Do you remember Garfield - a fluffy sunny cat, characterized by excellent appetite? But why was it about a cat? But because Garfield's favorite dish was lasagna. He ate her on both cheeks and was ready for any madness for her.
And not in vain: properly prepared lasagna is tasty, juicy, soft and piquant. In addition, this dish can have several embodiments, so it’s perfect for gourmets who refuse meat for one reason or another.
About how to cook lasagna at home, so much so that even connoisseurs of this dish were delighted with it, and will be described in this article.
Where, when and how did this wonderful dish come about?
Italy is considered to be the birthplace of lasagna - a country that presented the world with pasta and pizza. However, the British are ready to argue with this statement. They believe that the authorship of the recipe belongs to their culinary masters.
The arguments of both parties are well founded.
Let's see what arguments the Italians and the British bring to confirm authorship.
Homeland - Italy
The following facts speak in favor of the Italian roots of the dish:
- The inhabitants of Rome adopted the recipe for making flat flattened flat cakes (and this is exactly what the earlier lasagna looked like) from the Greeks. The Romans cut the finished cake into strips and dubbed them Lagani.
- The second version also sees the trace of the Greeks in the origin of the dish, but at the same time claims that the name came from the vessel, the pot oven in which the dish was prepared - Lasanon.
Years passed, and the name was modified into the familiar Lasanum for modern man.
Homeland - England
The arguments of the British, who consider lasagna to be their dish, have the following reasons: in the 14th century in England there was a dish Loseyns. The recipe is even mentioned in one of the oldest books in the country.
No matter what, authorship still remains with Naples. It was there that the first mention of how to cook delicious lasagna at home was found. The recipe indicated that the layers of dough, boiled until half cooked, must be shifted with a mixture of cheese and spices.
For almost eight centuries of existence, the recipe for cooking lasagna has undergone numerous changes, but one thing has remained unchanged - the excellent soft and pleasant taste of the finished dish.
Now, every housewife is probably thinking about how to cook lasagna at home.
Method for making dough for lasagna
The following recipe will help you learn how to cook lasagna sheets at home. Home sheets, of course, are more troublesome, but less costly and, more importantly, more useful than store sheets.
What is required:
- 400 grams of wheat flour;
- 3 eggs;
- 50 milliliters of olive oil;
- a teaspoon of salt.
Cooking Lasagna at home! A step by step recipe for the lasagna dough is presented below.
Step one. Mix all the ingredients at the same time.
Step Two Knead the dough. Of course, it is ideal to do this with a mixer, but you can also do it manually. The dough should be cool. The whole process will take half an hour - when mixing with hands.
Step Three We send the dough to a cold place for twenty minutes. This will help him become more elastic.
Step Four So that the dough does not stick to your hands, knead it, adding a little flour. After that, we roll it into a layer 2 mm thick.
Step Five Boil lasagna sheets in salted water for one minute. We complete all by dipping sheets in cold water with oil. Put the boiled sheets on a sieve so that the glass water. So that they do not dry out during the preparation of other components, you can put them on a damp towel.
That's all: the lasagna sheets are completely ready. It’s up to the small thing - the filling and the sauce, but by this moment we will return a little later.
A recipe for ready-made lasagna sheets
Of course, preparing dough for lasagna at home is not difficult, but, you must admit, it takes a lot of time, which many housewives simply do not have. That is why large supermarkets rushing to the rescue, offering a fairly large assortment of finished products.
This recipe contains information on how to easily cook lasagna at home using ready-made store sheets.
What is required:
- 700 grams of beef or veal meat;
- 1 onion;
- 1 large bell pepper;
- 800 grams of blanched tomatoes;
- 100 grams of tomato paste;
- 2 cloves of garlic;
- 50 grams of flour;
- 50 grams of butter;
- 600 milliliters of milk;
- a quarter teaspoon ground nutmeg;
- 500 grams of hard cheese;
- 250 grams of dough;
- we take seasonings to taste - oregano, basil, Provence herbs.
The above set of products allows you to achieve a delightful classic taste of Bolognese lasagna.
So, how to cook lasagna at home? Read on for a step-by-step recipe!
Filling: meat stew bolognese
Step one. Grind the meat with a meat grinder into minced meat. Better to use a mixture of beef and veal. In this case, the dish will be softer and more tender. Why is it so important to scroll the meat yourself? Is it really impossible to cook lasagna at home from minced meat purchased? It turns out you can’t. Rather, it is possible, but the taste of the finished dish is unlikely to please you, since the quality of the store product always leaves much to be desired. And since minced meat is the main part of Bolognese sauce, it should be perfect.
Step Two Vegetables, including onions, garlic and bell pepper, chop finely.
Step Three We proceed to the passivation of chopped vegetables. We do this in a pan or stewpan with a thick bottom. Fry in sunflower or olive oil.
Step Four When the onion becomes transparent, add the rolled minced meat to the vegetables.
Step Five While the stuffing reaches the state we need (determined by the shade - the stuffing should turn gray), we will deal with blanched tomatoes. It is necessary to peel them and mashed in mashed potatoes.
Step Six Combine minced meat with vegetables and crushed tomatoes, tomato paste and oregano.
Seventh step. Stew until excess juice leaves.
As a result, we get an excellent filling for lasagna - meat bolognese.
Now let's start making the sauce.
Bechamel sauce: step by step recipe
Cooking lasagna at home is almost impossible if you do not know the basics of kneading bechamel sauce. But do not be alarmed - the process is not as difficult as it might seem.
Step one. In a stewpan, melt fifty grams of butter. Add to it fifty grams of flour. Mix well and fry: the flour should find a beautiful golden hue. It is important to constantly monitor the condition of the ingredients in the pan, while not forgetting to stir: otherwise, avoid burning. When the flour turns golden, the "ru" for lasagna is ready.
Step Two Now milk. It must be heated in another saucepan.
Step Three Pour milk into a stew-pan with the finished "ru" in a thin stream. Important conditions: minimum fire, constant stirring.
Step Four Add the nutmeg, knead again with a whisk and remove from heat.
That's it: bechamel sauce is ready.
Let's start assembling the lasagna.
Putting Lasagna
Ready lasagna sheets are slightly boiled in salted water. Then we begin to lay out the dish in layers.
Step one. Smear the bottom of the baking dish with bechamel sauce. Sprinkle with a thin layer of grated cheese.
Step Two Put the dough sheet on top. We spread with bechamel sauce.
Step Three Spread a thin layer of bolognese on the dough.
Step Four Cheese and dough again.
Step Five It should turn out about five layers, the last of which must be greased with sauce, sprinkled with cheese.
Put together the lasagna and cover with foil on top and set to bake in the oven. The baking process at 220 degrees and the presence of foil will take half an hour. After this time, remove the foil and leave the dish to bake for another ten minutes.
Appetizing, rosy and juicy lasagna is ready!
Lasagna with vegetable sauce and sour cream sauce
In the hot summer season, when meat is seen as a heavy and fatty product, you can cook lasagna with vegetables. It will, similarly to meat, contain bechamel in the composition. Well, are you ready to learn how to cook lasagna at home? The recipe is simple enough and will not make you stand by the stove for a long time. It will take you about half an hour of free time. And from the moment you start cooking to the long-awaited tasting, only an hour and a half will pass.
What will be needed to make vegetable lasagna?
For the basics:
- 12 sheets of finished or homemade pasta;
- 50 grams of hard cheese (preferably parmesan).
For vegetable sauce:
- 1 squash of medium size;
- 2 sweet bell peppers;
- 3 ripe tomatoes;
- 1 carrot;
- 3 cloves of garlic;
- 1 onion;
- 50 milliliters of olive oil;
- several branches of greens (parsley, dill).
- 50 milliliters of dry white wine;
- we take spices to taste: provencal herbs, nutmeg, basil, oregano, savory;
- a teaspoon of sugar;
For sour cream sauce:
- 20 grams of butter;
- 10 grams of flour;
- half a glass of sour cream;
- a glass of meat or vegetable broth;
- salt and ground pepper.
Step by step recipe for Lasagna vegetable sauce
If you are thinking about how to cook lasagna at home, and intend to cook it with vegetable lasagna, then the sauce recipe described below will be a real lifesaver. Its advantage is in an incomparable taste along with simplicity and speed of preparation.
How to cook lasagna at home? Photos used as illustrations and detailed recipes will help the hostesses build this culinary masterpiece! So let's get started!
Step one. Peel vegetables, including zucchini, tomato and pepper. So the structure of the sauce will be more tender and uniform.
How to peel peppers? The surface of the pepper must be greased with oil, pierced in one place with a knife. And, placing on a plate, bake in the microwave at full power for 6 minutes. No this kitchen assistant? Put the fruit into the oven.
Peeling off the tomatoes is also not difficult: make a cross-shaped incision from the “butt” side and pour over the vegetable with boiling water. After this procedure, the skin is easily removed.
Step Two We chop onions in medium-sized cubes. We put in a pan with olive oil and with constant stirring, bring to transparency. The golden hue is not only undesirable, but not recommended: remember that the lasagna will subsequently be baked in the oven.
Step Three Carrots, chopped through a grater, add to the onions to be strained.
Step Four Peeled tomatoes and peppers finely chopped and sent to a pan for onions and carrots.
Step Five Add spices: oregano, basil, savory. You also need to send the garlic to the pan: chop it through a crush.
Step Six It was the turn of wine and finely chopped greens. By the way, wine can be replaced with broth or even plain water if you are an opponent of alcohol. Simmer for a quarter of an hour.
Seventh step. Finely chopped zucchini, peeled from seeds and peels, put in a pan and simmer for half an hour.
After half an hour, vegetable sauce or, as you might think, a classic vegetable stew is completely ready. The main condition is that the liquid in the sauce should be present only in the form of vegetable juice, the other is unacceptable. Otherwise, the lasagna will float.
Sour cream sauce
How to cook lasagna with sour cream sauce at home? Just like any other. The only difference is the sauce.
Step one. Melt the butter in a frying pan and immediately add flour to it: bring to a delicious golden hue.
Step Two Pour the broth into the flour. Stir, achieving complete homogeneity.
Step Three Now add the sour cream and mix again. Simmer for about seven minutes.
It remains only to season to taste - and the sour cream sauce will be completely ready.
We collect vegetable paste
Since the recipe indicates the use of finished sheets, it is worth mentioning that when boiling, they do not stick together, so it is permissible to boil them together.
Important! Choose a baking dish 20% wider than unboiled pasta - the sheets swell and increase during cooking.
Let's start assembling the lasagna!
Step one. We smear the baking dish with butter, and then distribute two tablespoons of vegetable sauce along the bottom - this step will help protect the sheets from burning and sticking.
Step Two Sauces - sour cream and vegetable - visually divided into five parts (there will be five layers in climbing).
Step Three We spread two sheets of vegetable sauce - one after the other - of boiled pasta.
Step Four We smear the pasta with sour cream sauce, which, in turn, is covered with a layer of vegetable.
Step Five We coat the last layer only with sour cream sauce. We do it carefully and, if the amount of sauce allows, with a thick layer.
Step Six Sprinkle grated cheese on top.
After half an hour of baking at 220 degrees, we remove vegetable lasagna from the oven.
So the step-by-step recipe has come to its logical conclusion. How to cook lasagna at home, you now know, you can begin to consolidate knowledge in practice!
Lasagna Tips
In conclusion, we give a few recommendations for the preparation of lasagna:
Tip one. Using homemade paste, roll it thinly - no thicker than 1.5-2 millimeters. Form - long, even and wide stripes. Homemade lasagna paste is not to be stored for long periods.
Tip two. Laying sheets should be done crosswise. We lay out one layer in one direction, the next in the other. Why is this needed? So the lasagna will be more durable and will not fall apart when serving.
Tip three. For lasagna it is better to use parmesan and mozzarella. They will give the dish spicy pungency and unsurpassed tenderness.
And for sweets - for children. There is even lasagna, which is usually served for dessert. It is also made from pasta, just for the filling, berries, cottage cheese and cream are most often used.