Lasagna: A Super Group

The super group is a venerable tradition in Rock and Roll. Performers in a range of groups get together and form a group made of up many recognizable musicians. As super groups are to music, lasagna is to A Year From Scratch. Made up of tomato paste, fresh pasta, and ricotta cheese (and a couple of other things), lasagna is the first dish on the site to make use of several previous projects.

This is also going to be a recipe where I don't actually include a recipe. A couple of guidelines maybe, but no recipe. 

Start by making the tomato sauce.

You can put whatever you'd like in it, it's not unusual to include heavy cream and ground meat. I used beef, but veal and pork, or a mix of the three would be great too.

Next, make the fresh pasta. If you have an attachment that makes lasagna noodles, all the power to you. If you don't, just roll it out thin, thinner than you think you should. The wavy sides aren't really necessary for a good lasagna.

 

Throw the pasta into salted boiling water, and while it cooks mix up your cheese.

You'll want to use about 1/2 cup of parmesan cheese for each cup of ricotta, and will need 1 1/2 to 2 cups of ricotta for the lasagna. Add salt and your favorite herbs and mix for the cheese layer.

Now, lay down some sauce, pasta, cheese, add some mozzarella, then repeat (sauce, pasta cheese) until you're out of those things. Top with some extra mozzarella.

Throw the whole thing in a 375 degree oven for about an hour, covered in foil. Then remove the foil and cook for another 15 minutes or so. And behold.

This is not a particularly quick project, but it's worth it for the sense of accomplishment you get knowing you made pretty much everything except the parmesan and mozzarella cheese. 

Comments

[David!!]

Looks delicious.

Yup. That's my insightful comment.

[Brian]

One of the great advantages of using fresh pasta for lasagna is that, if you let your pasta sauce be a bit looser (i.e. has more water) than you want in the final sauce, then you don't have to pre-cook the pasta. In my experience, that saves you from the most annoying part of the lasagna cooking process.