Your Lasagne recipes if you pls

[Northern Lass]

Hi all

Can you post me your Lasagne recipes made with mince (not chicken or veggie etc)

I want to improve on mine

[Rob]

I can make lasagne but i use the packets of ready made pasta.
What i would like to do is make my own but i don't know how!

[Northern Lass]

I want the packet lasagne don't want to mess around with making my own pasta


But I want to know what folk bung in with the mince etc

[snoopysue]

If I can get it I use the green lasagne, you know with spinich in it!

Other than that it's a bit hit and miss what goes in the sauce.
Usually about 500g minced beef (with not too much fat content)
1 largish red onion
2 cloves of garlic (or garlic puree)
1 tin chopped tomatoes (with oregano and basil)
2 tbsp brown sauce or worcestershire sauce
Mushrooms
Fresh herbs if I've got them (varies as to what I put in)

I fry of the onion, add the beef. When that's browned I add the tomatoes, garlic, brown sauce and mushrooms. Sometimes a glass of red wine goes in too. Herbs such as oregano and thyme go in now. Let it simmer until it's a good thick consistency.

For the bechemel sauce:
50g butter or marg
50g flour
1 pint milk
1 egg

This is Delia's recipe for Mousakka Bechemel, so it's thick! (I writing from memory as I've done it so many times I don't need it anymore)
Melt the butter in a saucepan, add the flour (don't have it too hot!). Then gradually add the milk. When it's all encorporated let it boil so it thickens up, then turn off the heat. Whisk the egg, and then whisk it into the cooled sauce (I usually tidy up a bit, put things in the dishwasher etc, I only wait about 5 mins or so before adding the egg ). I tend to use a whisk for the sauce and give it a really good whisk after adding the egg - it ends up lighter and fluffier then. As mu husband hates cheese I don't add it, but it's here you'd add grated cheese. When I did make it with cheese I'd put loads more in than was in the recipe and it always worked! Oh and season to taste.

When I'm assembling the lasagne I don't put sauce in the layers, it all goes on the top, and if I've whisked enough then it's light and fluffy!
Takes about 45 mins at 180 degrees celcius.

[gardener]

I can make lasagne but i use the packets of ready made pasta.
What i would like to do is make my own but i don't know how!

It is easy peasy. The only tricky bit is rolling out the pasta without it cracking and ripping - and that doesn't really matter for lasagne anyway. The pasta should be so thin that when you hold it up and look "through" it at a sunny window then you can see the outline of the window. I make double the amount of dough belwo, and last time I just kneaded it in the Kitchenaid.

Pasta
200 g pasta flour (00 or 0)
2 eggs (70 g)
Method
Reserve a tablespoon of flour, sift remainder of flour onto work surface, make a well in the centre, add eggs*. Combine flour with eggs, use a fork at first to stir it together inside the walls of the flour heap (so it doesn"™t run all over the table). Add the reserved flour as needed to make a stiff dough. Knead for 15 minutes until elastic and smooth. Place in plastic bag or covered bowl to rest for 30 minutes. Roll out half the the pasta at a time, very very thinly.
This recipe is enough for seven layers of lasagne in a dish a bit smaller than A4 sheet (serves 6). The pasta expands when boiled so cut the sheets to be a bit smaller than the dish. Cook one or two sheets at a time, in lots of salted boiling water, place in bowl of iced water as soon as cooked.

If you normally use the dried lasagne sheets that don't need pre-cooking then you will need less wet sauces in the lasagne.
*If you want green pasta: replace one egg with 35 g of cooked spinach which has been squeezed dry in a cotton cloth, and finely chopped.

[gardener]

Lasagne (serves 6)

Cooked pasta
Meat sauce
White sauce
Grated parmesan cheese

Ragu alla Bolognese
500 g minced beef
150 g finely chopped bacon (optional)
1 small onion
1 or 2 carrots
1 celery stalk
½ tube tomato paste
olive oil
½ glass wine (white or red)
1 bay leaf or few rosemary stems
salt, pepper
broth*

Chop onion, carrots, and celery finely (in a processor if you want). Put in pan, with oil. Heat gently and cook a few minutes, the stir in meat. Cook gently and break the meat up. Add the tomato paste, bay leaf, wine, broth, salt and pepper**. Cover and simmer for 1 ½ hours, stir occasionally and add more broth if needed. At the end of the cooking time it should be as thick as you like to serve it i.e. not watery.
*In an ideal world you would start by putting an onion, couple of carrots and celery stalks, a large slice of shin beef and a leg of chicken into a pan of water, simmer for an hour or so to make the stock. Chicken wings make good stock too, and are cheap. If you are using bought stock/cubes the you may need to use less salt in the sauce
**Salt should be added early so that it seasons the meat as it cooks and not just the sauce. Rosemary stalks, with the leaves stripped off, give this sauce a wonderful flavour.

Bechamel sauce
50 g butter
50 g flour
½ litre milk
1 slice onion
Salt, pepper, grated nutmeg

Melt the butter in a pan, with the slice of onion, add the flour stir and cook for 5 minutes. Add the hot milk, salt, pepper and grated nutmeg. Cook for 15-20 minutes, stirring so it does not burn.

Lasagne itself
Put a sheet of cooked pasta in a buttered dish, add meat sauce, then spoonfuls of white sauce and sprinkle with a little grated parmesan. Repeat, repeat.... end with bechamel spread over top layer of pasta and sprinkle with parmesan cheese. Bake in preheated oven at 180°C for 30-40 minutes.

This recipe will make a lasagne for 6, with seven layers of pasta and sauce. At least it will if you use home-made, paper-thin pasta sheets, and only put a little béchamel on each layer. It makes a very light lasagne which is moist but not wet. If you want the sort of lasagne that you get in Britain then probably best to double the amount of white sauce.

To be honest I only make this for special family meals, and then I use double the recipe and freeze one to eat later. It is worth it though because the meat is so soft and the flavour is just wonderful. The home made pasta is fantastic too as it is so much thinner than anything you buy. It has to be thin to make the required seven layers which the Italian woman who showed us how to make this vowed and declared was traditional in Bologne (where she lived so I guess she would know).

[gardener]

Proper lasagne recipe aside, then I just use mince, chopped onion (chopped carrot and/or red bell pepper if I want to up the veg content), fried off, add a tine or two of chopped tomatoes, wine, dried oregano or mixed Italian herbs, salt pepper, and tomato paste to taste. White sauce is just the normal one. Normal family meals I don't really use set recipes.

[Rob]

Who ever thought of this thread deserves a big hug.
Now i know how to make pasta.Thanks Gardener (any relation to Ava?) I'm going to try this one of the days real soon.

[SRD]

My grandmothers always made bechamel by studding a small onion with half a dozen cloves, putting it into the pan of milk and slowly bringing it up to just below boiling point (just as it starts to rise). She'd then leave it to stand whilst preparing everything else for whatever dish she was making then strain off the onion and any skin before making the sauce.

[GenePitney]

Does anyone have any nice vegetarian lasagne recipes? My lad has decided he is a veggie and lasagne has always been his favourite dish so I wouldn't mind trying out a veggie one?

[snoopysue]

Does anyone have any nice vegetarian lasagne recipes? My lad has decided he is a veggie and lasagne has always been his favourite dish so I wouldn't mind trying out a veggie one?

When my sister went veggie, she made lasagne with textured vegatable protein. It's not good on it's own, but ideal for lasagne and bolognaise. You could hardly tell the difference. Otherwise you could make it with loads of chopped up veg, carrots, peppers, courgettes, mushrooms etc.

[SRD]

There's no reason why you shouldn't layer a bit more cheese in where you'ld normally put the meat, otherwise I agree with sue; just add a lot more veg to the tomato sauce.