lb minced meat & 6 pork sausage links (no casing)
Olive oil & butter
White wine
Salt, pepper & red crushed pepper
1/2 chicken / beef stock cube (depends on type of minced meat you are using)
Half & Half - you can use heavy cream too
1 cup Parmigiano cheese
Heat the butter and oil in a heavy saucepan over medium heat. Add the chopped vegetables and sauté until softened.
Add the ground meat and sausage meat - cook for about 10 minutes or until the meat is fully cooked and browned bits begin to form along the bottom.
Add the wine to the pot and let evaporate, stirring up the browned bits.
Add the tomatoes and let it simmer. Season to taste, and add stock cube.
Cover and simmer another 20 - 30 minutes, adding additional seasoning if needed.
Add enough cream to lighten the color in the last 5 minutes of cooking. Remove from heat.
Béchamel Sauce:
2 Tablespoons Unsalted Butter
1/8 Cup All-purpose Flour
3/4 Cup Milk
Salt
Melt the butter in a heavy saucepan over medium heat.
Add the flour (I sifted it first) and cook for a minute or two. Do not let brown! Slowly add the milk, stirring constantly to prevent lumps.
Continue stirring until the sauce thickens. Season with salt.
Set aside to cool (you can place a greased piece of plastic wrap on top to prevent film from forming)
It takes alot of patience to make the sauce. You just have to make sure the heat is not too hot to burn the sauce and no lumps of flour in it. It’s all worthwhile once you taste it.
Pasta
I used oven-ready lasagna sheets, so no prior cooking of pasta required. Does save me alot of time.
Assemble Lasagne
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Spoon in 1 small scoop of sauce (without meat) and spread across the bottom of the dish. Place 1 layer of lasagne noodles to cover the bottom.
Next spoon a little of the meat sauce to cover. Add another layer of noodles.
Next spread a layer of the béchamel sauce and sprinkle some of the cheese on top.
Continue in this manner until all the layers are complete.
The top layer is a spread of meat sauce, a couple of dabs of the béchamel, and then a good sprinkling of the cheese.
Bake for about 25-30 minutes or until bubbling and browned on top. Allow to sit 10 minutes before serving.
Taster’s comments:
The creamy meat sauce taste very good.
Bechamel sauce adds alot of flavour and creamy texture to the lasagna - I should have made a thicker layer of sauce.
The top cheese layer is abit hard - over baked, maybe 20 minutes would be good.
Yum yum
Give this recipe a try if you have yet to find a good lasagna recipe (or send me yours if you have a better one). You can find the original recipe here.
