Recipe for classic Italian lasagna with minced meat. Amazing Italian lasagna

Italian lasagna- perhaps one of those dishes that every housewife should be able to cook. This mix of dough, meat and cheese will satisfy the whole family in one fell swoop! But there is one “but”: we most often make lasagna from special sheets of dough, which are sold in whole packs in the store. But the Italians do not recognize these sheets - they call them "an option for the lazy"!

Therefore, if you have a few free hours at your disposal, try to devote them to cooking from scratch - with the creation of real egg dough, bolognese and bechamel sauces. We will now tell you about all these subtleties.

Ingredients:

• Hard cheese like Dutch - 300 g

For test:

• Eggs - 3 pcs.
• Flour - 400 g
• Salt - a pinch

For the bolognese sauce:

• Vegetable oil - 2 tbsp.
• Minced meat (veal or beef) - 500 g
• Onion - 1 pc.
• Garlic - 2 cloves
• Tomato juice (or diluted tomato paste) - 300 ml
• Salt - 0.5 tbsp.
• Ground black pepper - to taste
• Dried basil - to taste

For the bechamel sauce:

• Butter - 50 g
• Milk - 200 ml
• Flour - 3 tbsp.
• Salt - a pinch

You will also need: a baking dish with high sides, a little vegetable oil for greasing the form and a whisk.

Italian lasagna - recipe

Usually, the preparation of lasagna begins with meat bolognese sauce: it is stewed for a long time. If you already have minced meat ready, put a frying pan on the fire and pour vegetable oil on its bottom. When it warms up, put the minced meat in the pan.

Peel the onion, wash well and cut into cubes. Put the onion in the pan and mix with minced meat.

Peel the garlic and pass through the garlic maker so that the minced meat gets crushed garlic puree. In European recipes, most often it is recommended not to chop the garlic, but simply crush the cloves with a wide knife so that the garlic begins to release juice. But in this case, the crushed cloves will then have to be fished out of the finished sauce (and otherwise, completely fished out of your plate, which is not entirely aesthetically pleasing).

Mix the minced meat with vegetables well, salt it and pour over the tomato juice. Cover the pan with a lid and simmer the bolognese sauce for an hour.

At the end of the stew, add chopped dried basil and pepper to the sauce.

While the sauce is simmering, you can prepare the egg lasagna batter. Actually, this dough is suitable for any kind of Italian "pasta" - pasta like cannelloni, farfalle or spaghetti. Pour 2 cups of flour into a bowl and make a large indentation in the middle of this slide. Crack all 3 eggs into this well and add a pinch of salt.

Pierce all the yolks with a fork and gently begin to stir the eggs into a homogeneous mass. Gradually fold in the eggs and flour on all sides.

After kneading all the flour along with the eggs, put the fork aside and knead the dough with your hands for at least 15 minutes. Here you will need to add additional flour to the dough - until the dough turns into an elastic bun that does not stick to your hands. In this form, the dough should be put in a bag or wrapped with cling film and placed in the refrigerator for 30-60 minutes.

While the dough is resting in the cold, and the meat sauce finishes stewing (or is already cooling), prepare the rest of the lasagna. Rub the cheese on a fine grater and leave aside.

cook bechamel sauce. To do this, put a piece of butter in a frying pan and melt it completely. It is very important that the fire is low throughout the preparation of the sauce - otherwise the ingredients will stick to the bottom or burn!

If the butter has already completely melted, pour the flour into the pan and immediately stir in the butter with quick circular motions. The fat will immediately “disappear” somewhere, and you will see dryish flour lumps in the pan.

At this stage, you can begin to gradually add milk to the sauce and immediately knead it with the rest of the ingredients. Salt the sauce and add enough milk to make it thick but without lumps. If your sauce has lumps, keep kneading it: the heat and kneading should make the lumps disappear. Bechamel is ready - now let it cool slightly!

Remove the dough from the refrigerator and sprinkle it well with flour, roll it out thinly. The rolled out dough should be translucent.

Cut out 4 sheets of dough for (the size you need for your baking dish). Lubricate the form with vegetable oil, and lay the first sheet of dough on its bottom.

The dough remaining after cutting the desired sheets can be rolled up and cut into small pieces. You will get noodles that can be dried in an open oven and later used like regular pasta. Just do not spare the flour - sprinkle pasta with it so that they do not stick together!

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The terms "laganon" and "laganum" denoted a thin sheet of dough based on wheat flour, which was cooked in an oven or over an open fire.

In the Apicio recipe book, this dough is used to create a dish called lagana. In it, wheat sheets are separated by layers of minced meat.

In the Middle Ages, lasagna recipes finally took shape. and were already so widespread that numerous writers (Jacopone da Todi, Cecco Angiolieri, etc.) mentioned it in their works. It is impossible to say with certainty that the dish of those years was 100% similar to the modern version. It is even suggested that it looked more like.

The Renaissance is the heyday of Italian pasta. It was at the end of the 17th century that the recipe for the lasagna alla bolognese that has survived to this day was published. And in 1881, in the book "The Prince of Cooks", published in, for the first time, the use of tomatoes in the composition of the dish is suggested.

Over time, more and more new interpretations of the food that was gaining popularity arose. From solemn banquets, lasagne smoothly moved to the dining tables of all Italian houses.

Varieties by region

Although today there are many regional varieties of lasagna, they can be roughly divided into 2 traditions:

1. More ancient, relating to the center and south of Italy.
2. Recipes of the northern flat territory of the republic.

Let's take a closer look at what options for dishes are preferred in different regions of the country.

Northern Italy

The most common recipe in northern Italy involves the use of egg-based pasta. In (Emilia-Romagna), a mixture of pork and beef is used as minced meat. Required components:, Bechamel sauce and. In other regions of the northern part of the republic, the term "lasagne" is often used for egg paste in the form of wide (about 2 cm) and long strips. Such pasta is eaten on its own or added to.

In the tradition of the northern regions, there is a variant of green lasagna. Spinach is added to the dough for such a pasta. There is also a version with a layer based on mushrooms, although more often it catches the eye in the central regions of the country.

Apulia and Basilicata

The classic interpretation of lasagna, characteristic of (Puglia) and (Basilicata), differs from all other types in the absence of eggs in the dough. The dish is called sagne (lasagne) ncannulate. I twist the strips of pasta by hand in the form of female curls. It seems that to obtain them, the dough is wrapped around a rigid frame (curlers). In fact, masters form curls without using any devices.

Lasagne ncannulate is boiled in water, not baked. Served with tomato sauce, ricotta and basil.

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Marche and Umbria

In the commune of Castiglione Messer Marino, there is an interesting custom. They call boiled lasagna sagne a lu cuttor. It is enriched with meat, sausages, pork belly, liver, chili peppers and eaten with bare hands straight from copper boilers.

Sicily

The version of lasagna living in Sicilian cuisine is closest to the Neapolitan version. Enrich the recipe with the introduction of boiled eggs, fried meat, vegetables (eggplant, carrots, celery), semi-hard cheeses. In Naples, this kind of dish is called lasagna riccia.

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Like many foods with a long history, lasagna has acquired a lot of interesting facts over time:

1. July 29 is National Lasagna Day in Italy.
2. In the Republic, the term "lasagna" in relation to pasta is plural and implies more than one strip of dough.
3. Traditionally, in the south of the country, the dough is made from water and semolina. In the northern regions, where semolina was not widely available, recipes with flour and eggs have developed.
4. Initially, the word Lasagne did not refer to the dish itself, but to the dishes in which it was cooked.
5. The earliest recipe for the dish dates back to a time when tomatoes were not yet known to Europeans. Therefore, they were not used in the composition. However, today most of the classic versions are prepared with tomatoes or sauces based on them.
6. It used to be mandatory to boil all the pasta before baking layered lasagna. Now the softening of the flour dough is achieved with a sufficient amount of sauce.
7. The most famous lasagna lover is Garfield the cat.
8. Weird Al Yankovic ("Weird Al" Yankovic) recorded the song "Lasagna" - a parody of the hit "La Bamba".

Possible cooking errors

Despite the ease of execution, lasagna can still be ruined. We will bring 5 most common mistakes, which should be avoided in cooking:

1. Using a large number of layers of paste. This error is especially noticeable for pasta based on semolina. Such a dish will be overdried. Therefore, chefs often recommend that beginners cook lasagna with fresh dough.
2. Insufficient lubrication of the bottom and walls of the mold with oil. Careful lubrication of the mold is necessary to avoid sticking of the paste to its surface. Crispy edges and base are especially appreciated by lovers of lasagna. An excellent option is to sprinkle the form with a thin layer of breadcrumbs on top of the fatty film.
3. Too much sauce in the filling. It results in a lack of light crunchiness. This dish is more like a thick soup.
4. Using dry pasta based on semolina. Unlike a flour base, semolina pasta should be lightly boiled until al dente, and then baked with the filling.
5. No crust on surface. It is rather a mistake in culinary aesthetics. To get a beautiful crust, sprinkle lasagna with grated cheese and turn on the grill function 3-4 minutes before the dish is ready.

Classic recipe

A wide variety of recipes for a dish cannot be placed in one article. Therefore, we will present to your attention the classic recipe for lasagna with minced meat - alla bolognese. In the republic, it is believed that every housewife should be able to cook the Bolognese version of the dish.

The Bolognese version is the most common lasagna with minced meat both in Italy and abroad. The main criterion for its preparation is the selection of components. Minced meat must be mixed: pork and beef, and tomatoes must be fragrant so that their taste can be clearly seen.

The counters of modern stores are full of ready-made pasta for making lasagna. But it is much more pleasant and reliable to roll out the dough yourself. Moreover, the process is not very difficult.

Ingredients needed for the paste:

• Flour - 350-400 g;
• Spinach (peeled and washed) - 400 g;
• Eggs - 3 pcs.

First, boil the spinach in a small amount of lightly salted water until softened. Drain, rinse under running cold water and leave until the liquid drains completely. If necessary, spinach can be lightly squeezed through cheesecloth.

Beat the leaves in a puree and combine in a bowl with flour and eggs. Knead elastic dough. Wrap it in cling film and leave for 1 hour at room temperature.

We divide the dough into parts, roll it out with a rolling pin to a layer thickness of 1 mm. Cut out a rectangle the size of your lasagne pan.
Filling ingredients:

• Minced pork - 250 g;
• Ground beef - 500 g;
• Tomato puree - 250 g;
• Carrots - 50 g;
• Onion - 50 g;
• Celery - 50 g;
• Milk - 40 g;
• Olive oil - 1 tbsp. spoon;
• Dry white wine - 250 ml;
• Water - 3 l;
• Salt, black pepper - to taste.

We start by finely chopping the celery, carrots and onions. Heat the oil in a pan and add vegetables to it. Simmer over low heat for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add beef and pork mince and fry for 10 minutes.

When the meat dries noticeably, add white wine and, stirring the mass, wait for it to evaporate. Add tomato puree, a pinch of salt and 1 liter of water. After boiling, simmer over medium heat for about an hour.

Pour in 1 liter of water and continue the procedure for another 1 hour. After the time has elapsed, we add the last liter of liquid and repeat the quenching stage for 60 minutes. At the end of cooking, the meat should be firm but not too dry. Salt and pepper to taste. Turn off the heat, add milk, mix thoroughly and set aside to cool.

Bechamel Sauce Ingredients:

• Milk - 1l;
• Butter - 100 g;
• Flour - 100 g;
• Nutmeg and salt - a pinch.

Now let's make the sauce. Heat the milk in one saucepan and melt the butter in another. Remove the container with liquid oil from the heat and gradually add the sifted flour. Vigorously work with a whisk to get a mass without lumps. We send the pan back to the fire and lightly fry.

When the milk is hot, season it with salt and nutmeg and pour into the butter-flour mixture. Working with a whisk, we wait for thickening at low heat (cook for 5-6 minutes until a creamy consistency). The finished bechamel sauce should be smooth and uniform.

The last step is to assemble the lasagna. It will require one more ingredient - 250 g of hard cheese grated on a coarse grater (ideally Parmesan).

In a rectangular baking dish (30 * 20 cm), greased with oil, evenly distribute a small amount of béchamel sauce. We put a sheet of pasta and again pour a thin layer of sauce. Spread some of the filling and sprinkle with cheese.

We continue laying out the layers in order: pasta, bechamel sauce, meat filling, cheese (optimally - 3-4 repetitions). The top floor of the “construction” is meat sprinkled with cheese.

Bake in an oven preheated to 200 degrees for 25 minutes. The lasagna readiness indicator is a light golden crust on the surface. Remove from oven, cool slightly and serve. It is best to combine the Bolognese dish with red dry or young sparkling wines.

Calorie and nutritional properties

Despite the apparent bulkiness of the composition, lasagna with minced meat is not at all a hypercalorie dish. Its nutritional value is only 277 kcal per 100 g of product. It is made up of:

• Proteins - 12 g;
• Fats - 19 g;
• Carbohydrates - 15 g.

At the same time, do not forget that animal components will certainly carry cholesterol into the load. Therefore, overweight people should limit their consumption of Italian food.

Heat treatment at high temperatures destroys the vitamin composition, but retains the mineral composition. Beef, as a valuable source of iron, gives lasagne the status of a dish useful for anemic patients. A sufficiently high sodium content narrows the portions of the delicacy for those who suffer from excessive blood pressure.

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The only real food for Italians is pasta. The word pastum is translated from Latin as "food", and pasta is "dough", the basis of this food. But if the origin of various pasta is controversial, then no one doubts the pedigree of lasagna ->

Some historians explain the appearance of noodles and vermicelli in Europe by the influence of the Chinese or Arabs, while lasagna is an invention, of course, Italian. in Latin lasanum means "pot". And the word laganum the ancient Romans used to refer to strips of dough that they boiled in such a pot - in water or meat broth. Then such strips were placed in a mold and baked with cheese in the oven. Laganum layer cake is mentioned by the Roman deli Marcus Apicius in the book De re coquinaria(“On the Cooking Business”), written in the 1st century AD. e.

For the right to be considered the birthplace of modern lasagna, two Italian cities are arguing - Bologna, the capital of the Emilia-Romagna region, and Naples, the capital of Campania. The Bolognese version of this dish, which is prepared with bolognese stew, bechamel sauce and parmesan, has won worldwide fame. It is now found in most restaurants around the world.

Interview
Matteo Lai

Bologna native, brand chef of restaurantsJamie's Italian in Russia counts the layers of the correct lasagna.

What does real lasagna look like?
In the classic version, she has six layers. Rectangular layers of dough are most often used, but lasagna can be triangular, square, and round. The main thing is that the layers should be wide, this distinguishes lasagna from other types of pasta casseroles - pasticcio and casserole.

What is your family's recipe?

We are not limited to one tradition. My dad's grandmother used to make lasagna according to the Bolognese recipe. I remember that on Sundays she manually kneaded the dough from 30 eggs (it’s scary for modern chefs to think about such a volume!), Armed with a two-meter rolling pin and rolled out the thinnest layers for lasagna and tagliatelle, so that the family had enough for a week. Then I cooked ground beef. And my grandmother on my mother's side was from Abruzzo. She made lasagna with chicken or lamb.

Where would you recommend trying lasagna?

In small family trattorias. Of course, I invite everyone to our family restaurant Skakko Matto on Via Broccaindosso in Bologna.

True, the popular version is somewhat different from the recipe, which was solemnly approved in May 2003 by the Italian Culinary Academy and transferred to the Bologna Chamber of Commerce for storage. Experts have recognized green lasagna as a historical recipe. Spinach or nettle gives color to the dough. In the Middle Ages, they were added not for the sake of beauty, but to save expensive flour and eggs.

For a long time, layers of dough were simply baked with cheese, and nothing more. High-calorie cheese perfectly replaced expensive meat, available mainly to the rich. The appearance of lasagne stew and bechamel sauce in the composition is associated with Napoleon's invasion of Northern Italy in 1796. Bechamel, although known by its French name, is considered a domestic product by the Italians. According to legend, it was invented in Tuscany, and the recipe was brought to France by cooks who arrived at the royal court at the invitation of Catherine de Medici. To the north of Italy, the sauce returned under a new name and with French troops.

Neapolitan lasagna is less popular in the world, but claims to be of more ancient origin. Oldest medieval cookbook Liber de coquina(translated precisely as "Cookbook"), published in Naples in the XIII-XIV centuries, contains the first known recipe for the dish de lasanis- puff pastry with grated cheese. By the early 19th century, it had evolved into a pasta casserole with deep-fried meatballs, pork ribs, eggs, ricotta and mozzarella cheeses, and tomato sauce. King of the Two Sicilies Ferdinand II was considered an ardent admirer of Neapolitan lasagna. He was even nicknamed the Lasagna King - so often this dish was served to the monarch. But the Neapolitan subjects of Ferdinand ate lasagne only on holidays - during the Maslenitsa carnival and at Easter.

Tomatoes, from which lasagna sauce is prepared, began to be grown in southern Italy no earlier than the middle of the 18th century. For a long time they were available only in summer and autumn, until at the end of the 19th century the Italians learned how to preserve tomatoes and tomato sauces. And with pleasure they began to combine them with pasta.

Lasagna does not have a special season, it is prepared all year round. Many varieties of the dish appeared: Ligurian lasagna with pesto, Sicilian with eggplant or Umbrian with chicken giblets, lasagna with mushrooms, vegetables, seafood ... A dish prepared according to a recipe that has been passed down from generation to generation in every family for decades, reminds most Italians of their parental home and makes you feel like a child again.

Recipe

lasagna

Cooking time: 60 minutes
For how many people: 10

1 Form dough with eggs and flour. Divide into six balls, cover with cling film and refrigerate for 15 minutes. Roll out sheets ~ 3 mm thick with a rolling pin.

2 Cut all the vegetables into cubes and fry in olive oil. Add meat and fry too. Pour in the wine. When it evaporates, put salt, pepper and tomatoes (mashed with hands until smooth), pour in the broth and simmer for 2-3 hours over low heat. For the bechamel sauce, melt the butter and add the flour. When the mass becomes dense, cool for 30-40 minutes. Pour milk into another saucepan, put salt and nutmeg. When the milk boils, add the chilled base. Stir for 5 minutes over low heat until the flour dissolves. Cool down.

3 Lay out in layers- bechamel sauce, pasta leaf, bechamel sauce and bolognese sauce, sprinkle with grated parmesan. Lay out five more layers in the same order. The last one is without parmesan!

4 Cover with foil, bake at 180 degrees for 25-30 minutes. Remove the foil, sprinkle with parmesan, put in the oven for another 5 minutes.

Photos: Grigory Polyakovsky

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Italian lasagna is loved by many today. Some historians believe that they knew how to make lasagna or a similar dish in ancient Rome. The preparation of lasagna in its modern form originates in the province of Emilia-Romagna, from where the lasagna recipe spread throughout Italy. Until now, lasagna is considered a classic dish of the city of Bologna, located in this province. That is why classic lasagna is bolognese lasagna. In addition, almost every province or city has its own lasagna recipe For example, in Naples - Neapolitan lasagna, in Sicily - Sicilian lasagna. The cooking recipe allowed experimenting and using different products.

A few words about how to make dough for lasagna. If you are interested in lasagna, the dough recipe should not scare you away. It is desirable to knead the dough for lasagna from durum wheat flour, which is usually used for making pasta. The recipe for lasagna dough is quite simple: flour, eggs, water, salt, olive oil. There is one remark to the question of how to prepare sheets for lasagna: you need to knead for a long time to get a plastic dough for lasagna. The recipe calls for just such a test. Today in the supermarket you can easily buy ready-made layers for lasagna, lasagna recipe after that it will become much easier for you. But even if you have not found sheets for lasagna, we will advise you how to cook lasagna without them. So, there is pasta lasagna, puff pastry lasagna, pita lasagna, lazy lasagna, and even pancake lasagna. Lasagna, a pita bread recipe, is often referred to as a lazy lasagne recipe. It should also be added that 6 layers of dough are traditionally used, this is how classic lasagna is prepared, the recipe of which was invented in Bologna.

We have already told you how to cook lasagna dough, now it's time to talk about how to cook lasagna. lasagna recipes there are many, the filling for lasagna can be very different. There is meat lasagna, lean lasagna or vegetarian lasagna, mushroom lasagna, fish lasagna, seafood lasagna, vegetable lasagna, cheese lasagna. Cheese lasagna is made with ricotta or mozzarella cheese. But if you are interested in lasagna bolognese, this recipe allows you to use only parmesan cheese. There can be a complex or simple lasagna recipe, depending on the amount of lasagna ingredients. In a word, the choice is very large, for every taste: lasagna with meat or lasagna with minced meat, lasagna with chicken, lasagna with mushrooms, lasagna with chicken and mushrooms, lasagna with minced meat and mushrooms.

If you can't live without meat, you can use minced meat lasagna or meat lasagna, chicken lasagna recipe. It remains only to find out how to cook lasagna with minced meat: for this, see the lasagna with minced meat cooking recipe, how to cook lasagna with minced meat or lasagna with minced meat recipe with photo. If you are on a diet or a vegetarian, cook vegetable lasagna, pasta lasagna recipe, mushroom lasagne recipe. Lasagna with vegetables, such as potato lasagna, will be healthy and tasty. If you're looking for a more sophisticated recipe, spinach lasagne is for you. By the way, sometimes you can see the inscription “lasagna with spinach” on the packaging with green lasagna sheets - this means that grated spinach was added to the lasagna dough.

The best sauce for lasagna is bechamel. Bechamel sauce for lasagna is like mayonnaise for Olivier. Bechamel for lasagne, of course, you can buy, but it's better to make it yourself. This is the most delicious lasagna sauce, bechamel recipe is not that complicated. You will need butter, flour, milk, salt, pepper and a dash of nutmeg in order to make the béchamel sauce. The recipe for lasagna is the same as for other dishes.

Many do not know how to cook lasagna at home. Nothing complicated, we will assume that you have already decided on the lasagna recipe and you have the necessary products for the filling and dough for lasagna. The recipe for lasagna at home may not differ much from the restaurant one - the main thing is to have a steady desire to cook some delicious lasagna. For example, it can be a recipe for lasagna with meat, lasagna with cheese and ham, or vegetable lasagna. The homemade lasagna recipe is generally very simple and resembles spring rolls. That is, you simply shift the lasagna ingredients, be sure to use cheese and butter, and bake it all in the oven. If you have all the necessary ingredients, cooking lasagna at home is not difficult. Of course, it would be nice to have a rectangular shape at home, although pancake lasagna will help you solve this problem too. At the restaurant lasagna cooked in the oven, lasagne at home cooked in the oven. But lasagna in the microwave also has the right to be eaten. Everything elementary is simple and now you know how to cook lasagna at home.

By the way, not only Italians know how to cook lasagna. Lasagna recipes are easy to come up with on your own. The Poles, by the way, have also known how lasagna is prepared for a long time, they call this recipe “lasanka”. So experiment, come up with your own way of cooking lasagna, for sure you will get your own author's lasagna, send us a photo to show off. And your own lasagna recipe with a photo, your personalized lasagna recipe with a photo will decorate our site.