(calm music)
- Hey, everyone, my name is Joe Sasto.
I'm a chef here in Los Angeles, California
and today I'm gonna show you my family's recipe
for ultimate lasagna.
I wanted to make lasagna because in my family,
when you think of the holidays, it's always lasagna
whether it's Thanksgiving or Christmas.
Sure, we'll have turkey
but the main event is always the lasagna.
So holiday times,
this is the recipe that is closest to my heart.
So mixing together the eggs, the flour
and the spinach powder, a little bit of salt.
Kneading that together for about 20 minutes
till it's nice and smooth
and then you have to give the gluten a rest.
Give that some time to relax.
Let those bonds form really strongly
and that way when you go to roll out your dough,
it doesn't bounce back on you.
It's nice, smooth, velvety and supple.
There is absolutely nothing wrong
with buying dried pasta and using that.
They make some really good ones out there
but there's something special about making pasta by hand.
It's a tactile experience.
You're putting your love and your labor into this product
and you're sharing it directly with your family,
with your friends.
So if you have the opportunity to make fresh pasta,
you're doing something special like lasagna,
might as well go the distance and go all in.
The entire sheeting process may look very intimidating.
It's not at all.
If you have a good dough and it's kneaded properly
and rested properly, the sheeting process and laminating
actually goes very easily.
So as you're cutting your sheets for your lasagna,
obviously take a look at the baking dish
that you're going to use.
You can use any size that you'd like.
Just make sure you're cutting your sheets
to fit the size of your baking dish.
Bechamel are one of those base sauces
that's used in a number of different applications
all over the world.
Essentially it's milk or cream thickened with a roux,
flour and butter.
That acts as our nice white creamy rich sauce
that's gonna go in between the layers of our lasagna.
Your bechamel should thicken as soon as it comes to a boil.
Once it's boiling or simmering,
you wanna give it another two or three minutes
just to cook off any of that raw flour taste
that still might be in there.
So growing up in an Italian household,
it's all about family and it's all about food.
We start eating from the moment we wake up
till the moment we take a nap
then we wake up, keep eating again.
So lasagna was always that main event.
Sometimes we'd have it in the afternoon around two
then we'll have the main dinner
with the turkey or the roast beef
and then maybe another slice of lasagna before bed
but to me, lasagna was always that centerpiece.
So the biggest thing for me when you're making gravy
is you don't want these giant meat nuggets
all throughout your sauce.
When the meat first goes into the pan
whether it be with a whisk or a spoon,
make sure to break up all those chunks
so it's nicely uniform ground beef
and that way that'll coat your entire pasta
and you won't get these big pockets
and big chunks of meat throughout.
To me, making and eating lasagna is love.
Always remember, eat pasta, make love.
And the meat sauce is definitely the base to the lasagna.
I think you could tell a lot about the way someone grew up
is whether they call it red sauce or gravy.
In my family, gravy was this.
It's tomato sauce with the meat and the veggies
and everything cooked in it for a number of hours
but that's what gravy is.
Not that brown stuff you put on roast beef.
That's different.
This is gravy.
You could call it red sauce.
Whatever you wanna call it, it's really good.
So moving into the blanching of the pasta,
have your pot of salted boiling water.
Those go in for about 30 to 60 seconds.
Into an ice bath.
That's gonna immediately stop the cooking process
and transfer it to some parchment paper
sprayed with nonstick spray.
You wanna make sure to get nonstick spray
between each layer and on top of each layer
otherwise you're gonna run into problems
later when you're assembling.
Assembling the lasagna.
Organization is going to be the key to happiness
while you're putting together lasagna.
Making sure all of your ingredients are lined up,
room temperature, chilled.
You don't wanna build a lasagna with hot sauce
or hot bechamel.
It's just gonna be a mess.
It's not gonna work.
Take the time to do these things ahead
and that way it's all ready to go
when it's time to assemble.
Don't worry about trimming any overlapping edges
or any pasta hanging out of the sides.
That leads to a golden brown and delicious rim.
Your entire family will fight over them.
Mine did.
It was the most sought after part of the entire lasagna.
My favorite step is watching it come out of the oven
and then it's a true test of patience
because you can't eat it immediately.
You have to let it cool
for I would say at the minimum 15 minutes.
If you give it a half an hour, that's even better
'cause it's molten hot in there
and you're doing yourself a favor by waiting.
It'll hold together when you go and cut it
and it'll be that much more enjoyable
having to wait to then eat the pasta.
So good.
It's like childhood all over again as an adult.
Eating the crispy bits.
That's the part everybody used to fight over
and they're all mine.
- [Narrator] Oh yes.
(calm music)