Behold, the lasagna!

Yesterday I made a spinach lasagna for my friends Sarah Pecora and her partner, Claudia, who recently gave birth to a baby girl. Yay baby Natasha! Sadly, Natasha could not eat any of the lasagna, since she’s not even a month old, but she did sleep happily in her Moses basket next to the table while the rest of us gorged on this:

(This was taken with my cell phone, so it really does not do it justice.)

This is quite a rich dish, even though it has no meat in it, so I don’t make it very often. It’s really an annual or semi-annual experience — not only because of the fact that it requires about three pounds of cheese, but also because it takes two to three hours to make. I suppose I could speed things up by multi-tasking, but with cooking, I believe it’s better to be focused. Otherwise things get confusing and flavors don’t come together properly and you end up with unfortunate results. This is particularly true with pies (which I am sure I will blog about in the future, because, well, I’m obsessed with making pies), but also with lasagna.

I don’t have a recipe for this dish, but since I love writing about food, I thought I’d write one up. You begin with these ingredients:

For the sauce:

2 28-oz. cans of crushed tomatoes (crushed, not diced, or whole)
1/2 cup red wine (I used an inexpensive D’Aquino Chianti, which has a dry but somewhat aggressive flavor)
a large pinch of fennel seeds
1 teaspoon or so of dried chili flakes, depending on how spicy you like it
1-2 tsp. dried basil (better with fresh, but I didn’t have any on hand)
6-8 cloves of garlic, crushed (not minced or anything — just bang it with the side of your knife)
1-2 tsp. sugar
kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

For the filling:

2 containers of ricotta cheese (you can use semi-skim if you want, but I used regular)
3 eggs
2 packages of frozen chopped spinach
salt and pepper to taste

Also:

2 8-oz. boxes of Cremini mushrooms, sliced
about 2 cups of shredded mozzarella (more if you want)
about 1 cup of of grated parmesan (more if you want)
9 lasagna noodles (the regular kind that you have to cook)

First, you make the sauce by putting all those sauce ingredients except the salt together in a big pot and bringing it to a medium simmer. Stir it occasionally. Allow it to cook down until the sauce, when you stir it, sticks slightly to the bottom of the pot. This should take about half an hour. Taste it, and then add the salt. Stir it in thoroughly and let the sauce sit for a minute or so for the salt to permeate the sauce. Taste it again. All done? Take it off the burner, remove the garlic cloves, and put a lid on it.

Meanwhile, you can be making the filling. First, cook the frozen spinach briefly in about 1/4 inch of boiling water — cook it for no more than 2-3 minutes. Then drain the spinach and run cold water over it so that it is not burning hot to the touch. This is important not only because it stops the cooking, but also because it makes the spinach cool enough for you to handle. Take the spinach by handfuls and squeeze out as much of the water as you can. It’s still going to be moist, but it should not be dripping with water. Then combine the spinach, ricotta, eggs, salt and pepper together, mixing it thoroughly.

Next, boil a large pot of water to cook the lasagna noodles. I know that some people like to use no-cook lasagna noodles, but I’m not sure why. Cooking the noodles is easy, and then you don’t have to worry about having enough liquid in the lasagna to cook the noodles in the oven, which can often lead to soggy lasagna plus takes twice as long to bake. Just cook the noodles separately. In order to prevent them from sticking together when they’re done cooking, add a little bit of olive oil to the water.

While the noodles are cooking, prepare the mushrooms. Heat some olive oil in a pan, then saute the mushrooms until the liquid has emerged and boiled off. Salt the mushrooms and set them aside. When the noodles are done, drain them and run some cold water over them to stop the cooking process. Now you’re ready to begin building the lasagna. You might want to preheat the oven at this point so that it’ll be ready to put the thing in — I preheat it to 375.

To build the lasagna, begin by spreading a thin layer of sauce at the bottom of the lasagna pan (I use a Pyrex 9″x13″ baking dish, which admittedly is a bit too small). Then lay down three noodles. Spread a little less than half of the ricotta filling over the noodles. Sprinkle half of the mushrooms over the ricotta mixture. Sprinkle a little less than a cup of mozzarella over the mushrooms, and then sprinkle a little less than half a cup of grated parmesan over that. Cover this with another layer of sauce, and add noodles, ricotta filling, mushrooms, mozzarella, parmesan, and more sauce.

Cover this with another layer of noodles. Drop the remaining ricotta filling over the noodles wherever you want. I like to do it in spoonfuls. Spread the remaining sauce on top. Cover the sauce with the rest of the mozzarella, and sprinkle grated parmesan over everything.

At this point the lasagna should be right up to the top of the baking dish. Stick it in the oven for 30 minutes. When it comes out, you will have to let it sit for 10 minutes before diving in. Do not eat it before the 10 minutes is up or the whole thing will collapse!

The lasagna I made yesterday turned out pretty well — it was gorgeously golden-brown and bubbling when it came out of the oven — but I think that my dried chili pepper flakes have lost their potency. The sauce was not as spicy as I wanted it to be, but I don’t think anyone really noticed besides me. I also think I should have salted my ricotta filling a bit more heavily, but then again, the creaminess was very nice. I left the leftovers with Sarah and Claudia, since it was meant for them, but at lunch today I admit I had a pang of longing for the lasagna … oh, cheesy goodness!

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3. APA Heritage month and Chinese home cooking

Tagged as: cooking