Lasagne

Last saturday some girl-friends willfully offered their hands to me, just to taste once again my wonderful pastalforno, also known as Lasagne(sorry, no piccies of them)... being my pretty lady there, I could not accept any of these offer (I'm glad for receiving them though!), but I nonetheless promised that I'd let them know how to prepare their own...

and here I am.

let's start. You need three things, other than slab-shaped pasta, to make a good dishful: ragu', a.k.a. Bolognese, Besciamella's sauce, which sounds italian but it's french in origins, and some more fillings.

First, the ragu': my mum makes it light, so get away from pre-made bolognese sauce you can buy in the market, they're just choke-full of meat and waaay too heavy. just get some minced meat, beef but also pork or turkey are good choices, let's say 200gr. that should be enough to make a lot of sauce. last time, I stir fried 200gr of turkey with some oil, finely chopped onion, a leaf of laurel and a garlic clove until the meat was cooked. then i poured in a big can of tomatoes (800gr). after that, you're pretty much done. add salt as you like, and may be some nut-meg powder. add whatever spice you like 'cause the more, the merrier the sauce. do not exagerate with quantities, though. spices are there to enhance flavour, not to cover everything else. this is particularly true for chilli. I dropped a whole dry chilli in the sauce. let it simmer until the tomato is cooked, and the sauce is not too thick... I'd give you a viscocity number but have no viscosimeter in my kitchen (yet)...

Then the besciamella/bechamelle... you can buy it, sure, but it's not worth a dime compared to the one you can make yourself: you just need butter, milk, flour and nutmeg (again!)... melt the butter and make a slurry (chemical term for paste) with the flour... let's say 50gr of butter, one spponful of flour... once the slurry is homogeneous, add the milk slowly, keeping the whole thing warm, but not boiling.
always stirring to avoid the flour to aggregate, add some nutmeg powder, then a pince of salt. stir and stir and stir while the milk evaporates, until the sauce reaches the correct viscosity... now you're in business!

oh, you need the filling, I'd go for cooked/roasted ham slices, and some more cheese - emmenthal is a good choice, or some grated mozzarella for pizza.

and the pasta, of course, emiliane barilla or whatever brand you favour...

just layer them down raw, or pre-cook them if you think one of your sauces is a bit too thick and may not have enough water to cook them once in the oven...

anyway, now layer down in a square oven pan, alternating them, ragu''n'besciamella (mix them with a spoon, pasta, ham'n'cheese, and again and again... after four or five layer, you should have enough...

layer some pasta on the top, and cover the whole thing with the leftover ragu'n'bechamelle... don't exagerate...

now, you can keep it in the fridge for half a day or some more, to let the sauces permeate the pasta...

or if you're in a hurry, just pre-heat the oven at 180, and stick the pan inside for, like, 45 minutes...

check half way through, the sauces should start to boil away, and the pasta on top should not burn, but get colored...

then the bell rings, take it out and enjoy!!! ciao!