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.

Related posts:

1. How to Cook Creamy Baked Noodles with Eggplant and Cheese
2. How to Cook Pasta with Meat Sauce
3. How to Cook Pasta with Vegetable
4. How to Cook Stuffed Pasta with Sauce
5. How to Cook Penne with Tomato Sauce

Ingredients you will require:

For making the pasta:

• 200 grams of plain flour, plus some extra for dusting
• 3 eggs, one of them beaten for the eggwash

For making the stuffing:

• 1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh basil
• 1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh parsley
• ½ tablespoon chilli flakes
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• ¼ savoy cabbage, sliced finely
• 100 grams gorgonzola
• salt to taste and some freshly ground black pepper

For making the sauce:

• 8 fresh sage leaves, chopped finely
• 125 grams butter

Method:

• Put the flour into a food processor. Crack two eggs and add it in. Now start the machine to create dough.
• Dust some flour on a flat surface and tip the dough into it. Knead this dough till it is elastic and smooth. Wrap with a cling wrap and let it rest at room temperature for about 10 to 15 minutes.
• Use a pasta machine and roll the dough. Go from the largest setting possible toward the thinnest. Cut the sheets in halves lengthwise. Lay it on the lightly floured surface for 15 minutes and let it dry.
• Mix parsley, one tablespoon olive oil and basil in a bowl.
• Heat the leftover olive oil in a frying saucepan and fry the cabbage and chili flakes for 5 minutes or till it softens. Remove from heat and let it cool a bit.
• Take the cabbage mixture along with the herbs and the oil, and put it in a bowl. Add the gorgonzola along with it. Mix this well. Add salt and freshly ground pepper to this for taste.
• Take a tablespoon of stuffing mix and place it on a pasta sheet and leave space of about 15 centimeters between each spoon of stuffing.
• Smear the pasta with a beaten egg around the sides and between each spoonful of stuffing that you laid. Place the second pasta sheet on top of this; press down carefully and gently around the edges making sure there are no air gaps left.
• Use a pasta cutter or a pasta wheel to cut the pasta from around the stuffing.
• Boil salt water in a large saucepan and cook the pasta in this for about 2 minutes. Drain while reserving about 3 tablespoons of the water.
• For the sauce, take a small pan and heat some butter in it. Wait for the butter to melt. Add the sage leaves and water you saved earlier from the pasta, and warm it.
• Add all the pasta in the pan and stir it. This should coat the pasta in sauce.
• This recipe will serve two people.

Related posts:

1. How to Cook Pasta with Meat Sauce
2. How to Cook Baked Pasta
3. How to Cook Pasta with Vegetable
4. How to Cook Penne with Tomato Sauce
5. How to Cook Salt Cod in Tomato Sauce