carmela soprano's lasagne
A version of the famous drama series recipe.
Ingredients
For the gravy:
- 3 sausages if you can get them, Waitrose have incredible 'Italian' style sausages
- 400 g mince beef and pork
- 1 onion diced
- 3 garlic cloves minced
- 1 tablespoon tomato puree
- 700 ml litre passata
For the lasagne:
- Lasagne sheets
- A large bunch of basil
- 250 g ricotta
- 250 g mozzarella sliced
- 25 g parmesan grated
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.