Lasagne

I suspect that writing this up is just showing off. But since there was also not an inconsiderable element of showing off to the Ethonologe and the Lion-Tamer in my making it, i don’t see any additional problems.

Your author (who is currently suffering from TPS) started by making a ragu. This involved softening two large onions in a mixture of butter and vegetable oil, then adding about a kilo of meat, a third pork, two thirds beef, and cooking until no longer pink. Then half a litre or so of milk, which bubbled away until dry. Then the same with the best part of a bottle of white wine. Once dry (the process had been going on for a few hours by now, long enough to finish the bottle of wine and drink most of another), he added a couple of kilos of chopped plum tomatoes, along with a little salt and pepper, brought to the boil, and then put the casserole, uncovered, into a cool oven. This was stirred occasionally, a glass of water being added on the occasions it got too dry, and cooked for a further 7 hours in total, not stopping until it was dry and the fat separated from the sauce. At this point it was seasoned more liberally.

The following morning, the Lion-Tamer decided it looked good enough to steal some for her lunch. Reports were that it tasted very good. Your author, being a model of restraint, of course hadn’t tasted any at this point. In any case, the compliments were appreciated.

Then dough, using about 3 eggs, 150g lightly cooked leaf-spinach, and as much pasta flour as it took to stop it sticking to a clean finger pressed into the middle. And the fun part, since none of us has yet got round to buying a machine, was stretching it as thinly as possible, using a combination of a rolling pin and the edge of our work-surface.

Meanwhile, the Ethnologe made a béchamel sauce with about 50g each of butter and flour, and the best part of a litre of milk, which we combined with the ragu. A thin layer of this combination went into a well-buttered lasagne dish, to be covered with pasta, then more meat, then grated parmesan. Then another five layers of pasta, with meat-sauce and parmesan on top of each one, the thinnest possible spreading covering the top.

Once the Lion-Tamer came home, it went into a very hot oven for 15 minutes. And was served with a bottle of something more than adequately drinkable. Received with what your author took to be satisfied and appreciative silence.

It was the the first savoury thing I’d cooked without garlic in quite a while.