A lasagna from the East
Oriental restaurants are the fashion of the moment. In recent times, Rome has been filled with dozens of more or less authentic Chinese and Japanese restaurants. Soybeans, ginger have started to invade our kitchen, our most traditional products, from chicken nuggets to seafood, until you get to tubers and broad-leaved vegetables.
The so-called fusion cuisine has also entered our premises, contaminating more dishes, among which the Lasagna Wok with chicken and vegetables in Teriyaki sauce stands out.
China, represented by Wok, and Japan, whose symbol is the Teriyaki sauce, meet Italy through the most consumed meat and perhaps loved by the inhabitants of the Peninsula: the chicken!
All the preparation of this lasagna goes around the Wok, a conical pan with a hemispherical base in cast iron or iron, which allows you to cook short and low in fat. It is perfect to sauté vegetables, leaving them crunchy, and to brown the chicken nuggets together with any kind of spicy sauce.
In this case, we opted for Teriyaki sauce based on soy, mirin (rice vinegar), and sake (alcoholic beverage based on rice), which for its savory taste and Umami, due to the fermentation to which they are subjected both rice and soy, enhances the white and delicate meat of chicken and the crunchiness of zucchini and carrots.
In short, we tried to dress Italy in an oriental dress, lit by the green of zucchini and the bright orange of the carrot ... enjoy your meal!
INGREDIENTS FOR 4 PEOPLE:
for the pastry:
for the cream of zucchini:
for the teriyaki sauce:
for the filling:
METHOD:
For the dough: knead the ingredients by hand or with the planetary until obtaining a smooth and homogeneous result. Collect the dough in a ball, wrap it with the transparent kitchen film and let it rest for at least 1 hour in a cool place, covered with a tea towel.
Roll out the dough by hand or with the machine to a thickness of about 2-3 mm. Obtain them rectangles of dimensions just below those of the pan. Cook them in abundant salted water.
For the teriyaki sauce: bring to a boil the soy sauce, mirin, sugar and water. Let it reduce until you get a caramel.
For the cream of zucchini: slice the courgettes and let them stew on a low heat in a pan with a thick bottom together with the onion and a round of oil for a quarter of an hour adding a ladle of water. Add salt.
Cut the chicken breast into small pieces (must be eaten in a mouthful), flour and brown it in a pan with a little oil. Add salt.
Cut the vegetables into julienne strips and sauté in the wok with oil and teriyaki sauce. At the end of cooking add the chicken and let it cook for a few minutes.
Compose your lasagna: place a layer of béchamel on the base of your pan. Cover with the pastry, spread a veil of zucchini cream, sprinkle the mix of chicken and vegetables here, make some béchamel and season with soy sauce and teriyaki sauce. Repeat the procedure three more times. You have to do four layers.
Preheat the oven to 200 degrees. Cook the lasagna, depending on the size of the pan, from a minimum of 15 minutes to a maximum of 30 minutes, until a nice golden crust is formed. Let it rest a few minutes before serving.
A tip for you:
In this lasagna, precision is important, both in terms of cooking time for chicken and vegetables and for salt dosing. The chicken must not be completely cooked because otherwise, when it comes out of the oven, it will be stubbly, while the salt must be used sparingly, given the looming presence of soy sauce.
