lasagne advice

herisson

im makin dinner tomorrow for the family and im thinking lasagne with salad and meatballs stuffed with mozerella

ive never made lasagne before so im just wondering if anyone has advice on how not to mess it up and not have it really sloppy hahaha

also what is the usual layers in a lasagne in terms of the meat white sauce and pasta sheets i dont really know what the order is

thanks in advance

olaola

If you let it sit, or make it a day in advance it won't be sloppy. Day old lasanga FTW!

Voodoo_rasher

if ya run out of meat, dont even think of using marmite or bovril as a sub.

Bovril Lasagne, does not bear thinking about.

olaola

Lasange is usally layered meat>sauce>pasta.
I lash in fresh spinach in the layers too - keeps it very moist.

barone

this is my simple way of makin a yum lasange. in the style i like (slightly spicy)

cook your mince (steak mince) with a chopped onion,add familly sized dolmio jar of spicy bolognese sauce,simmer for a few mins, have your lasange dish ready,
when the meat is ready layer on the bottom of the dish,thin layer,then layer the meat with the lasange,crack the pasta to shape to fill all the dish,try not to overlap to much,on top of the 1st layer of pasta spoon in more of the meat mixture creating another layer, then top that layer with buffalo mozzerla, sliced thinly,on top of that place more layers of pasta,as before fill space on top of the meat mix with pasta and break bits off to fill.

continue this process untill you have completed 4 layers minimum, (only use the mozzerla once) top the final layer of pasta with the remaining meat mix,top that with a dolmio white lasange sauce,top the white sauce with a bag of grated cheddar,sprinkle that with black pepper..

stick in oven at 200 for 40/45 mins and its done, leave to stand for ten mins..

as above its always more robust after its stood overnight.

as for the ingredients to add... suit yourself,its limitless really, the above is just what i do usually,as its tasty and so easy to do, usually serve with homemade garlic bread.

duploelabs

Ok.
Here's my advice, may not wash with all, but it's my two cents and applied not just to lasagne.

1.Do not use packet or jarred anything. Cooking is about the love and soul you put into it as it will be returned in spades in the food that you create. You may not be able to recognise it immediately but it will taster better. Sure if you are catering for a massive scale and you need to watch your man hour expenses then cutting corners is cool but walk into ANY award winning restaurant and you never see Knorr this or Dolmio that. Only in the lower scale places will you see spice mix that and powdered stock, incidently they are the places most concerned about overheads. You are cooking (I presume) for you, your family, and your friends, show them the love. Having said that you cant beat a packet of crushed chipstix on top of a fish pie.

2. Learn how to make a good ragu. Finely chopped shin of beef is my preference. You never know what kind of crap goes into the mincing machine. Some people swear by very slow (8 hour) cooked short ribs of beef and then picking the resultant meat from the bones and using that as their ragu. I also use chopped liver in my ragu and it gives a deep rich meaty flavour to it all, along with a bit of milk and loads of red wine.

3. Fresh herbs in all. A previous posted mentioned about putting spinach in theirs which is great. I put a layer of basil leaves on top of my ragu, which has shed loads of fresh thyme and margoram in it.

3. Nutmeg your bechmel sparingly as it can be really overpowering, which you've cooked from scratch of course. Making a roux is pretty simple and can be kept for a couple of weeks and is a great thickening agent for everything

The Sweeper

Delia Smith's lasagne al forno recipe is a great one to try - it's not complicated by techniques, but there are quite a lot of ingredients. Freezes beautifully.

Just in case there are any major lasagne fans out there, put a Mario Batali lasagne dish on your christmas and birthday wish list. They rock.

Shoe Lover

When I'm making lasagne, I always cook the pasta sheets in boiling water before layering them with the ragu in the dish. It stops them from being hard in the lasagne. Just put some olive oil in the water and put them in in different directions, or else they stick together. But they are easy enough to peal off

martic

Ciaran from "Ciarans Kitchen" will be making his second video today when he comes home from school which will be Lasagna so you never know there could be lessons to learn as he will be making his sauces from scratch :eek:
New video will be posted as soon as I clean the tomatoes off the ceiling

Plowman

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