[Jason]

Wow siduri, you really don't care for lasagna i can see. But thank you for the help. I would like to ask you something on a topic you do seem to enjoy though. What is penne all'arrabbiata? Like i said i still have a lot to learn.

[bbay]

The first time i made lasagna was using a recipe from a book by Giulianno Hazan. He said in the book that it was his grandmother's recipe. I found a link to the recipe here. No ricotta cheese, but you may not like the finished product... it's probably different than what you are used to.

Alternative: I sometimes mix the ricotta with the ragu/marinara sauce before assembling the lasagna. It mixes together better in the bake and there won't be pockets of ricotta in some bites (which I, personally, don't enjoy). And then you can just lie and say that you didn't put ricotta in it.

[siduri]

Originally Posted by Jason

Wow siduri, you really don't care for lasagna i can see. But thank you for the help. I would like to ask you something on a topic you do seem to enjoy though. What is penne all'arrabbiata? Like i said i still have a lot to learn.

Hi Jason. I don;t HATE lasagne, but would never choose it at a restaurant. I like fresher pasta dishes, ones that are boiled and sauced and eaten immediately. Well, with the exception of macaroni and cheese, but that's not a "pasta dish" but a wonderful american macaroni recipe! Anyway.
Penne all'arrabbiata (literally penne the angry woman's way - angry because they're hot)
For every couple of people, you take a couple of cloves of garlic and smash them, put them in a pot with about 1/8 inch of good olive oil, and a couple of small hot peppers (the tiny ones are about half an inch long) or you can use an equivalent amount of pepper flakes. (no point giving measures since different hot peppers vary in hotness anyway). Sautee over low heat until the garlic is getting soft, then add either fresh very good vine-ripened tomatoes or canned good quality tomatoes (whole or chopped) and salt to taste, and cook just a few minutes, maybe 5, over high heat. Put over freshly drained penne pasta, and mix well immediately. Sprinkle fresh chopped parsley on top.

A variation, add a can of tuna to the garlic and pepper, finish off the same way.

[bundens]

being that I'm half italian...

if he hates ricotta so much (and certainly it isn't needed for lasagna...just a american and southern italian thing...my grandmothers from sicily so she loves her ricotta...especially ricotta cheesecake)

why not try and make some baked ziti?
or lasagna bolognese?

[MaryB]

Leftover baked spaghetti with lots of mozzarella and parm is great too.

[bundens]

my aunt...swears by spaghetti sandwichs...
spaghetti on toasted bread with butter...
she knows more about food then anybody i know so she may be right..i just haven't gotten around to trying it yet.
i would think ya may want to add some mozzerella to that ..

[Miraz]

We do a greek derivative of lasagne - Pastitsio

The meat sauce is flavoured with wine, dried and fresh oregano, cloves and cinnamon - the bechamel sauce has a little keflatori cheese added, but parmesan works equally well. But instead of flat pasta sheets we use a tube pasta - Rigatoni or similar coated with the bechamel and beaten egg and layered with the meat sauce and topped with the remaining bechamel.
It's a little lighter than an Italian lasagna and has a lovely fresh fragrance about it without being laden down with cheese.

[Mapiva]

About the bechamel...

It's not quite as simple as was described above. It's not just "heat up some butter and flour and add milk and mix."

-The butter and flour must be equal amounts. So if you're using a cup of butter, you use a cup of flour. In order to make enough bechamel for a lasagne or a pastitsio I use 2 sticks of butter, the same amount of flour, and a couple of quarts of milk.

-Heat the butter Not in a nonstic! slowly until it melts but does not burn.

-Add the flour and stir until it is incorporated until it becomes what is called a roux. Cook on low for 3 minutes or so to get that grainy floury taste out of it.

-In the meantime I have a pot of whole milk warming up on the stove. Do not boil the milk, but bring it to a hot temperature.

-Add 5 cups of the milk to your roux and whisk, then continue to add a cup of milk at a time until you get a consistancy that stays on the back of a spoon.

-At this point I like to add an egg - some people don't do this but I find that it really brings the texture of the sauce together. Beat one egg very well, and slowly temper it with the bechamel, eventually adding it to the pot.

-Now you can take the pot off the heat and add your flavors to the bechamel. Freshly grated nutmeg is pretty much mandatory for italians. Also add handfuls of grated parmesan, and season with salt and sometimes white pepper.

Now i's ready to add to the lasagna.

[Jason]

Wow siduri now my mouth is watering haha, that sounds likeit could be quite tasty! I willhave to give it a shot, and i do love a good penne dish.

[Just Jim]

One of my most popular specials was a vegan lasagna.
I used pressed and crumbled tofu in place of the ricotta, and seasoned it with fresh basil, thyme and oregano.
Then a standard meatless marinara.
I could've used a basic eggless pasta, but I made polenta strips instead.

They used to wolf this down.
But this was in Arcata, a town full of bark eating, root chomping druids.

Do not tell him how it's made until he is finished.
You don't want to cause him to choke as he spasms from the news.

[KissTC]

Originally Posted by Mapiva

About the bechamel...

It's not quite as simple as was described above. It's not just "heat up some butter and flour and add milk and mix."

-The butter and flour must be equal amounts. So if you're using a cup of butter, you use a cup of flour. In order to make enough bechamel for a lasagne or a pastitsio I use 2 sticks of butter, the same amount of flour, and a couple of quarts of milk.

-Heat the butter Not in a nonstic! slowly until it melts but does not burn.

-Add the flour and stir until it is incorporated until it becomes what is called a roux. Cook on low for 3 minutes or so to get that grainy floury taste out of it.

-In the meantime I have a pot of whole milk warming up on the stove. Do not boil the milk, but bring it to a hot temperature.

-Add 5 cups of the milk to your roux and whisk, then continue to add a cup of milk at a time until you get a consistancy that stays on the back of a spoon.

-At this point I like to add an egg - some people don't do this but I find that it really brings the texture of the sauce together. Beat one egg very well, and slowly temper it with the bechamel, eventually adding it to the pot.

-Now you can take the pot off the heat and add your flavors to the bechamel. Freshly grated nutmeg is pretty much mandatory for italians. Also add handfuls of grated parmesan, and season with salt and sometimes white pepper.

Now i's ready to add to the lasagna.

It is not quite what you state either...It is roux blanc, a white roux. This is quite different to a roux blond, roux brun or beurre manie (cold roux).

Bechamel is a white sauce. The addition of nutmeg and other non standard additives appears to be an American variation. Whether or not it would or could still be called bechamel with such variations I will leave to better thinkers than I.

Adding egg, without any question changes it so much that it could not possibly still be referred to as bechamel.

The traditional flavouring for the bechamel is a "studded" onion. I call it studded because if you stud it, then you will not need to strain it! For 5 litres of bechamel, you need one white onion at about 175-200 grams, 2 cloves and one bayleaf. The idea is to place the onion, cloves and bayleaf in 5 litres of cold milk and bring to the boil. Then remove from the heat and allow to stand for 5 minutes for the flavours to infuse, then strain. However, if you stud the bayleaf to the side of the onion using the two cloves as "nails" then you can simply lift the studded onion out after 5 minutes.

The quantity for the roux blanc for 5 Ltr of milk is 400 grams each of butter and flour. Yes, add the butter first and when melted add the flour. Cook until the flour is cooked through and without colour (hence blanc). If you are not skilled at getting a roux blanc, you can simply cook the bechamel longer to finish cooking the flour...The flour will still cook through at the sauce stage.

To the subject of the thread. It is my understanding that traditional lasanga does not use cheese at all. It uses bechamel as the top most layer and is cooked until the bechamel has a dark brown crust. However, I would add cheese and it does seems to be the popular modern style.

Hope that is of help.

[boar_d_laze]

The first published reference to what we now call bechamel seems to have been in de la Varenne's book, Le Cuisinier Françoise, published in France in 1651. From the English edition, published in 1655, "[M]ake a sauce with very fresh butter, a little vinegar, salt, nutmegg, and the yolk of an egg to thicken the sauce, and have a care that it doe not curd or (turne).

Several people have been credited with the invention of bechamel, de la Varenne among them. If true, we see from the recipe, that both studded onion and roux itself was actually a later addition to the sauce than nutmeg -- and that nutmeg is indeed one of the original ingredients. FWIW, de la Varenne is given a lot of credit for popularizing roux as a thickener. Most cooks of the day used bread. De la Varenne is also given credit for naming the sauce.

The great Escoffier favored the method KTC likes, "White roux moistened with milk, salt, onion stuck with clove, cook for 20 minutes;" while Pellaprat, also a great, added onion not to the milk but to the already cooked, bland bechamel to make a daugher sauce called a Soubaise.

On the other hand, Pellaprat allowed a proportion of stock, as high as 75%, for the liquid. To me that's a veloute, while an egg thickened veloute is an allemande. Was Pellaprat, who wrote a generation after Escoffier a wild-eyed revolutionary or heretic? No. Pellaprat was more traditionalist than Escoffier, in that Careme, writing a hundred years before Escoffied allowed for stock also. In fact his recipe for bechamel started with a veloute: "Reduce the velouté until it is thick, then bind it with egg yolks and thick cream. Stir with a wooden spoon to make sure the sauce does not stick to the pan. Remove it from the heat, add a piece of butter the size of a walnut and a few tablespoons of double (heavy) cream. Add a pinch of grated nutmeg, sieve through muslin (cheesecloth), and keep hot in a bain-marie."

Limping into the second half of the 20th Century, the modern "classic" from LaRousse is the normal roux thickened milk we all make. In his recipe LaRousse advises "season with salt and pepper and, if desired (according to what the sauce is to be used for), a little grated nutmeg." (Gastronomique, 1988). Even in academic, classic French cooking many of these choices are simply a matter of personal style. It's easy to get caught in the idea that what you were taught is the "right" or the "original" way -- a mistake I make frequently.

In my experience cooking Greek (limited) and Italian cuisines (not exactly what you'd call expert, either) bechamel (besamel in Greek) is almost always flavored with nutmeg -- especially when used with layered casseroles such as lasagna, pastisio (Italian), pastitsio (Greek), moussaka, or even the Franco/ Italo/ Jeffersonian macaroni and cheese.

The Italian tradition is of historical interest as to whether nutmeg is one of the original ingredients goes to one of the other bechamel creation myths. That is, bechamel was brought to France by Catherine de Medici when she left Italy to marry the future Henri II in the early 16th Century. According to Italian tradition, the sauce was even older, and created in the 14th Century. Sneer not, Francophiles. It's Catherine's influence and imported courtiers and servants who are credited with lifting French cuisine out of the middle ages and into the light.

Cuisine is living, breathing, and subject to change. We're not constrained to doing things as Escoffier did, nor are we limited by his recipes or vocabulary. The terminology and tradition as to who was first, what's real bechamel and what's merely a variation is confused. IMO it's not for us, mere mortals all, to decide which of the culinary gods was more right than the other. But, in any case, "nutmegg" is neither an American nor a recent offense against whatever the Platonic ideal bechamel truly is.

Perspective,
BDL

[oldschool1982]

As far as tradition goes there's a broad based understanding of what many people from different families, regions, countries or even continents understand something to be or it's on a smaller scale involving what you grew up with. There are a good many things I know to be "traditional" using both those criteria.

Personally I've never seen lasagne without ricotta and never with Bechamel. This is with my family arriving to this country from two very distinct regions of Italy.....Milano and Calabria. I may not know the exact villiage in Milano my family is from but in Calabria and please excuse my spelling it was Alessandro del Coretto that I have heard mentioned as the village that my family was from. Not sure if that is the actual name or spelling.
Anyhow Ricotta was used in a good many dishes that were prepared by both sides of the family. Maybe it was something that was picked up here after the migration but I know of no other way so my traditional way to serve Lasagne is with ricotta.

[MadBakerWoman]

ive made lasagne numerous times, and ive only used ricotta once or maybe twice. i just use regular mozzarella, or some other shredded cheese.

[siduri]

Nutmeg is used a lot in italian cooking - not so much in deserts though. Bechamel, mashed potatoes, they always have nutmeg as far as i've seen.

thanks bdl for pointing out the catherine de medici story - apparently she was appalled that she was married out into the uncouth france and brought her cooks with her. Doesn;t mean that french cooking didn;t take off from there and go to the stars, but it did seem to originate from italian pastry cooks. Italians tend to disdain french cooking as too sophisticated (and they use the word ("sofisticato") also to mean with chemical additives or otherwise spoiled by over-working). I like them all.

One myth, though, is that marco polo brought pasta from china. Pasta is a very simple thing, and was probably invented simultaneously in more than one place. Anyway, i have a very interesting medieval cookbook done by some historians and there are recipes for pasta that antedate marco polo.

Anyway, in that book is a recipe for lasagne - they were simply large squares of pasta boiled in broth, with grated cheese on them and eaten with a toothpick!