Lasagne...

[kushtibari]

milk ... white wine!? I would have thought red wine and no milk, but then again I'm no michelin star chef. still you have got me wondering what it tastes like.

Exactly my thoughts when I first saw it. My ragu always had a rake of red wine, no milk and no carrots. Tried it once and never gone back - always use a dry white wine though.

[Lee H]

i like my mexican fusion version

jalepeno's, mexican beans and loads of chillies ?

Sounds cracking... my mouths watering thinking about that just now!

[Lucio]

Due to the nature of the dish we are discussing.

The directions for dry sheets say to soften them in boiling water first.

I have never eaten an al dente lasagne and I order it fairly often at Italian restaurants.

If you have a method for lasagne to ensure both the pasta in the middle surrounded by an inch of sauce and the pasta at the edge which usually dries out a bit comes out al dente, please share

The pasta sheets I use are your standard supermarket dried lasange sheets. One thing I may well be doing "wrong" is I don't lay the pasta to the edge of the dish, leaving a few mm of space at the edge. Sure the lasange doesn't keep it's shape when you serve but never had aproblem with the pasta being dried out either.

[Guy]

Zak 33

I must say Im usually pretty good at cooking, but never attempted a lasagne, so on tuesday im gonna make my own, im gonna follow ur recipe, although il need to print it out, the idea of cooking my macbook pro in the kitchen is terrifying!

Il let you know how it goes.

[twiglet]

does anyone know a good recipe for a chicken lasagne? or is it as easy as replacing the beef with chicken

[Salazaar]

does anyone know a good recipe for a chicken lasagne? or is it as easy as replacing the beef with chicken

That sounds like it'd go well in the Mexican lasagne.

[twiglet]

hmm im not a big fan of spicy foods

[MadduckUK]

do you think you could use tortilla's instead of the pasta sheets in a Mexican one?? (the answer is probably!)

[Lucio]

does anyone know a good recipe for a chicken lasagne? or is it as easy as replacing the beef with chicken

If you do this, make sure you break the chicken up into fairly small pieces to improve the flavour.

And yes, speaking from experience you CAN do a Mexican "lasagne" using tortilla chips, but it's not as great as it sounds. Better to simple make a chilli, top with broken tortilla chips (salted) and cheese then toast that.

[MadduckUK]

not chips man, the flat bread wrap things i was thinking of

[staffsMike]

I've not used chicken before but turkey mince is very nice

Nice for a sweeter lasagne if that is your taste.

[Tumble]

I do mine really rough tbh.

Fry up a chopped onion with a chopped carrot (I know sounds weird)
Bung the (steak) mince in, brown it up
couple of cloves of garlic, chopped or crushed (I do both for good measure)
squeeze in a bit of tom puree, stir it in
crumble a beef stock cube and stir it in
add maybe a quarter bottle of cheap as chips Tesco red wine (and one for the chef)
tin of chopped toms and a splash of water
big spoon of redcurrant jelly
Stir it all up and boil it up
take off the heat and let it sit for a bit with a lid on the pan, maybe on a low heat while you get everything else ready.

For the pasta, just get a bowl with a visually gauged amount of flour in it.
make a wee hole in the middle and crack an egg into it (2 if tere's a lot of flour)
sprinkle of salt and a small gloop of olive oil (too much and it won't roll properly, too little and it falls apart)

beat the egg and THEN fold it all together in the bowl until you get a stiff dough
transfer it on to a warmish worktop and knead the crap out of it until the surface has a smooth silky texture, moist but not sticky, (you know it's ready when it doesn't stick to an unfloured surface), then roll it out either by hand (hard) or using a pasta machine (easy-peasy)

You will need to boil it for about 20 seconds before you build the lasagne though, it tends to go quite tough if you just leave it.