Lasagne thread

[Lysander]

I am attempting to master lasagne - currently I'm an amateur. I've made two so far, one meat [preference] and one vegetarian, I'll be making another vegetarian one tonight.

The first was OK but the top was a disaster. The pasta was too crisp and hard on top. The second time I covered it with foil after baking it for 15 mins and then uncovered it for another 15 mins, and this time the pasta was undercooked! Since I didn't use bechamel sauce but cottage cheese on top of the pasta sheets the second time round, I think that this gave enough moisture to the pasta on top, so next time I'm going to to cook the whole thing uncovered and it should work!

Here's a photo of the veggie one from last time. Like I say, it looks decent but it was undercooked on top under all that cheese.



This is how my veggie one is developing:

Onions
Garlic
Cumin
Tumeric
Chilli
Chopped Tomato
Tomato Puree
Courgettes
Aubergines
Mushrooms
Red kidney beans
Cottage cheese
Extra mature cheddar

{Meat version, I just substitute the veggies for mince at the moment}.

I know some of you here may consider yourselves a whiz with this dish and can probably produce something far superior to mine, which is definitely beginner level.

Please share any pics and recipes of your own, and any improvement ideas you may have.

 

[Lysander]

I've done Lasagna a couple of times recently and stuck, mostly, to Mary Berry's Lasagna Al Forno recipe to good success. First one was a little dry but overall very pleased with both of them!

Thanks for this, will look into it and see how I can adopt or adapt it!

You need that sauce, so it runs through the meat and is all yum.

Dammit, you're right. That's what gives it that good creamy inside rather than just pasta + filling.

@ Lysander Good luck with your efforts. I have yet to remember to cook mine early enough, let it cool and then reheat to eat which I keep getting told is the way to do it. If in doubt never hurts to try Basics with Babish on YouTube great cooking channel.

As a terrible self publicisit here is a blog post I wrote about making Lasagna with the kids Monsters.

Thanks you and thanks for the link - will have a look

Buy fresh pasta sheets from the chilled section.

When I make a lasagne, it is thin layer of ragu on the bottom, then pasta sheet, then bechemel, then a sprinkling of cheese, and then I rinse repeat (with slightly thicker ragu layers) until the pan is almost overflowing. Making sure to end on a layer of sauce and cheese.

30 mins at 180c and its beautiful.

Very good advice. I will get chilled pasta sheets tonight to make sure it's not too hard.

 

[Lysander]

The Marcus Wareing recipe is fab! Takes a bit more time but worth it... might see if we have the stuff in and knock one up tonight

Would be very interesting to see your rendition, do share the details if you do