Recipe from popular Italian culinary blog "Giallo Zafferano"
Difficulty: Medium
Preparation: 30 min
Cooking: 25 min
Doses per: 8 people
Cost: Medium
Note + 3 hours of cooking the meat sauce
Lasagne is one of the most popular dishes of the Italian tradition. The most typical lasagna is Lasagne alla Bolognese. Lasagne alla Bolognese is a typical dish of the gastronomy of Emilia Romagna and, specifically, of the city of Bologna. Although the authorship of this recipe is Emilian, lasagne are known so much so as to become one of the symbols of Italian cuisine in the world and knows many delicious variations.
From the preparation to the ingredients, this recipe is the quintessence of the “richness” of traditional Bolognese cuisine, also famous for many other recipes of fresh pasta and not only, just think of the fried dumpling. To prepare a good lasagna Bolognese the fundamental thing is the right choice of ingredients: first of all the meat, which must be strictly mixed: beef and pork to give flavor to the recipe, then the tomato pulp that must be good quality, and last but not least, the real lasagna, which must be among the best, with the porous pastry suitable to retain the sauce to get a perfect texture!
Ingredients for Lasagne alla Bolognese
Lasagne Egg Pasta 21 pieces
Parmesan cheese for grating 250 g
Ground pork meat (very fat) 250 g
Beef chopped pulp 500 g
Tomato puree 250 g
Carrots 50 g
Onions 50 g
Celery 50 g
Whole milk 40 g
Extra virgin olive oil 1 tablespoon
Salt to taste
Black pepper to taste
White wine 250 g
Water 3 l
Fresh whole milk 1 l
Butter 100 g
Flour 00 100 g
Grater nutmeg to taste
Salt up to 1 pinch
Looking for the real lasagne pasta? We have it here…
To prepare the lasagne alla Bolognese, begin by finely chopping with a knife the celery, the peeled and blunt carrot and the cleaned onion so as to obtain 50 g for each ingredient.
Heat the oil in a pan and add the chopped vegetables, stewed for about ten minutes over a low heat while stirring, occasionally. After this time, the fried vegetables should be withered and the bottom of the pan should be dry. Add the minced beef and the minced pork (the fresh bacon, a very fatty part).
The meat should also be browned slowly for about ten minutes, so stir to seal well. Initially, all the juices will come out, but once dried, you can fade with the 250 g of white wine. As soon as the alcohol has evaporated completely and the bottom is dry, pour the tomato puree. Then add only 1 of the 3 liters of water.
Add a pinch of salt, stir and cook over medium-low heat for an hour. After the first hour you can add the second liter of water, stir and continue cooking for another hour. At the end of the second hour of cooking, pour in the last liter of water and continue to cook over a low flame for another hour. In this way the meat sauce will cook for at least 3 hours with 3 liters of water added in the indicated time. At the end of cooking the result must be dense (not too dry for this type of baking preparation). Adjust the salt and pepper, turn off the heat and add the milk, stir and set aside the sauce.
Now take care of the preparation of the béchamel sauce: take a saucepan and heat the milk. In the meantime, melt the butter in pieces in another pan over a low heat and, when it has melted, remove it from the heat and add the sifted flour. Mix vigorously with the whisk to obtain a mixture without lumps. Then put the saucepan back on the heat, to lightly brown it.
When the milk is hot, flavour it with the grated nutmeg and a pinch of salt. At this point you can add it to the butter and flour mixture. Mix the ingredients vigorously with a hand whisk and thicken over a low heat: the mixture must be homogeneous and without lumps. Cook the béchamel for about 5-6 minutes on a low heat, until it is creamy.
Then move on to the composition of the lasagne: take a rectangular baking sheet or baking pan with the size of 30×20 cm. Spread a drizzle of béchamel on the pan evenly over the entire surface, then lay the green lasagne with spinach and pour again a thin layer of béchamel and one of meat sauce.
and grated Parmesan cheese, taking care to cover the entire surface of the pan. Then create another layer of green lasagne, (if you prefer also arranged in the opposite direction to the first layer so that they are crossed). Then proceed to create a new layer of béchamel. Take care to distribute it over the entire surface of the pan. Add the ragout as well and continue like this for all the layers, alternating between green sheets, béchamel, ragout and Parmesan cheese.
Finish with the layer of meat sauce and a sprinkling of abundant grated Parmesan cheese (25-26). Once you have finished preparing the pan, cook in a static oven preheated to 200° for about 25 minutes (or in a ventilated oven at 180° for 15 minutes): the lasagne will be ready when you see a light golden crust on the surface. Take them out of the oven and leave them to cool down before serving and enjoying your lasagne Bolognese style!