So today, I'm going to make another one
of Mama Leone's restaurant, one of their dishes.
This is the most complicated lasagna I've ever made,
but it is amazing.
We are gonna make Mama Leone-style, back-in-the-day,
holiday lasagna.
We have a couple of different sauces we're going to make,
that's why we're getting the ball rolling
at the top of the show.
The first one is a raw sauce, made with this product.
It's called passata.
You're going to add good, fruity, fatty olive oil
with a nice, olive-y taste to it,
and a little torn sweet basil and a pinch of salt.
Done.
The next sauce we're going to make is a basic marinara,
so carrots, celery, onion in olive oil
is how the basic marinara starts.
Then, we're going to add in some garlic and some thyme,
a little salt and pepper, and white pepper,
a little crushed red pepper,
and then a little oregano or marjoram.
You're going to add some tomato paste,
a good shot of wine, white or red,
a little pinch of sugar or a sprinkle of honey,
and some fresh tomato,
and we're gonna stretch it with a little more
of that tomato puree or passata.
Then, we're going to take half of the marinara
and add it to this beef, so we'll end up with meat sauce
and a vegetable
marinara.
Here, we've browned some lean ground beef.
And then, we're going to mix in a little garlic,
some nice, grassy parsley,
a little fennel seed, and crushed red pepper.
Let me walk you through where we're at right now.
Already, we had a raw sauce that was just tomato,
basil, and passata.
That went on the bottom of our pan.
That's our little barrier to the bottom,
where we put our no-boil lasagna noodles.
We, then, took half of this sauce
and added it to our browned ground beef.
The ground beef has a little fennel and chili in it, okay?
To this, this is very old-school Italian,
you add a little breadcrumb.
Toasted, stale bread with a little parsley,
and this gives the lasagna stability.
We have sweet Italian sausage because we made
the meat kind of spicy.
We need a layer of ricotta cheese in this guy.
We're going to add a couple of eggs
to give this layer some legs.
This is gonna be very stable when you cut
through this lasagna.
And we mix the egg in, through the fresh ricotta.
We're going to add a box of chopped, frozen spinach
that we've defrosted and gotten all the liquid out of.
And now, we've got our ricotta layer done.
A little big of nutmeg.
I'm working on the white sauce, down here.
This is the same sauce you make
when you're making macaroni and cheese.
It's like a bechamel,
you start with equal amounts of butter,
melt the butter, add the flour,
whisk that together, let it bubble.
For this sauce, we add a little bit of white wine,
about a half a cup of white wine,
and then, you add your whole milk,
and it thickens up, just like this.
Your very basic white sauce.
And then, we're going to turn this into a cheese sauce
by sprinkling in some fresh parmigiano-reggiano.
So then, we do a layer of half of the meat,
a layer of pasta.
Then, you take all of the ricotta
with the egg and the spinach.
All of it. (audience awes)
I know, this thing's insane. (audience laughing)
Then, you take your cheesy white sauce.
(audience awes)
(laughs)
And I think we need to take a break there,
that's like, halfway.
Let's take a break, come back,
we'll build the rest. (audience applauds)
You know, picturing Mama Leone's kitchen in my head
from back in the day,
it must've looked like Santa's workshop
'cause you need a whole lot of elves
to make this lasagna. (audience laughs)
So, we're up to the next layer and that's our sliced
Italian sweet sausage.
The rest of that marinara sauce, the plain vegetable base.
Not vegetable anymore, this is goin' sausage.
(audience laughs)
Another layer of pasta,
the last of your meat,
another layer of pasta. (audience laughs)
And then, the last of your plain tomato, the raw tomato.
So, you take your thinly-sliced mozz
and then sprinkle a little more parm,
and it's ready to go in the oven.
(audience applauding)
I'll show you what it looks like when we come back.
This is Mama Leone-style,
to the best I could research on the internet.
This is the authentic, back-in-the-day,
Mama Leone's deep-dish-with-everything-in-it lasagna.
Over here, we have one that's rested for about 20 minutes.
Believe me, it'll still be molten-lava-hot in the center.
I find that a two-spatula method
is actually most intelligent. (audience applauds)