Classic Lasagna - general principles of preparation
Italian lasagna has rightfully gained popularity all over the world. Classic lasagna consists of several layers of dough and the filling - vegetable or meat. Here are the basic principles of cooking this dish.
Bechamel sauce. This sauce is a must-have for classic lasagna. It is used most often to fill the dish, but if the filling is thick, they also smear the dough. It is easy to prepare, you need butter (about 150 grams), cream (300 ml), flour (1-2 tbsp) and spices. Ground nutmeg is most commonly used, but you can take oregano or basil. It is necessary to melt butter in a saucepan, pour cream into it, add flour and spices, and then stir until the flour lumps disappear. If it seems to you that the sauce is greasy, then you can replace the cream with milk. Also, at your discretion, you can add basil, garlic, pepper to Bechamel.
Rule two, which is followed when cooking classic lasagna - the dough must be made from unrefined flour. To taste it will not be so tender, to which we are accustomed in dumplings and dumplings. No wonder, because for baking, we often use top-grade flour. From the point of view of proper nutrition, this is not true - refined flour “gets rid” of useful minerals contained in wheat grains during processing. Knowledgeable people eat bran and rye bread, and pasta is prepared only from durum wheat. Italians always use the “right” flour for all their culinary creations. If you are preparing the sheets for lasagne yourself, keep this in mind.
Classic lasagna should be juicy. If you overdry a dish, it will turn out inedible. The secret is not only in adding sauce, but also in the right cooking technology. Baking temperature should not be 160 degrees. The cooking time is 30 minutes for the meat filling and 25 minutes for the lasagna with vegetables. It is important to remember about the foil - before sending lasagna to the oven, cover it with the deck.
Classic Lasagna - preparation of food and tableware
First of all, choose good sheets of dough for the dish. It is better to purchase an imported product. Not so long ago, domestic pasta manufacturers began to make dough for lasagne, but in most cases it is made from ordinary flour.
You will also need components for the filling. It all depends on what kind of lasagna you plan to cook - meat, with mushrooms, fish or chicken. However, whatever recipe you choose, you definitely need a bow for zazharki, oil, cheese, spices.
Classic lasagna is cooked not only in the oven, but also in the slow cooker. Put in the bowl, buttered, layers of ingredients, pour half the sauce and leave to bake for 25 minutes in “Baking” mode. 5 minutes before the end of the program you need to pour the lasagna with the remnants of the sauce and sprinkle with cheese.
Classic Lasagna Recipes:
Recipe 1: Classic Lasagna (with vegetables)
Lasagna with vegetables has been and remains one of the most popular types of dish. You will need mushrooms and eggplants. Italians choose these vegetables because they have a dense structure and aroma, similar to meat.
Ingredients Required:
- Dough
- Eggplant - 1 pc.
- Mushrooms - 230 gr.
- Kefir - 230 gr.
- Bulbs - 2 pcs.
- Spices
- Cream - 250 ml
- Cheese - 130 gr.
- Flour - 1.5 Art. l
- Butter - 100 gr.
- Egg - 1 pc.
Preparation Method:
- Cook the vegetables. Peel and chop the eggplant. Wash and cut mushrooms. Shred bulbs. Fry vegetables in a small amount of oil for 13-15 minutes.
- Prepare the bechamel sauce.
- Grate hard cheese.
- Mixer mix egg, spices and kefir. Add cheese to the sauce.
- Layers lay out the dough and fried vegetables. Each layer must be smeared with kefir sauce. The last layer of lasagna to pour sauce Bechamel.
Recipe 2: Classic chicken lasagna
For lasagna, you can use any kind of meat, including bird meat. Try cooking classic lasagna with chicken. You can use any parts of the meat - legs, thighs or fillets.
Ingredients Required:
- Lasagna dough
- Chicken meat - 340 gr.
- Leek - 170 gr.
- Sour cream - 200 ml
- Cream - 240 gr.
- Butter - 100 gr.
- Flour - 1.5 Art. l
- Nutmeg
Preparation Method:
- Soak poultry meat for 10 minutes. Remove the skin from it, separate it from the bones, and cut it as small as possible.
- Cut the leek (for the dish, you only need the white part).
- Fry the onions in a pan, add the chicken and simmer for 10 minutes. Add sour cream, make less fire and extinguish 3 more minutes.
- Prepare the bechamel sauce.
- Place alternately layers of dough and stuffing in the deck. Top with lasagna pour sauce Bechamel.
Recipe 3: Classic Lasagna with Cheese and Mushrooms
Whatever stuffing you come up with, the lasagna will turn out delicious. Italians mix soft cheese and fried mushrooms, season lasagna with Béchamel sauce and enjoy a unique delicate flavor. You can take any soft cheese, but in Italy prefer mozzarella, as it has a low melting point.
Ingredients Required:
- Mozzarella cheese - 200 gr.
- Mushrooms - 210 gr.
- Onion - 2 pcs.
- Carrots - 1 pc.
- Lasagna Sheets
- Cream - 270 ml
- Butter - 130 gr.
- Flour - 1 tbsp. l
- Spices
Preparation Method:
- Peel the onions and carrots, wash the mushrooms. Finely chop vegetables, rub carrots.
- Fry the onions and carrots in a little oil, add the mushrooms. Fry the vegetables for 12 minutes.
- Grate Morzarella on a coarse grater. Connect with cooled vegetables.
- Make the bechamel sauce.
- Spread the dough and stuffing in layers, smear each sheet of lasagna with Béchamel sauce, fill the upper layer with it. Bake 25 minutes.
Recipe 4: Classic Lasagna with minced meat
You can take any stuffing for this dish, but mix pork and beef.
Ingredients Required:
- Sheets of dough
- Tomatoes - 4 pcs.
- Minced - 360 gr.
- Onions - 1 pc.
- Basil
- Ingredients for Bechamel Sauce
Preparation Method:
- Scald the tomatoes, carefully remove the skin from them and chop into puree.
- Chop onion finely.
- Put the minced meat on a preheated pan and start to fry. In the sixth minute, add onion, another five minutes, pour in tomato puree, salt, add dry basil. Simmer the meat for about 3-4 minutes, then turn off the heat.
- Combine the butter, cream and salt to get the bechamel sauce.
- Lay the ingredients in layers. The filling does not need to be smeared with anything, as thanks to the tomato sauce, the lasagna will turn out to be quite juicy.
Recipe 5: Classic seafood lasagna
For this dish you can take any ingredients, but when it comes to classic lasagna, red fish, mussels and octopuses are most often used.
Ingredients Required:
- Dough sheets
- Melted cheese - 100 gr.
- Hard cheese - 110 gr.
- Red fish (fillet) - 180 gr.
- Octopuses - 120 gr.
- Mussels - 120 gr.
- Cream - 300 ml
- Butter - 120 grams
- Flour - 1 tbsp. l
Preparation Method:
- Wash the fish, make sure there are no bones in the fillet, cut it and the meat of octopus.
- Hard cheese needs to be grated, melted - cut into cubes.
- Put seafood in a hot saucepan. Stir fry for 5 minutes. Pour half of the cream into the skillet, put the melted cheese. Close the lid and make less fire. After 6 minutes, remove the saucepan from the heat - the filling for classic seafood lasagna is ready.
- Mix the remaining cream with melted butter, add flour and grated hard cheese - this is the sauce for pouring.
- Lay out dough sheets and fish stuffing.
Lasagna with mushrooms - secrets and useful tips from the best chefs
If you can not get the sheets for lasagna, you can prepare them yourself. Regular flour for the dough does not fit - it is refined and does not carry any value. Here you can do the following. The first is to combine rye flour and plain white in a 1: 1 ratio. In this case, for 400 grams of flour you will need 5 eggs and 2 tablespoons of water.
The second way is to add crushed bran to the flour. Food bran is sold in stores and on the market and is inexpensive. All that is needed is to grind them in a coffee grinder to a state of flour, and then add to the dough. The proportions of bran to flour is about 80 grams per 300 grams of regular flour. In the dough also need to add 4 eggs.
You made the dough, but it seems to you pale? That's right, most often, a little bit of turmeric is added to the dough for classic lasagna. This is an Indian spice of bright lemon color with a slight pleasant aroma. Add 1 teaspoon of spices per pound of flour, and the sheets turn out to be a nice shade.
