Is there anything better than coming home to the smell of lasagna cooking? On the eve of our Italian vacation, we have been obsessing over all things, well, Italian and as such our culinary hearts have followed suit. So enjoy our experimental Lasagna, let's hope both the lasagna and our vacation turn out great.
Research:
We turned to the very Italian Martha Stewart ;). But seriously, we have come to realize that she seems to have the most consistent recipes if you are going to just pick one and go with it. We used this one.
Plan:
Gather the following ingredients:
1 pound of lasagna noodles. Get fresh pasta if you can, as you may have read on previous posts, it makes a big difference.
Salt
5 - links of Italian sausage. I recommend a mixture of sweet and spicy.
1 egg
1 lb of ricotta cheese
3/4 cup of pecorino romano - freshly grated
5 cups of Italian tomato sauce
1 lb fresh mozzarella
extra virgin olive oil
Italian tomato sauce:
1.5 tbsp spoons of extra virgin olive oil
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1/8 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1 - 28oz can of great canned tomatoes
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp butter
First the sauce:
Mince the garlic then coat a saucepan in olive oil. Add garlic and red pepper and swirl until garlic just starts to cook (smells great but isn't brown yet). Add everything else and raise the heat. Let simmer 30 minutes.
Then the lasagna:
It will be best to cover in detail in the execution because we need to build it. The short version is brown the sausage meat, cook the noodles, assemble the lasagna in a 9X13 baking dish and cook uncovered for 40 minutes at 350.
Execution:
First, you must start with a Chianti. Mostly because being from the South it is the only Italian wine I automatically associate with Italian food as that ubiquitous round bottle covered in twine always seen on the red checkered table cloths that seemed to be required at every Italian style restaurant.
I'll know much more about that in a few weeks.
Now to work... First:
Mince the garlic
Add the other ingredients and let cook for 30 minutes. While waiting for that...
Break apart and saute the sausage
In a medium bowl mix the egg, the ricotta and 1/2 cup of the pecorino
Cook the noodles and then pat dry
Then assemble!
Layer of sauce
Layer of noodles
Layer of sausage
Layer of sauce
Layer of noodles
Smooth on the ricotta with maybe a little mozzarella for good measure
Add another layer of noodles
Then sauce
Then the mozzarella and the remaining pecorino
Place in the oven at 350 for 40 minutes. Note the pan below the baking dish just in case
Oh my.
Verdict:
Well, that was about the best thing I have ever had. We are looking forward to our trip and this meal set the mood. Please make this one!