ULTIMATE LASAGNA

The story of this recipe
What makes it Ultimate lasagna?
Ingredients
Preparation
Assembly
Cooking and serving


Background
The recipe has evolved over the last 20 years. People eat it, roll their eyes, and talk about how it's the best lasagna they've ever had. I take full credit, deserved or not. Here's the story:

Many years ago some friends were staying at my home as sort of extended house guests. Since they weren't paying any rent, they took it upon themselves to prepare most of the meals. One day, one of the guests went to the store and came back with a pound each of hamburger and sausage, a container of cottage cheese, a small pile of jack cheese slices, a can of tomato sauce, and some wide noodles.

Oh. Lasagna! Or at least it was in about an hour. It didn't taste to bad, and appeared to be easy to make. "Hey, I can do that too", I thought.

Since that time, I have made the dish annually for friends. Of course the recipe has improved a little since that first "draft". Every year, it has been a goal to improve at least one aspect of the dish; add an ingredient, switch to a fresh version of an existing ingredient, etc. The breakthrough came when I started raiding the garden of some good friends for fresh tomatoes and herbs.

20 years later, voila! Ultimate lasagna! The recipe from this past year had the distinction that every single ingredient except for the cheese was made fresh from scratch. It was a real belly-buster of a dish.

What makes Ultimate Lasagna ultimate?
Two things; size of the dish and Quality of ingredients.

The ingredients and proportions for this recipe create enough lasagna to fill one of those impossibly large, foot and a half long, 4" deep lasagna pans you get at Macy's or a specialty store. How many people does it feed? A lot. Really a lot. And you can freeze the leftovers and have a super meal out of season.

Fresh ingredients are the real key to ultimate lasagna. Whenever possible, use fresh ingedients, and made from scratch ingredients. This means quality meat, fresh herbs, good cheese, made from scratch noodles, that kind of thing. Balance of flavor and lots of simmering, play strong supporting roles. Substitutions are cheerfully allowed, as long as you remember that freshness and flavor balance are what count. There are many tips scattered through out this recipe to help you achieve Ultimate Lasagna.

Ingredient list

Item	Quantity
Sauce:
Tomatoes	about 50
Tomato paste	2 small cans
Yellow Onion	2 medium
Carrots	2
Red wine	1 cup
Flat Italian Parsley	1 cup
Garlic	10 cloves
Salt	3 tbsp
Basil	½ cup
Marjoram	2 tsp
Oregano	2 tbsp
Nutmeg	½ tsp
Sugar	3 tsp
Fresh ground pepper	1 tsp
Bay leaves	4
Pesto (optional)	½ cup
Meat:
Ground sirloin	1½ lb
Hot Italian sausage	2½ lbs
Other:
Lasagne noodles	Equivalent of 30-40 18" long, Wide Lasagna noodles
Mozzarella	20-25 Slices
Jack	20-25 Slices
Parmesan Reggiano	½ lb
Ricotta	3 large tubs
Goat Cheese (optional)	6 oz.
Eggs	2

Notes on ingredients:

Noodles
If you choose to make the pasta from scratch, see the Made from scratch recipe tips. If you choose to use the dry pasta from the store, be sure to get a brand made in Italy. The Italian government has much stricter guidelines on pasta ingredients and its preparation then does the U.S. There is nothing wrong with store bought noodles as long as you get the Italian stuff. As a matter of fact, if there is one ingredient that is the hardest to justify making from scratch for this dish, it's the pasta. Who would've guessed? As a matter of fact, I know a chefs at a fine restaurant that has his choice, and still uses dry pasta. But be forewarned, there are many brands of pasta with packaging designed to fool you into thinking its from Italy. The ONLY true Italian brands say "Product of Italy" somewhere on the package. Now you know.

Cheese
For the parmesean, the Italians win again. Use only Parmesan Reggiano. This cheese is produced on a family farm in Italy. It has very few ingredients, nothing magical. But the secret is that the cows producing the cheese are fed a strict, uniform diet. Also, strict processing requirements assure that the product you buy is always the same; the best!

For the sliced cheeses, get as much as possible from a good deli (not the deli section at Safeway or Kroger!). Have the deli person slice the Jack and Mozzarella for you. The goal is thin, uniform slices.

For the Ricotta, just get the best brand the store carries. There are low fat versions, but you may not wish to bother. You're already doomed on the calorie count for this dish.

If you do the goat cheese, just get the plain stuff and remember that a little goes a long way. (It's fun to tell your company that there is a "secret" ingredient and see who can guess what it is.

Spices
This is where the "fresh is best" motto really comes in. Whenever possible get your spices fresh from the produce section, or better yet, your neighbors back yard. They're free that way. If you go with dried herbs, make sure the bottle hasn't been sitting open on the shelf for the past decade. And cut the amounts in ½ to start. Dried herbs tend to be more concentrated than their fresh counterparts.

Tomatoes
If using fresh tomatoes, get vine ripened if at all possible. This is important. Run of the mill, store bought tomatoes are just to pathetic to consider for ultimate lasagna. The vine ripened babies make all the difference. If you can't get vine ripened tomatoes, you are probably better off with an Italian brand of whole canned tomatoes.

Meat
For the hamburger, just use the best you can find. And do yourself a favor and buy the naturally rasied, hormone free meat, if you are fortunate enough to have such a store.

For the sausage, either follow the fresh recipe (easy, and highly recommended), or buy some fresh Hot Italian Sausage. Mild is OK if you're serving children or sissies.

Preparation     (Revenge is a dish best served cold. Lasagna is a dish best prepared ahead of time.)

The sauce

• If using fresh tomatoes, blanch and core.
• Chop the tomatoes or run them through food processor. You want small pieces, but not a puree.
• Place the sauce beginnings in a cooking pot and start simmering.
• Finely chop the garlic and onions. Sautee all the onions with ½ the garlic in a little olive oil.
• Add half the spices and herbs, and put the bay leaves in.
• Finely grate the carrots and throw them in.
• Continue simmering. You want enough heat to really get a good simmer going; just short of bubbling.
• Taste the sauce after it has simmered a couple of hours. Add the balance of spices as needed. The idea here is to get a tasty sauce before you add the meat. It should taste delightful in "vegi" form. The meat will make it even better. What you're looking to achieve is a rich, smooth blend of sweetness, spice, and tomatoee flavor.
• Add the remaining garlic near the end of the entire simmering process.

• If you are making the sausage from scratch, follow the made from scratch recipe then come back here. If you purchase sausage in a casing, remove the casings now.
• Brown the hamburger and sausage. Break up the pieces as small as possible while browning. This is to keep large chunks of meat from overpowering a bite of lasagna.
• Drain the meat and then add it to the tomato sauce.

 

With the meat now added, the sauce is complete. What's important now is to simmer the sauce for at least 4-8 hours to let the flavors meld.

Preparation for assembly

Very little to do here except cook the noodles and pull the prepared ingredient from the fridge.

• At this point you should have made the sauce and simmered it for several hour. If you cheated, you're forgiven.
• Have the following handy: the uncooked noodles, the sauce, all the cheeses, the eggs, and the lasagna pan.
• Noodles. Don't cook them. This seems scary, but we have found that using uncooked noodles (even the store bought dry noodles) works out very well. They get completely done during the baking process and absorb the excess moisture from the sauce.
• Beat the eggs in a bowl and combine in the ricotta and goat cheese.




---





Assembly

This part is really fun. Group participation adds to the hoopla. All ingredient should be handy. Grab your lasagna pan. Assembly proceeds as follows:


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Repeat middle layer until you're either out of ingredients or almost to the top of the pan. Just be sure to save enough sauce for the top layer.

Assembly tips:

Part of the reason for layering ingredients in this order is to provide a good surface to spread the ricotta cheese onto. A trick to help with this is to slightly warm the ricotta/goat cheese mixture before spreading it onto the mozzarella. It goes on way easier. The reason for having the layer of sauce on the bottom is that it helps prevents sticking.



---





Cooking instructions

We often bake the lasagna a day before the feed. This ages the lasagna further, and then it just needs to be heated through for the actual feed. In any case:

• Preheat oven to 350.
• Place lasagna pan on center of rack and bake uncovered for 45 minutes to one hour, or until it's bubbling all around edge of pan. Cooking uncovered allows a nice crust to form and adds to the overall taste. Naturally you want the dish to come out not to loose, but not too dried out. Keep your eye on it and if the dish appears to be drying out go ahead and cover with foil.

 



---




ENJOY! This dish goes great with a green salad, some garlic bread, and a big glass of your favorite red wine.   That's all Folks!




Information on lasagna pan      Comments or questions? Send an email here.