NSC Recipe Time: LASAGNA

[Fourteenth Eye]

Nice one LB, like the sound of the way the bits of flavours get concentrated there. I make a veggie pasta sauce by cooking down courgettes for at least half an hour, you MUST get all of the latent water out of them, in oil and garlic then adding cream, which works a treat, the flavour of the courgettes is excellent.

As for making my own pasta, I really find it very tedious so don't bother. Interestingly enough I watched a program some time ago where the chef, I think was Giorgio Locatelli was critical of the UKs obsession with fresh pasta. He claimed that the best pasta for lasagne, tortellini, penne etc, was dried pasta by a mile, and that fresh pasta really was not the way to go unless you needed it for ravioli etc.

For me cooking is a hobby, as is food, I really won't eat processed pre-packed food, battery meat etc (see I am not only obsessed with footie shirts). I especially love cooking curries and barbeque food, we have 3 different types of bbq and use them all year round, come rain or shine.

He does you know

 

[Lord Bracknell]

As for making my own pasta, I really find it very tedious so don't bother. Interestingly enough I watched a program some time ago where the chef, I think was Giorgio Locatelli was critical of the UKs obsession with fresh pasta. He claimed that the best pasta for lasagne, tortellini, penne etc, was dried pasta by a mile, and that fresh pasta really was not the way to go unless you needed it for ravioli etc.

I can see his point about using dried pasta for lasagne. It is really difficult to roll fresh pasta thin enough and then cook it without it falling to pieces - the danger is that you end up with sheets that are so thick they might as well be dumplings, or so thin and fragile that you would have been better off aiming for tagliatelle in the first place.

It was my Italian landlady who taught me to make fresh pasta. She was Neapolitan by origin and she always turned it into ravioli.

 

[NMH]

Add a little soured cream to the meat, and a smidgeon of rosemary. Sprinkle a dusting of garlic powder on the pasta sheets.
Chop a yellow pepper and sprinkle into the meat sauce, and use sweet onions so every ingredient defines and stays delicate to taste.

I tend to like a sharpness to cheeses, so I might add some shavings from a sharper or more aged cheese, to the one you would normally use.

I also dislike that red oil oozing out of meat dishes, so I'd go for the leaner minced-meat and not use a pre-prepared bolognese sauce or anything.

 

[Yoda]

It was my Italian landlady who taught me to make fresh pasta. She was Neapolitan by origin and she always turned it into ravioli.

Did she add crumbled boiled eggs to her Lasagna?

 

[withdeanwombat]

Don't forget the dessert spoon of lazy chilliies,and ditto the lazy garlic.

 

[Lord Bracknell]

Did she add crumbled boiled eggs to her Lasagna?

Certainly not.

Mind you ... she wasn't perfect in the kitchen. I once told her that we English liked bread and butter and jam. She then cut a slice of bread, spread it with jam and placed a knob of butter ON TOP OF THE JAM.