Lasagne has to be one of my favourite dinners. If I’m stuck for what to cook, it always pleases a crowd and satisfies. I like a lasagne with gutsy tomato sauce, plenty of layers of pasta and a bubbling, cheesy topping. I’ve tried all sorts, with Marmite in, with marmalade in, with soy sauce in… this version is about as traditional as I make mine.
On a whim, I picked up a jar of pre-made white sauce. Before I knew how to make bechamel I would use Ragu white sauce. I don’t know why I went for this; I haven’t tried it in maybe 12 years. But I was really pleased with the taste of it, slightly peppery and perfectly creamy. I didn’t dare look at the ingredients list but if I was running short on time I’d definitely use it again.
Big handful of grated cheese. Yes, cheddar will do
Get a large saucepan on a low heat, add a splash of oil and fry the onion gently for about 10 minutes. When softened, crank up the heat and add the mince, stirring frequently to prevent sticking. Add the garlic, tomatoes and stock and simmer for 20 minutes. Check for seasoning and take off the heat to cool slightly.
Preheat the oven to 180°C. Get an ovenproof dish and start with a layer of pasta. Add a thin layer of mince mixture, half the white sauce and top with pasta. Add more mince, more pasta and top with white sauce. Grate cheese over the top and bake for about 30 minutes until bubbling and golden. Leave out of the oven to set for a couple of minutes, it’ll be easier to cut.
“Sweet sausage, in little pieces? And a layer of basil leaves right underneath the cheese? That’s Carmela’s lasagne.”
-Corrado “Uncle Junior” Soprano
I came to The Sopranos far too late. Early 2008 More4 ran every episode back-to-back and I devoured them all. I was utterly gripped by the boyish yet chilling Tony, the larger-than-life Paulie, sly yet affable Uncle June, the big mouth braggadocio Christopher, and the uneasy balance of family life with ‘mafia’ life. It’s easily one of the finest series every created, a masterpiece of character study and beautiful dialogue. If you haven’t tried it, I heartily recommend it.
And the food of the Sopranos is a thing unto itself. Whether’s it’s baked ziti, sfooyadell, cold cuts, Sunday gravy, moozadell, there’s barely a scene goes by without food being mentioned. I took the Sopranos bus tour while in New York, and ate onion rings at Holsten’s too 🙂
I also got given the Sopranos cookbooks for a birthday. It’s a little cheesy, part-written in character, but the heart and soul of Italian-American cookery is there, with it’s hearty and rib-sticking fare. As an existing fan of lasagne, I was keen to try the lasagne-with-layer-of-basil as mentioned in the show (it can be found in this volume).
In truth all the recipes are written by prolific author and cookbook writer Michele Scicolone. I can only imagine how much fun she must have had coming up with ‘authentic’ food as eaten by Tony Soprano. She has written over 20 books, won all sorts of awards for recipes and also lives in New York area so was an obvious choice to co-author this book. Even if the Sopranos stuff isn’t for you, they are solid recipes.
Like many Italian-American dishes, it requires a ‘gravy’ which is not the meat juice we might expect. I’ve simplified it down, veal is a pain to get hold of here and Italian sausage… sort of isn’t a thing here. Not in the way Americans mean. But sausages seasoned with fennel, and pork and beef mince hint in the right direction. Here it’s a meaty, tomatoey sauce that forms the base of lasagne. This gravy is the base for a lot of dishes, such as this lasagne and baked ziti.
“What, no f*!#ing ziti now?”
-Anthony “AJ” Soprano Jr
This takes a good couple of hours so it’s not a dish you can just bash out on a whim, because after that you’ve got lots of layers and another 45 minutes in the oven to finish it off. But it does have lots of hands-off time while it cooks so it’s a good one for a weekend.
The gravy is superb though, rich and flavoursome. I’ve kept some back for something else another day. And every time I use a ricotta instead of a white sauce I forget how good it is in a lasagne. And without the faff of a bechamel! The basil was nice though, a pleasing herbal aroma that carries through and it’s tender from cooking. Uncle June was right.
3sausagesif you can get them, Waitrose have incredible 'Italian' style sausages
400gmincebeef and pork
1oniondiced
3garlic clovesminced
1tablespoontomato puree
700mllitre passata
For the lasagne:
Lasagne sheets
A large bunch of basil
250gricotta
250gmozzarellasliced
25gparmesangrated
Instructions
To make the gravy, fry the onion and garlic until soft in a large pan with a little oil.
Skin the sausages and squish each into 3-4 hazelnut size pieces. Add these to the pan and brown a little on all sides over.
Add the mince and continue to cook until browned.
Add the puree and passata and bring to a simmer. Cook partially covered for 1½ - 2 hours until rich and thickened. At this point check for seasoning - plenty of pepper is welcome here.
Beat the ricotta with the parmesan, adding salt and pepper to taste (you may want to add a couple of tablespoons of milk to loosen it, as you're going to spread it in a minute). Preheat the oven to 180°C.
In a 6cm deep oven dish put a thin layer of meat sauce on the bottom. Cover with lasagne sheets, then another layer of meat sauce.
Top this with ricotta and some parmesan, then a layer of basil leaves. Top this with mozzrella, then lasagne. Start the layering all over again until you reach the top of the dish.
Make the top layer meat sauce, ricotta and mozzarella. Bung in the oven until you can push a knife through with little resistance, about 45 minutes - 1 hour. Cover with foil if it's starting to darken too quickly.
Leave the lasagna out for five minutes to allow it all to meld together - this makes it easier to cut up.
Video
Notes
The order you layer everything up in doesn't really matter. Just do what feels right.
Lasagne recipes are like admitting you’re Spartacus. “I’m the definitive lasagne recipe!” “I’m the definitive lasagne recipe!” To that end, I’m not even sure I’ve cooked it exactly the same way twice. It’s one of those things I’ve been cooking forever and therefore patch the method from time to time. Today was no different.
I went bechamel rather than cheese sauce, and used beef stock over a stock cube (a standard step-skipper in my mince recipes). I also tried to overcome my carnivorous lust of piling everything into one layer, and instead went down the traditional route of many layers of pasta.
A word on the bechamel here: I find it’s always unfairly pasted as a difficult thing to do, but it really isn’t. Melt butter, add flour and allow to cook out a little, until it’s the dullest beige. Add milk slowly, allowing it to absorb each time (much like risotto). Keep going until it reaches the desired consistency. If things look awful, turn up the heat and whisk like mad. At this point it’s ready to take on all the flavours that you want. In this case, grated nutmeg, a smear of English mustard, black pepper and smoked sea salt. I also had some mascarpone left over in the fridge so I doled that out into it to lend a slightly tart, creamy edge.
There’s so mush to adore about lasagne (I suppose this is technially lasagne al forno, but this is the dish all English people picture when you say ‘lasagne’): tender yet chewy pasta, engorged with flavours from above and below, sweet and savoury meaty sauce, creamy and slick white sauce, and crunchy and tangy cheese crust.
Below I’ve detailed what I did this time, though it will be different next time… and the time after that… and the time after that… I’ve yet to try Carmela Soprano’s one, with an additional layer of basil leaves… yum.
Lasagne:
For the beef ragu:
450g beef mince
1 onion, diced
2 cloves garlic
2 tins/cartons chopped tomatoes
500ml beef stock
250ml red wine (pinot noir in this case)
1 tablespoon dried oregano
1 tablespoon dried basil
2 bay leaves
1 tablespoon dark soy sauce
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
For the bechamel:
75g butter
Plain flour
Milk
2 tablespoons mascarpone
Nutmeg
Smoked sea salt
Black pepper
1/2 teaspoon English mustard
For the final dish:
12 dried lasagne sheets
Grated parmesan
Grated cheddar
In a large casserole pan, fry the onion and garlic on a low heat until soft and translucent, about ten minutes.
Turn the heat up, add the mince and fry until browned.
Add the stock and bring to the boil, then add the tomatoes.
Lower the heat, add the other ingredients and leave to simmer while you prepare the bechamel. Pre-heat the oven to 180C.
In another pan, melt the butter. Add enough flour until you get a chalky, plasticiney consistency. Continue pushing this round the pan until you get a pale nut colour. (this calms the floury taste down)
Gradually add milk until it is absorbed. Add the bay at this point too.
Keep adding milk until it reaches a custardy texture.
Add the other bechamel ingredients and continue to stir.
Now take a large ceramic oven dish and start to layer the ingredients. I went for: pasta, mince, white sauce, pasta, mince, pasta, white sauce.
Top with cheese, and decorate with tomato slices and basil leaves. Put in the oven.
Cook until bubbling on top.
For best results, allow to sit for a couple of minutes before serving. The white sauce and cheese will set slightly, and making cutting through it much easier.
I’m a big fan of home-made lasagne dishes; as many variations as there are families this side of the Alps. Alternately cheesy, beefy, saucy, chewy… it’s such a warming, filling dish full of flavour that unashamedly reeks of comfort, how could you not love it? I have my own version (of course) that I love to trot out, but my head was turned by this version apparently printed in The Times. I got it from Ocado’s recipe book given with their deliveries. It’s a touch lengthy, requiring a true béchamel and a gutsy tomato sauce but as it’s a Sunday I’ll let it go. None of it is real grind, more a case of letting things simmer.
The dish means “Lasagne in the hunter’s style”, I’m not quite sure where that part comes from. I’ve had cacciatore-style dishes before, which usually means a rich tomatoey base. Lasagne in the classic sense (and when I say classic I mean that in the English way that most of us recognise) is mostly this anyway, so hey-ho. The thing that I understand grates Italians most is the mountain of meat smothering the pasta, which after all is what the dish is named for. So I’ve made a deliberate attempt here to layer the golden sheets inbetween thin peeks of ruddy ragu and let it sing through. I use Waitrose’s fresh lasagne sheets (snob alert!) which have a wonderful chewiness and a light crispy texture when cooked unadorned. They are a wondeful fridge standby too: need papardelle / tagliatelle / faux linguini instead? Just slice as required.
Out of the oven it behaves as it should: patchy brown, angrily bubbling sauce. It was the high point however, it looked much better than it tasted. I felt here the braising steak was not given long enough to develop a tender consistency, despite me giving it longer than prescribed. Additionally the meat hasn’t had long enough to meld with the tomato sauce – the flavours are entirely separate in the mouth, and not in a fulfilling way. Beef mince would have sufficed perfectly. Done again I would brown the meat first, then let stew with the tomatoes for a lot longer – maybe two hours or so. I pushed it a little further in the simmering stage also as there was a heckuva lotta juice in there. Also adding parmesan to this béchamel is overdoing it, and becomes lost among the savoury notes.
On the positive, having chunks of meat is texturally pleasing and gives an interesting mouth-feel. The sage topping is inspired, leaving behind a camphorous perfume that sits atop the cheesiness in a pleasant way. That’s one I’ll be using elsewhere – I adore sage, particularly with oils and dairy, but struggle to find times when it’s appropriate.
In all, an interesting take on a ‘traditional’ lasagne al forno, but ultimately overwrought and trying too hard. I’ll do my usual at some point, and we’ll see how that measures up for time, effort, and taste.
PS. This does give me a chance to proffer one of my favourite lasagne-style meal tips: when taking a dish like this out of the oven, leave it to one side for five minutes or more; the cheeses and sauces will set and meld and make a topping much easier to cut through. This leaves a much tidier and cool-looking wodge of food on the plate.
