Hey there!
Welcome to the Digital Spy forums. If you’d like to join in, please sign in or register.
Quick Links
Options
Forum Member ✭✭✭
[Deleted User] Posts: 1,035
in Food and Drink #1
I'm having the girls over later for a gossip and I'm making a lasagna. I've made it before however it's always seemed a bit bland, like there's something missing. Any tips on how I can get a lot of flavour? Also, how do I ensure that the sheets stay soft? I am such a nervous cook when it comes to cooking for anyone other than myself!
Options
[Deleted User] Posts: 223 Forum Member
✭
The secret to getting flavour into lasagne is in the meat sauce.
I mix beef and lamb mince and make tomato sauce by liquidising tinned tomatoes (cherry are best) .. adding them to finely chopped fried onions, salt, pepper and herbs. Don't skimp on the seasoning.
Leave the sauce to cool before adding the raw meat and layer that between the lasagne sheets. If you're using dried sheets make sure the sauce is very sloppy before cooking as the pasta takes up a lot of the sauce.
A layer of the meat and a layer of cheese sauce.
Top off with cheese sauce and grated cheese.
Cook it for about an hour on reg 6 covered in foil.
Delish
Options
nittynattynoo Posts: 891 Forum Member
✭✭
I start by frying chopped onions, then adding either pork or beef mince, fry the meat unti ooked then add chopped tomatoes, lots of basil and oregano, grate some parmesan into the sauce aswell and leave to simmer for a good while,
start with a layer of the sauce in the lasagne dish, followed by a layer of dry lasagne sheet covered with white sauce, another layer of meat sauce, and so on, once you get to the final layer of white sauce grate lots of parmesan and cover in grated mozerella, cover with tin foil and put in the oven at 180 for 20-25 mins, then take foil off and put back in the oven for about half an hour.
Always tastes delicious and can't go wrong this way
Options
stud u like Posts: 42,100 Forum Member
✭
You don't give a recipe that you use.
Lasagne comes in some many different varieties these days. I love a good seafood lasagne.
I also love a good chocolate,chilli and vodka lasagne.
Spinach and pine nut lasagne is my over all favourite.
Options
Iggy's Boy Posts: 3,321 Forum Member
✭✭✭
A lovingly made bolognese sauce, made the day before to save you time and stress on the day.
My recipe:
In a casserole dish, fry cubes of pancetta (Sainsbiry's do them in packs) in olive oil until browned.
Add finely chopped onion, garlic, carrot and celery and sweat for ten minutes.
In a seperate frying pan, heated to a ferocious temperature, flash fry your beef mince in batches and add to the sweating vegetables.
De-glaze the frying pan with a large glass of red or white wine and add to the casserole.
Add a half a pint of beef stock, a large jar of passatta, a teaspoon of sugar, a pinch of salt and a good grinding of black pepper.
Put lid on casserole dish and bake at 150C for about three hours, checking and stirring every half hour, adding some water if it looks like it's getting dry.
Next day:
Make a white sauce made with full cream milk and butter, seasoned well with a smidge of freshly grated nutmeg. Taste the sauce before you use it and adjust seasoning to make it really flavourful.
See Also10 Lasagna mistakes to avoidMany Layer Lasagna - The Two Bananas12 Lasagna Mistakes You Didn't Realize You Were Making - The Daily MealThe Best Make Ahead LasagnaIf you're using dry lasagne sheets, make sure both your white sauce and your meat sauce are quite runny because you want the sheets to soak up some of the moisture and not be dry.
I layer my lasagne dish like this: meat sauce, lasagne, white sauce, lasagne, meat sauce, lasgane, white sauce, and top with lots of freshly greated parmesan cheese.
Bake in oven for 30 minutes at 180C
Hope this helps. Cooking this kind of dish well relies on you devoting care to every stage. Good luck, hope it turns out well!
Options
nittynattynoo Posts: 891 Forum Member
✭✭
stud u like wrote: »
You don't give a recipe that you use.
Lasagne comes in some many different varieties these days. I love a good seafood lasagne.
I also love a good chocolate,chilli and vodka lasagne.
Spinach and pine nut lasagne is my over all favourite.
wow the chocolate, chilli and vodka lasagne sounds interesting.....
Options
stud u like Posts: 42,100 Forum Member
✭
nittynattynoo wrote: »
wow the chocolate, chilli and vodka lasagne sounds interesting.....
It is for a pudding.
Options
indianwells Posts: 12,702 Forum Member
✭✭
As said above it's all about the meat sauce.
A FLAVOURFUL BOLOGNESE
Roughly chop an onion, a couple of carrots, a couple of sticks of celery and 2-3 cloves of garlic.
Put the lot in a food processor and blitz to a pulp.
Scrape the resulting mixture in to pan that is on a medium-low heat and to which a couple of tablespoons of olive oil has been added.
Sweat gently until the vegetables have softened but not coloured.
Now add your minced meat (beef, pork & beef, or pork, beef and veal), turn the heat up and break up with a wooden spoon until the mince is uniform and there is no redness left.
Add about 200ml of whole milk and increase the heat. Let it bubble until the milk has almost disappeared. The milk is to protect and tenderise the meat.
Now add a good splash of red or dry white wine and let it bubble away til almost gone, same as the milk. You can omit this stage if you don't drink or religious reasons.
Now add a couple of tins of good tomatoes, freshly ground black pepper, a bay leaf, a squirt of tomato puree, a teaspoon of sugar (this balances the acidity of the tomatoes), a pinch of oregano and a small pinch of salt (we will season properly later).
Bring up to a simmer then turn down to the lowest possible heat. The longer you can cook this the more flavour you are going to get, 3 hours is good, 5 is better. If at any time the ragu looks a bit dry then add a little chicken stock, or water.
Season to taste now. The reason I season at the end is because of the long cooking time. If you add your salt at the beginning it may well concentrate during the process and leave the dish too salty, and ruined.
Tear up some fresh basil leaves and stir through.
I just toss it with some tagliatelle and have some freshly grated parmesan to pass at the table but it works equally as well with lasagne.
I know 3-5 hours seems like a long time but once it is cooking you don't really have to do anything other than a stir every now and again, and maybe a splash of water or stock. You will however, be rewarded with a real depth of flavour that can't be got from any jar.
Options
When making the meat sauce it's all about little additives. I add a beef oxo cube, add sundried tomato pesto (at least half a jar) to the tomatoes, salt, pepper, onions, garlic and the magic ingredient......gravy granules! Not loads, just a decent sprinkle. It makes the sauce thicken up as well as adding a lot of flavour.
I also make sure my cheese sauce is made with a strong mature cheddar. A really cheesy cheese sauce makes all the difference.
Options
[Deleted User] Posts: 411 Forum Member
✭
Agree with the people who say it is all in the meat sauce/ragu. I add pancetta, celery. carrots, onions, mushrooms, passataa and garlic. One of the main thing though is that I simmer the sauce for at least 2 hours. Also I always add lots of cheese to the white sauce which makes it really tasty.
Options
Baking-Girl wrote: »
Agree with the people who say it is all in the meat sauce/ragu. I add pancetta, celery. carrots, onions, mushrooms, passataa and garlic. One of the main thing though is that I simmer the sauce for at least 2 hours. Also I always add lots of cheese to the white sauce which makes it really tasty.
Now we always do white sauce, just cheese on top (parmesan and cheddar)and stopped adding mushrroms as they seem to make it more watery -deifinitely onion carrot celery though
And whatever they say on Masterchef, you must have garlic bread!
Options
When making the meat sauce it's all about little additives. I add a beef oxo cube, add sundried tomato pesto (at least half a jar) to the tomatoes, salt, pepper, onions, garlic and the magic ingredient......gravy granules! Not loads, just a decent sprinkle. It makes the sauce thicken up as well as adding a lot of flavour.
I also make sure my cheese sauce is made with a strong mature cheddar. A really cheesy cheese sauce makes all the difference.
Now to me that sounds rank :eek: Each to their own though
Options
I make a vegetarian version that's pretty simple but very tasty! Make a bolognese sauce with chopped onion (I large), garlic (3 or 4 cloves) and a couple of tins of tomatoes. Cook the onions slowly in olive oil first before adding the rest of the ingredients and let it simmer at a low heat for a couple of hours or longer, until it's really thick and the tomatoes flavour will be intense. Season with salt and pepper and I use lots of oregano. I add cooked brown lentils to the tomatoes at the ratio of a couple of spoons of sauce to 1 of lentils. Cook the pasta before layering the sauce with a cheese sauce and lasagne sheets and end with sprinkling strong grated cheddar on the top.
Options
[Deleted User] Posts: 1,256 Forum Member
✭✭✭
Try this recipe http://www.channel4.com/4food/recipes/chefs/gordon-ramsay/gordon-s-lasagne-recipe . I make more of the cheese sauce than he states and I leave it to cool for about 20 minutes before cutting into it to serve as it helps it "firm" up.
Options
indianwells wrote: »
As said above it's all about the meat sauce.
A FLAVOURFUL BOLOGNESE
Roughly chop an onion, a couple of carrots, a couple of sticks of celery and 2-3 cloves of garlic.
Put the lot in a food processor and blitz to a pulp.
Scrape the resulting mixture in to pan that is on a medium-low heat and to which a couple of tablespoons of olive oil has been added.
Sweat gently until the vegetables have softened but not coloured.
Now add your minced meat (beef, pork & beef, or pork, beef and veal), turn the heat up and break up with a wooden spoon until the mince is uniform and there is no redness left.
Add about 200ml of whole milk and increase the heat. Let it bubble until the milk has almost disappeared. The milk is to protect and tenderise the meat.
Now add a good splash of red or dry white wine and let it bubble away til almost gone, same as the milk. You can omit this stage if you don't drink or religious reasons.
Now add a couple of tins of good tomatoes, freshly ground black pepper, a bay leaf, a squirt of tomato puree, a teaspoon of sugar (this balances the acidity of the tomatoes), a pinch of oregano and a small pinch of salt (we will season properly later).
Bring up to a simmer then turn down to the lowest possible heat. The longer you can cook this the more flavour you are going to get, 3 hours is good, 5 is better. If at any time the ragu looks a bit dry then add a little chicken stock, or water.
Season to taste now. The reason I season at the end is because of the long cooking time. If you add your salt at the beginning it may well concentrate during the process and leave the dish too salty, and ruined.
Tear up some fresh basil leaves and stir through.
I just toss it with some tagliatelle and have some freshly grated parmesan to pass at the table but it works equally as well with lasagne.
I know 3-5 hours seems like a long time but once it is cooking you don't really have to do anything other than a stir every now and again, and maybe a splash of water or stock. You will however, be rewarded with a real depth of flavour that can't be got from any jar.
That's the way I do it, except for the milk! I will try it wih milk. I use milk in curry to mix my spices in.
Edit: I put some worcestor sauce in too.
Options
[Deleted User] Posts: 53,142 Forum Member
✭
Hi
Tonight i grated a bit of an onion in with the mince, and just one garlic clove ( grated that too), added some salt and pepper and some mixed dried herbs..Was delicious..not done it that way for ages, and its not bland, adds flavour
Options
PhoenixRises Posts: 2,607 Forum Member
✭✭✭
I am having trouble making a Lasagne, I have tried them twice and ended with a quite sloppy mess. People keep telling me to just do a Bolognese sauce, but I am assuming it needs to be less sauce?
Also how do people layer the lasagne? And how do get the thing out of the dish so it still looks like a Lasagne on the plate?
Options
big_hard_lad Posts: 4,077 Forum Member
✭✭✭
PhoenixRises wrote: »
I am having trouble making a Lasagne, I have tried them twice and ended with a quite sloppy mess. People keep telling me to just do a Bolognese sauce, but I am assuming it needs to be less sauce?
Also how do people layer the lasagne? And how do get the thing out of the dish so it still looks like a Lasagne on the plate?
You do want quite a wet meat sauce if you're using dried lasagne sheets. I think the key to it not being sloppy is to make lots of layers with very little between them....that's the way it should be anyway according to the Italians.
I layer like so....a plop of meat sauce on the bottom of the dish to help it stay together, then a layer of lasagne sheets, followed by a layer of cheese sauce and meat sauce, a layer of lasagne sheets, a layer of cheese sauce and meat sauce. Then on top cheese sauce and grated cheese. But remember, as many layers as possible with not a lot between the pasta sheets, and don't be shy of leaning down on it to push them together
As for serving, let it rest for 20/30 mins when it comes out of the oven with some tin foil on top. It'll firm up a good bit then and don't worry about it getting cold.....it won't be!
Options
[Deleted User] Posts: 8,415 Forum Member
✭
one trick i have found is to make it then put it in the fridge overnight , then reheat it in the oven , seems to firm it up and make it less sloppy ....
Options
gemma-the-husky Posts: 18,116 Forum Member
✭✭
the sauce benefits from the addition of carrot and celery, i think.
carrot sweetens it, i think celery just adds something.
Options
big_hard_lad Posts: 4,077 Forum Member
✭✭✭
paulyoung666 wrote: »
one trick i have found is to make it then put it in the fridge overnight , then reheat it in the oven , seems to firm it up and make it less sloppy ....
Yup, and it always tastes nicer the next day too I think. The flavours meld together more or something. Nothing quite like a slice of day old lasagne, in between two bits of thick white bread and a squirt of ketchup! (FAO Tesco, I invented the lasagne sandwich, not you!)
gemma-the-husky wrote: »
the sauce benefits from the addition of carrot and celery, i think.
carrot sweetens it, i think celery just adds something.
Very much so, celery adds depth. It's known as a mirepoix http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirepoix_(cuisine)
