My little Italian adventure - Part 2: The recipe, the ingredients and the woman

Lasagne is something that we eat maybe once year or at most twice a year and that's only when it's a home made lasagne or a store bought one where I have no choice in the matter. It is also not something that I would ever order in a restaurant. Come to think of it, I have only ever ordered lasagne once when we were at a restaurant, and that was only because I was intrigued by it as it was the only thing that a friend of ours ever orders whenever we eat at this particular restaurant.

Not sure why I've never attempted making lasagne. If I have to guess, it's probably the béchamel sauce that put me off. I've heard many stories of how lasagnes end up in the bin because the texture of the lasagne was just appalling. There were lots of reservations about making this, but in the end I decided that I'd dive in and give it ago. If it doesn't work out, I would have a good excuse as to why it didn't work.. - I would just blame old age and the recipe.

So, the above was my attempt at Sophie Baimbridge's Lasagne al Forno from her book Simply Italian. It looks like a lasagne right? So if it looks like a lasagne and it tastes like a lasagne then I must've got it right...right??

Suffice to say that I almost gave up on this lasagne after the "horror" that ensued, after successfully making a delicious meat and béchamel sauce. (I passed on the béchamel sauce!)

You see, the instruction on the recipe said to use a third each of the meat sauce, the cheese and béchamel sauce in each layer of the lasagne.

SO you (that's me) spread 1/3 of the meat sauce first, follow with 1/3 of the mozzarella and then cover with some lasagne sheets, pour in 1/3 of the béchamel sauce and sprinkle with some parmesan. Then place another layer of lasagne sheet, meat sauce, mozzarella, béchamel, parmesan etc etc etc..

So then, how to explain the extra 40g of parmesan cheese (used), extra 20g of mozzarella cheese (ok this is negligible.. I had 20g left no point saving it for a rainy day), the thin layer of béchamel sauce on the top and the 2 sheets of lasagne leftover after assembling the 'lasagne' in the dish??!

I can think of 3 possible reason. Maybe...

1. The recipe is not quite right? or
   
2. The Ingredients I prepared shrank in quantities. or
   
3. The stupid woman that made it (hang on.. that's me!) couldn't comprehend the meaning of "1/3".

There were lots of "what the..." flying around when I was making this, but I guess, it's the end result that matters the most. My lasagne was one layer short of béchamel, meat and cheese, but it was still delicious. I'll just have to make sure that I have lots of extra ingredients at hand the next time I attempt this.

Lasagne al forno
adapted from Simply Italian, Sophie Baimbridge

Ingredients:

Meat Sauce

30g butter
1 onion, finely choped
1 small carrot, finely chopped
2 garlic clove, crushed
120g Italian sausage meat*
500g minced beef
1/2 tsp dried oregano
pinch of ground nutmeg
75ml dry white wine
375ml beef stock
2 tbsp tomato puree
2 tbsp double cream

Béchamel Sauce
850ml milk
1 bay leaf
6 cloves
1 small onion (stud cloves into onion)
50g butter
40g plain flour
125ml double cream
pinch nutmeg

8 fresh/dried lasagne shets (min 8, as you know from above, I ended up using less)
170g mozzarella, grated
100g parmesan, grated

Meat Sauce

1. Chop onion and carrots finely.
   
2. Heat butter in a frying pan and add in the onions, carrot, sausage meat and crushed garlic.
3. Cook over low heat for 5-6min or until softened.
   
4. Increase the heat a little and add in the beef, cook until beef is coloured but not browned. Make sure you break up any lumps of mince as you're cooking. Add in the oregano and nutmeg and season to taste.
5. Add the white wine, increase heat and cook until the wine evaporates.
   
6. Add in beef stock and tomato puree, mix well and leave to simmer for 2hrs. During this time, ensure that the mixture is moist, add a little hot water if necessary. At the end of the simmering period all the cooking liquid should to be absorbed by the meat.
7. Turn off the heat, stir in the cream and leave to cool for at least 15mins.

Bechamel Sauce

1. In a saucepan, bring to boil the milk, bay leaf and onion. Once boiled, remove from heat and leave to stand for at least 20min to infuse.* Strain milk into a measuring jug.
   
2. Melt butter in another saucepan and mix in the flour to make a roux.
   
3. Cook over low heat, stirring as about 2mins.
   
4. Add milk to roux in small amounts, stirring as you go to prevent lumps. Simmer gently for about 10mins until sauce is creamy.
   
5. Stir in the cream, season with salt, pepper and nutmeg and pour it into the same milk jug. Cover surface with clingfilm to prevent a skin forming.
   

*It got confusing here a bit. I thought the milk was suppose to be hot when added to the roux. Anyway, it turned out ok after a lot of extra stirring. I think next time I'll reheat the milk a little before adding it into the roux.

Assembling the Lasagne

1. Preheat oven to 180deg C and grease a large oven proof dish.
2. First, spread 1/3 meat sauce into the dish. Scatter 1/3 mozzarella cheese over the meat and cover meat/cheese layer with pasta sheets.
   
3. Follow with 1/3 bechamel sauce over the pasta sheets and sprinkle with parmesan.
4. Repeat steps 2 and 3, and finish with a layer of bechamel sauce and parmesan.
5. Bake lasagne in oven for 40mins or until it is golden and bubbling.
   

If serving on the same day, allow lasagne to rest for 10mins before serving. Alternatively, leave overnight for the the flavours to develop, reheat in oven before serving.

I KNOW, it's the dish's fault! It must be.. it's just way too.. err.. big.


Note:
*The original recipe called for 120g of panchetta. The deli where I usually frequent didn't have any panchetta that day so I substituted it with Italian sausages that I had in the fridge. Not quite right I know, but since it tasted ok, I'd like to think that it was good enough :)
- The crust looks a bit dry because I was too busy watching tv and forgot about the lasagne. I think it sat in the oven for an extra 15-20mins than it needed to. Plus I didn't have enough cheese, so I couldn't get a cheesy texture on the top. :(

Previously:
- My little Italian adventure - Part 1: That salad.

Next:
- My little Italian adventure - Part 3: Lime Panna cotta

Au revoir Wendy

Today our dear friend Wendy leaves Melbourne for Vancouver, enroute tothe famous Columbia School of Law/Columbia Law School (whichever is correct), Columbia University NY to complete her Masters in Law. As a farewell celebration I offered to cook her a feast before she commences her 'poor overseas student eating habits' in NY. Since W is a vegetarian, I came up with a simple menu focussing on desserts hehe..

Farewell Dinner for Wendy
Sunday, 30 July2006
Alv's Place

Entree:
Beans salad w/ grape tomatoes and haloumi
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Main:
Chilli Linguine w/ a ragout of oriental mushrooms (Tetsuya Style)
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Dessert:
Jaffa mousse w/ Cointreau orange
Balsamic strawberries

Being a non-vegetarian I had a bit of a hard time trying to figure out a menu that would appeal to the three of us and since we all love desserts I figured that I should make that the prominent dish of the day. When I was discussing the idea with TH and some of my colleagues at work they all said something along the lines off.. "That's easy, just make a salad". Luckily, I chose the right salad because that day W told us that she didn't really like/eat 'raw vegetables'. We were like "SHOCKED" and then I was like "phew" because the only raw ingredient in my beans salad was the tomatoes. The three of us had a discussion on why/how the general perception of non-vegetarians were that 'all vegetarians eat salad.. ie. lettuce/leafs, tomatoes, carrots etc' and that W was weird. That turned into a funny discussion full of "whats", "no ways" and "you're nqr" and loads of laughters. Unfortunately, I have no photo of my beans salad because the SDcard on my camera decided to report that 'the card has not been formatted and requires formatting' before I could use it again. Photo of Beans salad courtesy of W. (Thanks W!)

Entree

The beans were flat beans and green beans, sliced, blanched and dressed with EVOO, 2tbsp lemon juice and S&P, haloumi cheese was pan fried and the salad was assembled with the cheese, halved grape tomatoes and dressed with the dressing from the beans and mint and basil leaves. The salad was very refreshing albeit salty, this was my first time cooking with haloumi cheese and boy did I get a salt attack from that. Other than that it was good, W surprisingly loved the salt in the cheese so we fed her the rest of my cheese and all the left overs.

Main

I bought these chilli linguine at Macro, the new organic shop at The Glen. They're freshly made and then frozen. Sold in packs of 300g for $8.95 each. Doesn't look much here but boy was it delicious. You could even taste the chilli in the pasta. Sweet. A while ago I was a friend's place and saw Tetsuya Wakuda's Recipes from Australia's Most Acclaimed Chef and copied the recipe for Mushroom Ragout with Linguine. The ingredients looked interesting at that time. Shimeji mushrooms, shitake mushrooms, oyster mushrooms, a bit of mirin, sake, soy sauce and chicken stock. When I saw the chilli linguine at Macro I knew at once what to make for W. Substitute the chicken stock for vegetable stock and it'd be perfect.

I was a bit disappointed with the end result though. It was rather tasteless?? It was not what I expected it to be, I wonder if it's because I substituted the chicken stock with vegetable stock? Or because I tripled the pasta amount? (but then I tripled the rest of the sauce amout too) Hmm I think, I will have to give this another go next time.

Desserts

On to desserts.. yay! About the only thing that turned out right that day. hahah.. Ok perhaps I'm too harsh a judge on myself but about the only thing that perfect in my opinion was the strawberries! (If I stuff even that up I'd probably hang up my apron hahah)

Jaffa orange mousse with cointreau infused oranges. Melt about 140g of chocolate with 2 tbsp of Cointreau, add 4 egg yolks one by one and let it cool meanwhile whip cream and fold in 4 tbsp of cocoa powder into the cream. Once thats done, fold cream into chocolate and mix well. Refrigerate for at least 3 hours. Peel oranges, slice and marinate in about 3 tbsp of cointreau until serving.

Sounds pretty simple isn't it? I even got the mousse texture right this time because I whipped the cream properly. Except I was too lazy to sift the cocoa powder before folding into the cream, so there's bits and pieces of cocoa powder in it. hahah.. oh well.. It was still delicious, I love the Cointreau infused oranges.

We had a great and late night. Chatted, drinking, eating and laughing. Will miss W, she'll be in NY for a year, so it's only me and TH left. W, see you in 12 months time!

QED Idea No. 2 - Garlic Prawns w/ Linguine

Hey Ali & Ange, too bad Cath is a C, or you guys can be AAA.

Here's another QED Idea.

I just had it for dinner last night.. Yumm

Sounds a bit mean, but I always look forward to when Mish can't have/is not having dinner. Why is that you say? I say: It's because she doesn't eat PRAWNS! When we first moved in and I found out that she doesn't like prawns I was like... WHAT??!! How can you not eat prawns!? They're like so yummmm!!! To which she replied, "hate peeling them and don't like the taste/texture?" The only thing from the 'prawn family' she'd eat is lobster. (Go figure). So I have since been deprived of prawns.. I only get to eat them on special occasions like:

• When we go out for dinner
• When I go back to Mum's for dinner
  
• When I'm not cooking for Mish, like when we had "Dinner at Flim's"
• On designated, 'Mish not eating dinner' nights.
  

Finally, last night was 'Mish not eating dinner' night. (hasn't happened for a while, Mish you need to go out for dinner more often hahahah) So we had Garlic Prawns pasta for dinner. Oishii!!

Ali: I adapted this from one of your favourite cook book: Bill Granger's Bill's Food - Garlic Prawns.

Can't remember exact amounts, but you'll need the following (obviously)

Bill's Original Recipe:

• Prawns - approx 500g (coz I like loads of prawns in my pasta and so does Alv)
  
• Parsley - approx 1/4 cup, chopped (more if you like)
  
• Garlic - I used 3, Bill's recipe uses 5 (I tried it with 5 once, I had gastro for 3 days)
• Olive Oil - I use 1/2 cup, Bill's recipe uses 1 cup (and I think Bill used EVOO)
• Chilli - 1 (more if you think Ange can take it hahah)

My Extras:

• Onion - 1, chopped
  
• Chilli Oil - to taste (I used the Japanese one, taste better)
  
• Pasta - as much as you want to eat. (I used Linguine here, but I prefer Angel Hair because it's less 'filling' and it cooks faster. Alv doesn't like Angel Hair that much, he said it's not filling enough *rolled eyes*)
  

Do it Like So:

1. Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees.
2. Clean the prawns and place them in an oven proof dish.
3. Boil your water for pasta -- duhhhhh
   
4. Chop up Chilli, Garlic, Onion and Parsley
5. Heat up the oil til it's hot hot hot
6. Add Chilli and half the amount of chopped Garlic into the pan.
7. Add the Chilli oil and just fry the Garlic til it's fragrant.
8. Remove from stove and pour over the prawns in the oven proof dish.
9. Spread the rest of the Garlic and Parsley on top of the Prawns.
10. Season to taste with S&P
    
11. Wrap foil onto the dish and place it in the oven for about 15-20mins.
12. While the Prawn cooks in the oven you cook your pasta.
13. When the Prawns are done and Pasta's done mix both together and wa lah.. Garlic Prawn pasta.

Big Tip: I suggest scooping the prawns on to the pasta and then drizzle with the pasta with as much of the oil from cooking the prawns as you wish. Otherwise, if you mix everything together the dish might get a bit too oily.

Ps. No photo of satisfied customer this time. He was too busy watching Friends (yes, THAT Friends) and setting up his microphone for warcraft.