Lasagna With Fresh Pasta: (12-15 Portions)
Lasagna With Fresh Pasta: (12-15 Portions)
Lasagna With Fresh Pasta: (12-15 Portions)
portions)
In boiling water, cook the spinach for about two minutes or until
just wilted. Remove it to a bowl of ice water to stop the cooking
and set the green color.
Chill both dough balls in the fridge while you make the cheese
sauce. Take the bolognese out of the fridge to let it warm up a
bit.
Remove the sauce from the heat and let it come off the boil.
Grate in all of the pecorino cheese and stir until reasonably
smooth. Taste for seasoning, and add salt until it tastes a little
too salty.
With a standard, 6-inch-wide pasta roller, roll out the yellow
dough ball on the widest setting. Dust it with flour, fold it back
up again, and roll it through again. Repeat the process until it
rolls out smooth. Reduce the thickness by one or two notches,
then roll it through again. Repeat until you've run it through on
the second-to-thinnest setting.
Cut the pasta sheets so they are 1-2 inches shorter than the pan in
which you plan to bake the lasagna (they will expand when
boiled). I recommend a disposable 11x19 inch aluminum baking
pan, available in most U.S. supermarkets. Cut each sheet up the
middle, lengthwise, to make two long ribbons.
Boil the ribbons in a large pot of salted water until they puff up
and float aggressively, about two minutes. Remove them to a
large bowl of ice water to stop the cooking process.
Clear a table, and cover it with clean kitchen towels. Lay out
each ribbon of pasta onto the towels and wipe their top-sides
with another towel to get them all reasonably dry.
Rub the baking dish with olive oil, lay in the first layer of pasta,
followed by a thin layer of one of the sauces. Alternate the
sauces and the two pasta colors until you run out of pasta to
make additional layers. (I get seven layers.) On the final layer,
just dab little blobs of both sauces across the top.
Bake at 200ºC for 20 minutes. Cool, cover, then refrigerate
overnight.
DAY THREE: Make tomato sauce, assemble the final dish, eat
(finally)
To make the tomato sauce, peel and chop the garlic and
onion/shallots. Fry in olive oil until just soft. Put in the tomato
paste and fry a bit more, then dump in the crushed tomatoes and
a splash of wine. Simmer for a half hour, stirring frequently. Add
salt and pepper to taste.
Take the lasagna out of the fridge and cut it into 12-18 slices,
depending on the desired portion size. Oil three baking sheets,
and lift the slices onto the sheets, keeping them as far apart from
each other as possible. Top each slice with mozzarella.
Coat plates with a thin layer of tomato sauce, place the slices
onto the the sauce, garnish with fresh basil.
Bolognese Sauce
Ingredients:
450g carrots
1 large red onion
450g chicken liver
1350g ground meat (beef and lamb)
85g tomato paste
2500g crushed tomatoes
1 bottle of white wine
Liquid chicken buillon (or stock cube)
1tbsp dried oregano
1tbsps dried parsley
1tbsp dried basil
1tbsp dried thyme
1tbsp garlic powder
60ml balsamic vinegar
salt
pepper
Instructions:
Peel and finely chop the carrots and onion. In a large pot (at least
7 quarts), fry the vegetables in olive oil on high heat until soft,
stirring constantly. Dump them out into a bowl or plate.
When the brown stuff on the bottom of the pot looks like it's
about to burn, pour in the wine and scrape to release everything
on the bottom. Stir in a big spoonful of the bouillon. Reduce heat
to a simmer and cook for two hours, stirring occasionally to
make sure the bottom doesn't stick and burn.
After two hours, season the sauce with the herbs and vinegar.
Simmer an additional hour. When it's the desired thickness, taste
and adjust seasoning with salt and pepper.
Divide the dough into four equal balls and put them in four
containers (ideally glass) and lightly coat the balls and the
interior of their containers with olive oil. Cover, and either rise
at room temperature for two hours, or put them in the
refrigerator and let them rise for 1-7 days. (I prefer the long, cold
rise.)
When you want to bake, put a pizza stone or pizza steel into your
oven (mine works best on a high rack position but every oven is
different) and preheat to your highest possible temperature,
ideally convection, for a full hour.