Greg
Greg's lasagne al forno
Greg's home page
Cooking main page
Recipe index
Cooking times
Noodle cooking times
Spice pastes
Weights and measures
Food suppliers
Greg's diary
Copyright info
Google

Lasagne al forno is the prototypical way to prepare lasagne. It's surprisingly complicated: apart from the lasagne themselves, you need a meat filling (ragù bolognese), besciamella (which for some reason is usually called by the French name sauce béchamel) and salsa di pomodori.

On this page I'll limit myself to the details of how to put the bits together. The first question is: what kind of pasta? Yes, it's lasagne, of course, but there are at least four different ways to get it:

Quantities

I make my lasagne in an oven dish 33x26 cm in size and about 8 cm deep. This is enough for a total of about 6 layers of cooked fresh pasta or 5 layers of dried pasta, and that's what I've accounted for here. That corresponds to between 8 and 10 servings.

Ingredients

quantity       ingredient       step
100—150 g       chicken liver       1
1.2 litre       sauce béchamel       2
0.5 square metres       lasagne       3
about 1 kg       ragù bolognese (see note below)       3
350 g       salsa di pomodori       3
      grated parmesan cheese       3
      butter flakes       3

The quantity of pasta is approximately what comes in the 375 g pre-packaged “fresh” lasagne that we can get at our local supermarkets. It has 8 sheets that by chance are the same length as the dish and ⅔ the width, so I cut two of them into halves and make 5 layers: 4 with 1½ sheets, and the fifth with two sheets.

Method

Ragù bolognese is usually made with chicken livers; I prefer to keep them separate and chop them coarsely, then add them to the layers along with the ragú, rather than mixing them in with it. Exceptionally, I don't weigh the ragù, since it's difficult to spread it equally if it's weighed.

  1. Fry the chicken livers in butter and allow to cool. Chop into small cubes.

  2. In the past I wrote:

    If using “instant” lasagne, add another 200 ml to the sauce béchamel to make up for the moisture that the pasta will absorb. If using “no-cook” fresh pasta, add 50 ml.

    But on 11 February 2024 I did that and ended up with a result that was far too liquid. Maybe I should try without additional liquid next time.

  3. Use an oven dish about 30x30 cm. Spread a thin layer of béchamel on the bottom of the oven dish, then repeat the following six times:

  4. Before the next step, ensure that the surface of the béchamel is dry, either by leaving it for five or ten minutes, or by putting in an oven pre-heated to 180° for 5 minutes. This ensures that things don't get messy in the next step:


  5. https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20200503/big/Making-lasagne-10.jpeg
    Image title: Making lasagne 10          Dimensions:          3436 x 3444, 1485 kB
    Make a single page with this image Hide this image
    Make this image a thumbnail Make thumbnails of all images on this page
    Make this image small again Display small version of all images on this page
    All images taken on Sunday, 3 May 2020, thumbnails          All images taken on Sunday, 3 May 2020, small
    Diary entry for Sunday, 3 May 2020 Complete exposure details

     
  6. Spread the salsa di pomodori over the top:


    https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20200503/big/Making-lasagne-12.jpeg
    Image title: Making lasagne 12          Dimensions:          3888 x 5221, 3727 kB
    Make a single page with this image Hide this image
    Make this image a thumbnail Make thumbnails of all images on this page
    Make this image small again Display small version of all images on this page
    All images taken on Sunday, 3 May 2020, thumbnails          All images taken on Sunday, 3 May 2020, small
    Diary entry for Sunday, 3 May 2020 Complete exposure details

     

    Spread parmesan to taste, add butter flakes and return to the oven and cook for about 40 minutes. It may dribble, so put a pan underneath. The dish is ready when the surface has the right colour.


    https://lemis.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/grog/Photos/20200503/big/Making-lasagne-20.jpeg
    Image title: Making lasagne 20          Dimensions:          5184 x 3888, 4571 kB
    Make a single page with this image Hide this image
    Make this image a thumbnail Make thumbnails of all images on this page
    Make this image small again Display small version of all images on this page
    All images taken on Sunday, 3 May 2020, thumbnails          All images taken on Sunday, 3 May 2020, small
    Diary entry for Sunday, 3 May 2020 Complete exposure details

     

Notes

The quantities above look to be too much, but in fact they're correct. The quantity of chicken liver depends on your taste, of course.

Lasagne or lasagna?

For some reason, the US name for this pasta dish is lasagna (singular) and not lasagne (plural). That's not the case in Italian or other English usage, and even in the USA you don't hear of spaghetto or macarono.


Cooking home page Recipe index Greg's home page Greg's diary Greg's photos

Valid XHTML 1.0!

$Id: lasagne.php,v 1.9 2024/02/12 02:09:20 grog Exp $