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Can lasagna be unequivocally called an appetizer? Perhaps opinions will differ here. My opinion is that it goes well with cold beer, I haven’t tried it with other drinks. Most recently, for the first time, I tried to cook classic Italian lasagna with minced meat, of course, from the available ingredients. I had sheets, and instant ones, which do not need to be pre-boiled. The name is “Pastadel Levante” (Subitoinforno). As for the filling, I did without tomato and wine, and it still turned out very tasty. I can say that cooking lasagna at home is an interesting, fairly simple and a bit laborious process 😉
1. Sheet preparation
I lightly watered the sheets and after a few minutes they started to curl, so it’s best to do this right before putting the ingredients into the pan. Sheets that require pre-cooking should be boiled (or kept in boiling water) following package instructions.
For 600 grams of minced meat, about 10 sheets. The amount depends on the size of the baking dish and the desired height of the dish, as well as on what recipe and how to make lasagna. I got three layers of sheets, 4 in each layer.
2. Cooking lasagna at home: cooking Bolognese
Ingredients:
- Minced meat (pork, pork / beef, etc.) – 500-700 grams, more, depending on your appetites;
- Tomatoes – 5-6 pieces;
- Dry wine (white, red) – 100 ml;
- Vegetable and butter – a few tablespoons each;
- Onions – 2-3 pieces, a little more can be;
- Garlic – 2 cloves;
- Greens (parsley, basil, etc.)
- Salt, pepper, spices to taste.
To begin with, we prepare the tomatoes: we make a cross-shaped incision on the stalk, dip in boiling water, then in cold water and remove the skin. Grind in a blender and set aside. Finely chop the onion, chop the herbs and garlic.
In a deep frying pan, heat the butter and vegetable oil (together), fry the onion until soft / transparent, add 1 clove of garlic to it and fry for another minute. Put the mixture of onion and garlic on a plate, leaving as much oil as possible in the pan.
Next, in the same pan, fry the minced meat, kneading it and stirring it so that it becomes homogeneous and fine-grained. When the minced meat is ready, add a mixture of onions and garlic, tomatoes, wine to it and simmer for several minutes. At the end, add chopped greens and a clove
I did not add tomatoes and wine, instead I put one package of tomato paste (70 g) and stewed longer. It turned out very tasty 😉 You can say that I used a simple lasagna recipe that can hardly be called classic.
So, we prepared Bolognese (by the way, you can look at the classic recipes for this sauce, as this is just one of the options), set aside.
3. Cooking lasagna at home: cooking Bechamel
Ingredients:
- Milk – 800-1000 ml;
- Butter – 100 gr;
- Flour – 80-100 gr;
- Salt, pepper, nutmeg.
We heat the butter in a saucepan; Slowly add the flour to the melted butter, stirring constantly. Slowly pour 300 milk into the finished mixture, also stirring constantly; we get a fairly thick homogeneous mixture. Then gradually pour in the remaining milk, stirring, of course 😉 Bring to a boil, boil for 5 minutes over low heat. Season with salt, pepper, nutmeg, add 50 g of butter and cover. We set aside.
! The sauce will thicken as it cools, so don’t rush to add flour if it’s runny. I had the opposite situation – it turned out thick, I had to add water, since all the milk was gone even before that. In general, a slightly thinner sauce is better for lasagna than a very thick one. The recipe for lasagna with bechamel sauce suggests that you will pour this bolognese sauce over it, and not spread it in pieces 😉
4. Assemble the lasagna
Cheese! Before you collect lasagna, you need to grate hard cheese in the right amount. It takes about 300 grams, you can take more or less. It is better to take, of course, one of the Italian hard cheeses, but you can get by with more inexpensive analogues.
At the bottom of the mold we put a rather thick layer of bechamel sauce and lay the sheets on it in such a way that the gap between the dough and the sides is minimal. We lay out part of the bolognese, pour over the bechamel.
! Now is the time to think about cheese… Some people only put grated cheese at the end, as a top layer, while others prefer to put it in each layer. I sprinkled cheese on each layer, i.e. sheets-bolognese-bechamel-cheese-sheets. So the dish will turn out to be more satisfying, though you won’t eat a lot of it.
If with cheese, then sprinkle bechamel with grated cheese and put sheets on top. So we do several layers. The last layer is sheets, bechamel, cheese (without bolognese). I lightly pressed the sheets of each layer with my palms to even out the lasagna.
5. Baking
Bake the lasagna for 30-60 minutes, the cheese on top should be covered with a golden crust. We take the dish out of the oven and let it rest for 10-15 minutes, after which we cut it into portions and enjoy our work – homemade lasagna in Bechamel sauce is ready!