Some of pasta dishes are made with fresh pasta, others with dried, partially cooked pasta; all are substantial and also quite flexible. You can include almost anything you like in the layers of lasagne or the sauce for baked ziti.
Classic Lasagne
Spinach pasta is traditional, but you can use any pasta you like here. If you’re making fresh pasta, use a little more flour than called for in the recipe, about 3 cups. This makes stiffer dough that’s easier to handle. If you’re baking a frozen uncooked lasagne, start it in the cold oven, covered with foil, and figure at least an hour before it is heated through and ready to uncover and finish cooking (for as much as another 30 minutes).Bake precooked frozen lasagna the same way; only it will take just a few minutes after uncovering to get bubbly. Let’s have a look on how to cook baked pasta.
- Salt
- 1 recipe Fresh Spinach Pasta
- Fresh pasta dried lasagne noodles (about 1 pound)
- 1 recipe Béchamel Sauce, about 11/2 cups
- 2 tablespoons butter, softened, or extra virgin olive oil
- 3 cups, more or less, Meat Sauce, Bolognese Style
- 1 1/2 cups freshly grated Parmesan cheese
- Freshly ground black pepper
Methods:
- Get 6 quarts of water to boil in a large container and add salt to it. If you are using homemade fresh pasta, roll it out. Assuming your baking pan is 9 × 13 inches, make your pasta ribbons 26 inches long, and then cut them in half.
- You will still need to cut the noodles so that they fit reasonably snugly into your pan. Cook the noodles for few times. Keep them undercooked if they are fresh, this means little more than a minute of cooking time; a few minutes for dried. Drain carefully in a colander, and then lay them flat on towels. At this point, prepare the béchamel sauce if you have not done so already. Heat the oven to 400°F.
- Spread the bottom of the baking pan with butter or oil, and then put in a layer of noodles, touching but not overlapping. Trim any overhanging edges. Wrap the noodles with one-quarter of the béchamel, meat sauce, and Parmesan, then with a light sprinkling of black pepper, between the meat sauce and the Parmesan, there should be enough salt, but if you feel it is under seasoned, add a little salt to each layer also.
- Make 3 more layers, ending with a sprinkling of Parmesan. At this point, you may refrigerate the dish, well wrapped, for a day or freeze it for a month; defrost in the refrigerator for a day before cooking if possible.
- Bake for about 20 to 30 minutes, until the lasagna is bubbly. Take out from the oven and let them stay for 6 minutes. After that serve them. Or let cool completely, cover well, and put in fridge for at least 2 days or freeze for up to a month.
Vegetarian Lasagne: Replace Meat Sauce, Bolognese Style with 3 cups Mushroom Sauce or any vegetarian tomato sauce.
Classic Lasagne: Italian-American Style. Omit the béchamel. On each layer of the first 3 layers of noodles, spread about 1 cup ricotta (thinned, if necessary, with some of the sauce). Top the ricotta with meat sauce, the meat sauce with about a cup of grated mozzarella, the mozzarella with a sprinkling of Parmesan. On the top layer, omit the ricotta.
White Lasagne: Omit the meat sauce and double the béchamel. Proceed with the recipe. Especially, good with some ham and sautéed mushrooms or spinach nestled among the layers.
Pesto Lasagne: Substitute Traditional Pesto for all or half of the sauce, if you are using any tomato sauce, use Fast Tomato Sauce instead of the meat sauce. Additionally, substitute béchamel with 2 cups of ricotta. Alternate layers of pesto and tomato sauce if you’re not using all pesto.
