Italian lasagna recipe from folks here, tips please

rascal

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Does anyone have anything they think for me to make an authentic lasagna, I can giggle but I would like first hand tips.
Miss 12 is here for a few days and we are making it tomorrow. I have 1 kg of beef mince out,heap of tomatoes (tinned) milk etc. I’m making a proper bechamel sauce.

Russ
 
I usually use a home made spaghetti sauce, ricotta cheese and mozzarella cheese. It's just that simple. If your sauce is good, your lasagna will be good.

I layer the flat lasagna pasta with sauce, then ricotta, then mozzarella and keep adding layers with the top layer being exactly the same thing, sauce, ricotta, then mozzarella over all. I always bake lasagna.

Sometimes, I like to layer in some bacon, but that's not typical for lasagna.
 
I usually use a home made spaghetti sauce, ricotta cheese and mozzarella cheese. It's just that simple. If your sauce is good, your lasagna will be good.

I layer the flat lasagna pasta with sauce, then ricotta, then mozzarella and keep adding layers with the top layer being exactly the same thing, sauce, ricotta, then mozzarella over all. I always bake lasagna.

Sometimes, I like to layer in some bacon, but that's not typical for lasagna.

I never gave buying a bought sauce a thought, surely making from scratch would be better, ?
Do you think it would work.?

Russ
 
I never gave buying a bought sauce a thought, surely making from scratch would be better, ?
Do you think it would work.?

Russ

Bought sauces are hit or miss. Some are excellent. Most are flat. But to the point, your lasagna is for your tastes and the sauce is the most important part. So take control and make your own sauce, unless, you really like a certain store bought sauce. The choice is yours.
 
MyPinch should be along soon. :okay:

CD

Strangely (or perhaps not strangely?) I've never seen a lasagne recipe from MypinchofItaly...

For some reason its a dish I struggle with. It always tastes good but comes out as a sloppy mess. I suppose I'm doing something wrong but no lasagne I've ever made has had plate appeal. How does one get it to firm up so that it cuts properly?
 
Strangely (or perhaps not strangely?) I've never seen a lasagne recipe from MypinchofItaly...

For some reason its a dish I struggle with. It always tastes good but comes out as a sloppy mess. I suppose I'm doing something wrong but no lasagne I've ever made has had plate appeal. How does one get it to firm up so that it cuts properly?

Those immaculately-plated ones have been assembled on the plate layer-by-layer by food stylists.

You can get a decent approximation of that by refrigerating it first, then cutting it out and microwaving it.

If it's straight out of the oven, it's gonna be nigh-on impossible to make them Instagram-worthy. It will be a sloppy mess! (as the Lasagna Gods intended I suspect! :) )
 
rascal what kind of lasagna sheets are you going to use? Fresh (I mean homemade) or the dried ones?
Fresh make a traditional lasagna although the dried one can get a very good result if following few advices, namely blanch the dried pasta for a couple of minutes and no longer, drain it, then run it under cold water and drain it again.
After that, sprinkle a little sauce and béchamel on the bottom of the baking tray, then start layering. No baking paper on the bottom.

My advice is 3 layers would be perfect.

Good sense says to do not use too much liquid sauce in the lasagna or it will become too mushy. The sauce has to be thick.
Good alternative to bechamel sauce is surely fresh mozzarella or mozzarella di bufala. Watch out since both need to be squeezed properly before using and adding them to the layers, they release too much liquid.
If you don't want to use béchamel, a mixture made with ricotta cheese and a dash of milk will be fine and lighter.

Little trick: Once you have prepared the lasagne, wait at least half an hour or a whole hour before putting it in the oven.
Preheat the oven to 180 C.

A curiosity: the real original Lasagna Bolognese is not made with egg pasta but with spinach pasta, called Lasagna Verde (Green Lasagna). But nowadays everyone makes the ones with egg pasta (me included :) )

Good Luck! I hope I have been helpful
 
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Definitely make your own ragú - it´s just got to be superior to a bought sauce. Same goes for the bechamel.
As for the lasagna sheets, avoid those which are "ready for the oven". They´re not.
An Italian friend recently told me that, when cooking lasagna sheets, just add a tiny bit of oil to the water. This prevents the sheets from sticking together when cooking. I´d always thought this was a no-no for pasta, but I can see the logic with lasagna.
Making a lasagna is a labour of love; it´s time consuming, so well worth using first class ingredients.
The other advice I´d add is NOT to overdo the ragú sauce or the bechamel.Just enough sauce to cover the pasta sheets, just enough bechamel to moisten. That way you avoid what MG describes as a sloppy mess. It is, after all, a pasta dish, not a sauce dish. I seem to remember a notable Italian chef ( maybe it was Carlucci) once saying that pasta drowning in sauce was an abomination!
 
Always home made sauce, sometimes béchamel when I have time, usually only on a Sunday...Home made pasta...if you leave it rest for about an hour will set and be able to portion neatly...any lasagne I've had in Italy has been a mess, but it's about the flavour and texture..just a plate of pasta, after all..
 
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