Hello everyone. Hope you're all having a wonderful week start. I haven't post in this community in a while but I'm happy to finally share something again. I'm a huge lasagna fan and I just can't get enough of it, I remember back when I was a young boy whenever we went out with my family to eat at some restaurant I would order lasagna and they were always like "again!?". As an adult i don't prepare it all the time cause I'm a little more aware of what i put into my body and I'm currently trying to eat a little bit healthier, but i did enjoy this one and i hope you guys enjoy it as well.
The first thing we have to do is prepare the lasagna pasta, I know that many people prefer to buy it and that is fine because it saves time, but doing it at home is very simple and here I show you how.
We are going to weigh two eggs, and we will add twice the weight of the eggs in wheat flour.
In my case, my two eggs weighed 101 grams, so I added 202 grams of wheat flour.
Add a teaspoon of salt.
Two tablespoons of olive oil.
Mix.
Knead until you get a smooth and soft dough. About 3 minutes will be enough, the important thing is to make sure that everything is well integrated.
Put some flour on the counter and then roll out the dough with the help of a rolling pin.
You can be guided by the thickness of the mold that you will use and make cuts with a similar size.
You are going to place a pot with plenty of water and you will add a teaspoon of salt and a teaspoon of vegetable oil. Once it begins to boil, you will add each pasta (one by one) and cook them for about 3 minutes.
After cooking each pasta make sure to add cold water above each one so it doesn't overcook.
One trick I learned to make delicious raisin lasagna is to simply let it toast a bit. That's right, you are going to place a 1/4 cup of vegetable oil in a pot and later you will add the meat, without giving it so many turns, you are going to let it cook well.
I prefer to prepare the onion separately. In this case we are looking for a golden onion, so we will add it in a pot with enough oil and leave it to cook over low heat and wait for it to take on a golden hue.
This is how the meat should look like, of course there's no wrong or right way, i just tried this way and i loved it.
Add the onion...
I like to add a little tomato, chopped into not so small pieces, although if you prefer you can simply grate it.
Filetto sauce... You can also use tomato paste and add a little basil, salt and a touch of sugar.
This is how it looks once ready. As you can see, i like it simple.
Now it is time to prepare the bechamel sauce and for that we are going to place 45 grams of butter in a pot and once it melts, add 45 grams of wheat flour. Mix well and cook for about 3 minutes, this is necessary so that the béchamel sauce does not taste like flour.
Now we can add the milk. I used half a liter. Mix well nonstop to avoid lumps. Stop cooking once it's thick enough and then add some salt and nutmeg.
Now that we're ready we can do the simple part... I like to start with a small layer of meat and sauce and then pasta.
Another layer of meat.
I added some bechamel sauce and some jam and cheese.
You get the idea... Do it as you prefer.
The last part should be a layer of bechamel sauce and above i like to add some parmesan cheese.
Finally we have it ready to take it to the oven, where it can be between 30 and 45 minutes, I like to wait for the cheese to brown a little on top.
It looked pretty good and the smell... i cannot put it into words. It always brings back so many memories.
Hope you try this one at home and let me know if you liked it. I will share a healthier version soon, i promise.
Until next time,
ANDY.
