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Hi guys, I'm Laura Vitale
On this episode of Laura in the Kitchen, I am finally going to make something that I've been getting a lot of requests for
It is my lasagna. Now this is a basic meat and cheese lasagna
That's what we're going to do: so we're first going to start to make our meat sauce, and this is what you need for the meat sauce:
You need some ground-up sausage, italian sausage,
you need some ground beef, some tomato puree, some chopped up onions,
some red wine and of course salt and pepper,
extra virgin olive oil.
Now:
This is a basic lasagna recipe that's been handed down to me by my mother,
by my grandmother.
I do make a dozen different lasagnas
I make vegetarian lasagna, seafood, what lasagna, holiday lasagna, but this is the basic, ok?
So let's go to the stove and start cooking that meat sauce!
I have a large pot here with about three table spoons of extra virgin olive oil, preheating for our onions.
putting my onions in. Isnt that a beautiful sound?
I have this over medium high heat
and you want this to cook down and carmalise and it will take about 4 to 5 minutes
and then we will add in our ground beef and our ground sausage
Now, my onions are nice and translucent, they're not really browned or anything yet and that's fine; they've been cooking for four minutes
because now we're gonna add in our ground meat: our ground sausage and our ground beef
and you want to break this up
now, growing up, my grandmother used to make teeny, teeny, weenie meatballs
out of this ground meat and ground sausage
I don't have the patience for it. There's no way
I am going to sit there make hundreds of these
teeny, teeny, tiny meatballs - it literally took all day
but she had me to do it. that is why she did it
my mother just just used to cook ground beef
and ground sausage like so. That's how I do it
I want to make sure that it's delicious but I also want to make sure that it doesn't take me all day
I think (you know that's a lot) (it's a big -um) I think people always say
that they don't do something because it takes too long
but you aren't doing anything to it, you're putting it together but then it cooks by itself
so we're just gonna break this up (you wanna just break this up) and you wanna let this cook until
all the way cooked through or mostly cooked through. It'll take about 10 minutes or so
and then we'll add the wine and the rest of the ingredients
now my sausage and ground beef have been cooking together with the onions
on medium heat for about 5 minutes
As you can see it's just about cooked all the way through
but that doesn't matter
now i'm gonna add in the red wine
I just know this is gonna be delicious
and now this is going to be much more
you know meat sauce than you're gonna need to assemble your lasagne but the whole point about this
is you want extra sauce to spoon over your lasagne.
I mean, otherwise, (y'know) when it cooks in the oven it dries out a little which is what you want
because then it stays together but I need that extra sauce.
So we put in the wine, [INCOHERENT] and that don't cook for very long
okay... Now we're gonna put in our
tomato puree now depending on the brand that you buy
some are thicker than others
this is a really thick puree so I'm adding
3 28oz cans and and I'm going to also add a little bit of water
this is really really thick...
So [SOUND OF CAN FILLING WITH WATER] about half a can should do...
[INCOHERENT]
Oh, this is perfect, nice and thick, this is what you want; this is what makes it
so incredibly delicious my grandmother used to say
that you know you have good meat sauce (you know you have good meat sauce) when
at the end
of the three and a half hour cooking you stick your spoon in and
stays there; that we know you've got it, you did it right
So now, heat back to medium-low okay
now put a lid partially on, okay, as you can see
the lid's not all the way on but that's what you want you want the water to
evaporate and you want the sauce to concentrate and thicken up
and you're gonna leave this alone for about three and a half hours... you're gonna check on it
every now and then; give it a stir, but you're gonna leave it alone
for three and a half hours. In the meantime I'm gonna go do some cleaning
and this needs no attention from me!
Okay, now my sauce has been cooking for four hours it's beautifully thickened; look at that...
It's exactly what you want... it's perfect.
so now I will season it with salt and pepper
I know... starting with the pepper, don't ask
Mmm, just gonna... it smells
incredibly good.
Like so...
[SOUND OF STIRRING] Okey dokey
And... just wanna put in some fresh basil...
[You] can't make meat sauce or any kind of sauce
without fresh basil, it just can't, can't be done.
Give this a nice little stir, take it off the heat... Mmm....
Ah, the smell of my childhood, so good. Just wanna give it a quick little taste for seasoning
bit more salt...
Mmm, smells divine...
Perfect! Perfect; always adjust the seasoning
before you (put in you) start assembling it.
Here we go. Now, let me show you the rest of the ingredients you're gonna need
to finish the dish. You're gonna need some pasta, some lasagna noodles
Right here that I've only cook it to 4-5 minutes so that they're pliable not to all the way
done
cause they're gonna continue cooking in the oven. Some home milk Ricotta
Parmesian Mangiano, some fresh mozarella that I have cut very thinly
salt pepper and an egg
And of course you're going to need
your meat sauce. Now, first thing we're going to do is make
the Ricotta layer for this
and get the lid open. Now you want to make sure you use whole milk Ricotta not the part skim
None of that. It has to be
the real thing. You need 2 pounds of it.
I know it looks a lot but it's going to make a lot
of lasagna
One egg
Like that
Season this
And very little salt because remember that we have salt
already in the sauce and we already have a lot of salt
in the parmesian mangiano that we're going to add now
That should do it
Mix this up until its well combined
okeydoke everything's well combined. Now take your olive oil
just a little drizzle on your casserole dish
okay take your pastry brush. It has to go all over because you don't want the
lasagna noodles to
stick. There's no point in making something delicious that you can't get out of the pan
Lovely. Okay...now
this is gonna go really quickly. Take some of your sauce
at the bottom
Like so
Pasta
Line the bottom overlapping just
a little.
Last one
Now you take your Ricotta mixture
And what you wanna do is you wanna spread this on the pasta
just like that is exactly what you want. Then you wanna make sure you
take some of your pasta sauce-your meat sauce I should say
After the sauce goes the mozarella
Doesn't have to be perfect
Just wanna layer this out because the mozarella is going to ooze
After the mozzarella, a nice sprinkle of you parmigiano
and start all over again from the noodles to the ricotta to the sauce and the
mozzarella
All over again til you have a complete
layer and you want to end up with the mozzarella and the parmigiana
That's when you wanna end up so keep going
Last layer of parmesian
Okay this is gonna go into a preheated 375 degree oven
for 45 minutes to an hour. Most oven vary so check it at 45 minutes
If it's getting too brown at the top, put a little aluminum foil on it otherwise let it go for an hour
My lasagna is out of the oven. I just look it out so you don't
don't want to cut it for at least 20 minutes otherwise it's gonna
fall apart and be all over the place and be a mess. You really want to have it nice
and together and spoon some of that extra meat sauce on the top
and it would be amazing! I promise you
this is the ultimate meat and cheese lasagna. Get this recipe on my website and
other fabulous recipes at www.laurainthekitchen.com
I'll see you next time. Ba-bye
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