True Italian Lasagna

Lasagna in Italy, not the cheesy, saucy stuff we make here in the US, is a very involved process.  It all starts with a soffritto, followed by a meat ragu and if you REALLY like the people you are cooking for, you make the pasta.  It is the only way to achieve the thin, thin layers that melt in your mouth and help give the lasagna its light texture.  But it is a labor of love that takes patience and proper timing.

The first time I had this amazing dish was in Tuscany last year on our wine and food tour.  Antonio's sister knows an Italian nonna who is in her 80's and makes the best lasagna you've ever eaten.  She made us two big pans that arrived at our villa still warm from the oven, and we served outside in the garden with some delicious Cortona red wines.  It takes her 2 days to make it, and now having done it myself, I know why.

I've been doing a series of posts on the recipes for the soffritto, the ragu, the pasta and the besciamella; now it's time to put it all together!  It's best to make this over a two day period....the links to the recipes are highlighted in orange below.

First Day
Step One:  Make the Soffritto
Like the Holy Trinity of New Orleans cuisine, a "soffritto" is the starting point for many Italian soups, sauces and stews. While locally we use equal parts onion, celery and green peppers, in Italy the base is usually a combination of carrots, onion and celery with the proportions of each depending on what you are cooking.

To begin to make the meat ragu, I first need the soffritto.  Using the recipe in Frances Mayes new Tuscan Sun cookbook, I began the long journey to tomorrow's lasagna!

First Day

Step Two:  Make the Ragu
Every cook in Italy has their own ragu recipe, variations on a theme of ground mixed meats, tomatoes, soffritto, herbs and spices.  But one thing that remains constant is the love and care that goes in to making the perfect ragu.  I don't claim to have achieved it yet, but I've learned a few tricks along the way that have helped me get a wonderfully flavorful sauce that can be used in many dishes.  I like to make a big pot, use some and freeze the rest for a quick tagliatelle on a busy day.

Second Day
Step Three:  Make the Dough
I have two pasta dough recipes that I use on a regular basis, one is from Lidia Bastianich, the other is from Francis Mayes.  I like them both equally as much, but when I made the lasagna I used Frances Mayes and I thought the texture and pliability of this dough was ideal for achieving the thin sheets needed for this dish.  The ingredients vary ever so slightly and the process is the same.  I use a kitchen aid mixer for the initial blending, kneed the dough by hand and after it has rested I use the pasta attachment for my mixer to roll the sheets. In this post I'll take you to the point where the dough is resting, before you roll it.

Second Day
Step Four:  Make the Besciamella
So your dough is currently resting and you have time to make your besciamella before we start assembling the dish.  Either of these recipes will give you the desired affect of adding a wonderful creaminess to your layers of lasagna, read through them both and decide what you have the energy for!

Step Five:  Assembling the Lasagana


Remaining Ingredients
-1 lb fresh egg pasta dough resting
-5 oz. Parmesan cheese, grated
-2-5 oz. balls of mozzarella
-a handful of fresh sage leaves
-olive oil


-Preheat you oven to 350 degrees F and butter a large baking dish. Put a big pot of salted water with a good glug of oil on the stove for the pasta.

-Reheat your  ragu and put keep your white sauce on the stove at a very low heat,  to keep it warm and make it easier to work with.

-Roll out your pasta dough
Rolling the dough with a pasta machine (I used the Kitchen Aid attachments). Cut the ball of dough into 6 equal pieces. Shape each piece into a rectangle about 5x3 inches. Lightly flour the pasta rectangles and cover them with a kitchen towel. Set the rollers of the pasta machine to the widest setting. Pass one of the pasta rectangles through the rollers long side first, then pass it though the rollers a second time. Keep the dough lightly floured-just enough to prevent if from sticking to the rollers. Reduce the width by one setting and pass the piece of dough through the rollers again. Support the dough with your hand as it comes through the rollers-don't pull it though, or the dough will shrink so it is narrower than the width of the rollers.


Continue working with the piece of dough and reducing the width one setting each time until the dough has been passed through to the proper setting. (Each pasta machine is different. I finish with the next to the thinnest one);You want to roll out strips of pasta that are about 3 x 10 inches depending on the size of your pan. I made mine a little longer and wider to accommodate the round shape of my pan.  Always keep the pieces of dough that aren't being rolled covered with a towel. If you find the dough is very elastic, let all pieces rest for 5 to 10 minutes before continuing.

When you have rolled one of your pieces of dough into the correct size, blanch 2 strips at a time in the boiling water and cover the bottom of the baking dish with pasta strips, letting them hang over the edges.  Put down a layer of meat sauce, then some white sauce and a sprinkling of fresh Parmesan.  Roll and blanch another piece of dough and continue to repeat the process until you run out of ragu. But keep back enough white sauce for a final layer on top.


Fold the over the pasta ends from the edges and top with the white remaining sauce. Sprinkle with Parmesan, tear the mozzarella over the top, scatter your sage leaves and drizzle with olive oil. Bake in the preheated over for 45 minutes or so until golden.


Prepare to "wow" your friends and family...

All of this effort deserved a fine wine so we opened a gorgeous 2001 Castelgiocondo Brunello di Montalcino signed by the Marchesi di Frescobaldi himself when he was in the shop one day way back when...

Next Step, Tuscan Ragu

Step 1: Make the soffritto 
Step 2:  Make the ragu


True Italian Lasagna, not the cheesy, saucy stuff we make here in the US, is a very involved process.  It all starts with a soffritto, followed by a meat ragu.

Every cook in Italy has their own ragu recipe, variations on a theme of ground mixed meats, tomatoes, soffritto, herbs and spices.  But one thing that remains constant is the love and care that goes in to making the perfect ragu.  I don't claim to have achieved it yet, but I've learned a few tricks along the way that have helped me get a wonderfully flavorful sauce that can be used in many dishes.  I like to make a big pot, use some and freeze the rest for a quick tagliatelle on a busy day.

They key, as in all good recipes, is the freshness and quality of the ingredients.  Three types of meat give you a more complex flavor and if possible have the butcher grind the meat for you fresh so that you really know what is in that package.  Fresh tomatoes are ideal but a can of San Marzanos can give excellent results. I did a combination of both here and am really happy with the outcome.  Dried herbs will work but again, fresh is best!
 
Use a 6 Qt. pot for this, it will give you plenty of room to brown the meat.  One of the things I've learned along the way by reading over many, many recipes from Italian chefs and home cooks, is how to achieve the proper texture of the meat.  If you notice when you eat ragu in Italy it is not chunky, the meat doesn't glob together, the vegetables are chopped finely, giving the sauce a smooth, light texture.  So you'll need a wooden spoon and a lot of patience to achieve this and I'll explain below when we get to the step.

The ingredient list, with a few minor changes, is Guisi’s Ragu from The Tuscan Sun Cookbook by Frances Mayes and her husband Edward Mayes. I've listed my changes and her originals.  This recipe will give you enough ragu for the lasagna as well a quite a bit to freeze for later.  If you are making the lasagna, I recommend you prepare the ragu the day before as it takes about 4 hours.

Serves 10

3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 pound ground lean beef
1 pound ground veal (Mayes uses pork)
2 large links of sausage, casings removed.  I found a delicious duck and pork at Rouses with no additives or preservatives.  (Mayes uses Italian sausages, and Terranova's would be perfect)
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon pepper
2 teaspoons fresh thyme leaves or 1 teaspoon dried
1 to 2 cups red wine
1 cup soffritto (recipe below)
2 tablespoons tomato paste
8 whole tomatoes finely chopped, 1-28oz can of San Marzano tomatoes, finely chopped.  Mayes calls for16 to 20 tomatoes or 2 28-ounce cans whole tomatoes, juice included, chopped

Pour the olive oil into a 6-quart heavy pot with a lid. Next, add all the ground meat to the pot. Here is where the most work is involved. Using a large wooden spoon keep breaking up the meat into smaller and smaller pieces as it cooks. Do not brown it too much or dry out. Don’t let it sit in the hot shortening on the bottom of the pot and sear. Keep moving it around; it should just lose its color. Keep working on the meat and keep breaking it up into smaller and smaller pieces. It should also begin to smell wonderful.

When the meat has lost all its pink color and is reduced to minuscule bits (10-12 minutes), add the salt, pepper, thyme, and 1 cup of the red wine. After the wine has cooked into the meat, about 10 minutes, add the soffritto, and stir in the tomato paste and tomatoes.

Bring the sauce to a boil, and then lower to a quiet simmer. Partially cover, and continue cooking for 3 hours, stirring now and then. Along the way, add the remaining cup of wine if you think the sauce is too dense.

Humble Beginnings, Italian Soffritto

I've been craving pasta ever since we returned from Tuscany last week.  You see we ate it every day, sometimes multiple times a day, for two weeks straight.  And what is fascinating about pasta in Italy is that you can eat it that many times and never eat the same dish twice.  Because each place you visit has their own specialty shape or type of pasta, different sauce or preparation.  There was the rich and decadent chestnut flour ravioli at La Buccacia, or the wild boar ragu at Enoteca Fonterutoli, and the rustic pici pasta in Montepulciano, ricotta gnocchi at La Grotta, the paccheri giganti from Napoli, not to mention the Roman classics we ate our last night like Pasta Carbonara and L'Amatriciana.  The list is endless, but what I've really been craving lately in the lasagna made by our favorite Italian nonna in Cortona who spends all day making us 2 big pans of the most delicious layers you've ever tasted that we ate at our first dinner in the villa on Sunday night.  I decided yesterday to invite a few friends over for dinner so I could see how close I could come to her divine dish.

Paglia e Fieno Pasta at La Braccesca

But I have along way to go until I actually get to start assembling, not because it is a complicated recipe, but one with many steps that allows you to achieve something really special in a simple dish like lasagna.  And the first step is the soffritto. Like the Holy Trinity of New Orleans cuisine, a "soffritto" is the starting point for many Italian soups, sauces and stews. While locally we use equal parts onion, celery and green peppers, in Italy the base is usually a combination of carrots, onion and celery with the proportions of each depending on what you are cooking.

To begin to make the meat ragu, I first need the soffritto.  Using the recipe in Frances Mayes new Tuscan Sun cookbook, I began the long journey to tomorrow's lasagna!

 
Soffritto
Makes 1 cup:
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 yellow onion, minced
1 carrot, minced
1 stick of celery, minced
1 handful of fresh flat leaf parsley, minced
1/2 t. salt
1/4 t. pepper

Mince the onion, carrot, celery and parley, do not use a food processor, take the time properly achieve a fine texture. I like to mince each separately and then combine all and mince together.  Saute the ingredients in a small saucepan over medium low heat until they begin to color and turn tender, she says 5-7 minutes, I say 10-12 minutes!