My new foodie goal: Homemade Lasagna

[bicentennial_baby]

Ok, first I will learn to make mozzarella and ricotta.

Then, I will craft a new tomato sauce.

Finally, I will learn how to make lasagna noodles.

That, friends, is my new goal. Whaddya think?

:hi:

[wakemeupwhenitsover]

1. Sounds like a great goal.

I think that homemade lasagna noodles are waaay better than those weird, wavy ones the market sells. I think it's too much noodle around the edges.

:thumbsup:

[NMDemDist2]

2. i think you can do it right after the honeymoon

first things first yanno??

be sure to dig up Stinky's thread on making fresh pasta and I like to whip my ricotta with a touch of olive oil before spreading it in

[jgraz]

3. Don't want to burst your bubble, but you're a bit high on the effort/reward curve

If you're going to take the time to make homemade mozzarella/ricotta, the last thing you want to do is to bake that lovely, fresh cheese into a lasagna. Aside from covering the flavor of your new creation, the heat-expressed whey will turn your lasagna into soup. I'd suggest a nice caprese or a homestyle quattro-formaggi pizza, anything where you can really taste the cheese.

New tomato sauce is always good, though traditional lasagna uses a bolognese (meat sauce) as its base. Whatever you decide, I wouldn't spend too much time peeling and seeding fresh tomatoes. The twice-cooked nature of lasagna will work just fine with really good canned tomatoes.

Making lasagna noodles might be fun but, once again, fresh pasta just doesn't lend itself well to baked dishes like lasagna. I usually save my fresh pasta efforts for simple dishes where the pasta takes center stage. Heavy sauces, baked dishes or lots of meat will tend to overwhelm the flavor and texture of fresh pasta.

Finally, lasagna is all about pleasure and satisfaction. And leftovers. It's as much an engineering project as a culinary one. In my family, lasagna contains bolognese, bechamel, meatballs, homemade italian sausage, seasoned ricotta and a mozzarella "mix" of five different cheeses. The real challenge is in getting all of those elements right and then combining them in the proper proportions. I think if I had to make the cheeses and noodles, I'd never actually finish the dish.

[NashVegas]

4. Depends, Depends

Homemade noodles make my lasagna rock the house on most occasions. If I were making from leftover red sauce, I'd go with factory noodles, but only then.

When I want to make it w/out leftovers, I just throw in the tomatoes straight from the can (well, after draining) or garden.

I'm all with you on the cheeses though :)

As for American-style (red sauce) vs European, I can go either/or, but it's American-style that makes it comfort food. I only make it with white sauce & ragu when I want to impress someone with fancy/schmancy action.

[jgraz]

5. Hmmm...you'll have to give me some hints, then

Of course, I usually focus on the sauces and seasonings. I've even used (gasp) no-boil noodles with pretty good results.

[NashVegas]

6. I'm Not Sure What You Mean

Flour. Eggs. Little salt, maybe. That's about all you need.

[jgraz]

8. Here's the dilemma for me

If you make the noodles too thin, they dissolve into the ingredients. If you make the noodles thick enough to hold up to the baking, you end up with a stack of flavored pasta.

If you bake it long enough to fuse the layers, the pasta turns to library paste. If you decrease the baking time, you don't give the ingredients enough time to meld, so the pieces slide apart when you serve them.

Finally, dried pasta seems to hold up much better for the all important leftovers that you'll be eating for breakfast over the next three days. ;)

How do you handle these problems? I've never gotten a fresh-noodle lasagna to turn out as well as I have with store-bought dried pasta.

[NashVegas]

12. I Don't Have Leftovers

At least not for long. If it's not for a crowd, I use a small tray. I cook my noodles for a minute or two, if that helps.

Also, I don't worry about whether or not it holds up as a perfectly neat stack. A little sliding around isn't going to bother me, as long as it tastes good, it's all going to the same place.

[jgraz]

16. Hmmm...what is this "small tray" you talk about?

I've never seen one of those ;)

[Gormy Cuss]

7. Go for broke.

Extract your own salt from some sea water. Grow a pepper tree and the requisite herb plants. Finally, forge a nice lasagna pan. For the sake of simplicity, it's best to make the tomato sauce plain. It takes a while to raise steers or pigs. :P


Making the cheeses and noodles at home sounds like a fun experiment.

[jgraz]

9. EXTRACT the salt?????

Dude, get some sodium and chlorine and make it yourself. You just can't beat homemade salt.

[Gormy Cuss]

10. You're right. That was an unnecessary shortcut.

I stink at food purist thinking.
:)

[jgraz]

11. Once we get fusion down, I plan on cooking up my own elements

All I'll need in the fridge is a big bag of hydrogen -- organic, free-range, fair-trade hydrogen, of course.

[eridani]

18. Or make lasagna a millionth of a second after the Big Bang

You'd be limited to quark-gluon plasma and your own imagination, which would be seriously challenging.

But hey, if ya wanna be a wuss and wait another 300 seconds or so, you can have your mundane old hydrogen. Was it Einstein who said that the two most common substances in the universe were hydrogen and stupidity? You'd probably want to leave the stupidity out.

[NMDemDist2]

13. or you could come visit me and I'd take you to the local salt mine n/t

[Gormy Cuss]

14. Road trip!

I could just go to the salt plant near SFO but a trip to New Mexico sounds much more interesting.

[NMDemDist2]

15. rumor is we have Caverns worth looking at here too

:evilgrin:

[yellerpup]

22. Yup, that's the way I do it.

;)

[Tektonik]

17. I shouldn't be allowed into lasagna threads

I grew up in a family where my mom used shredded carrots and spinach in her lasagna w/ lots of Ricotta, no boil lasagna noodles, ground turkey, and a bit of bottled tomato sauce

I don't know how she managed and fenagled w/ it, but it was always the best damn lasagna I'd have ever had

[REACTIVATED IN CT]

19. Go for the homemade noodles

It will make a world of difference. My mom was of Polish extraction but she made the best meatballs, sauce (flavored with pork chops) and lasagne with homemade noodles. She learned from my father's mother who was Italian. She rolled those noodles out by hand on a floured cutting board then boiled them.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

20. Summertime Lasagna Suggestion:

Get a BIG dish, suitable for baking lasagna. Layer in slices of garden-fresh fried eggplant.

Last time I made that, and lawdy, I made a lot, there were NO leftovers.

[NMDemDist2]

21. and the winner is...... a C&B DUzy!!!!! Well done you guys LOL

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1336593