- This is my favorite place to be.
- [Tom] Intimate moment.
- Yeah, just by ourselves and the camera.
- [Tom] Yeah.
- You could never, ever beat the freaking classic, mate.
Boom.
- Mine is actually not a lasagna.
- [Tom] Do you think you have
a shot at winning this with your non-lasagna lasagna?
- Is this right to serve today?
- Should I get 'em drunk?
Yeah.
Don't kill me.
- Today, we're trying each other's lasagnas.
Yes! I'm excited!
- I just love lasagna.
Takes me back to my childhood.
- We're going to taste them,
give them a score between 1 and 10
and then the person with the highest score
wins the competition.
- I know you've probably missed me,
but I'm back.
A good lasagna needs to be sloppy.
Have it dripping.
- Listen, the best part of a lasagna
is that cheesy topping crust.
- It's guaranteed to put you in a food coma,
so if it doesn't, then was it really lasagna?
- It needs to bring comfort.
When somebody makes you lasagna, they really love you,
because it's a labor of love.
I'm doing the classic lasagna.
My recipe for my ragu is beef, pork and veal combination.
The first thing I do is roughly chop my onions,
celery and carrots.
I then saute this until they're nice and soft.
It's all about the flavor, getting your ragu right.
And I add my pork, veal and beef.
And then I add seasoning,
which are onion powder, paprika, and mushroom powder.
Put my bay leaf, thyme, the sage,
and I then add my tomato passata
and the diced tomato and a Parmesan broth.
Bubble away for around one to two hours.
The next thing I do is the bechamel sauce
with butter and flour and milk.
And then I mix that together.
Ready to assemble the lasagna,
pour bechamel sauce on the bottom and lasagna sheet,
and then bechamel sauce again, and then the ragu.
That kind of layering.
Top layer is one lasagna sheet,
and then your bechamel sauce and cheese.
Then chuck it in the oven for about 40 minutes.
And here you go.
Look at that oozing deliciousness.
Surely this get a win with flavor,
not just from the looks.
Time to eat.
(light cheery music)
Oh my God.
(Luisa humming) (light cheery music)
- Why, thank you.
What kind service.
- Shivers.
This looks super traditional.
I can smell cheese.
- This looks like a good one.
This is gonna be really hard.
- I love it.
It's exactly what I expected to see when I came here today.
- Yeah, the layers are there, man.
(uplifting music)
(all moan)
Oh yeah.
- A slice of love.
- Family comfort food.
The white sauce is like delicious.
- The flavors have been super well developed.
I think the saltiness,
like it might be coming from the Parmesan cheese,
but yeah, that's probably the one flavor
standing out the most.
(Jacob mumbles) - [Tom] Uh-oh!
- There's like seven layers of lasagna.
It's impressive. That's a lot of work.
- Those crusty bits on the ends.
I think that's just the best,
like some of the best parts.
I don't really know if I can critique it that much.
It's just, it's what I'm used to, I guess,
when it comes to lasagna.
It's safe and it's good.
All right, I'm gonna give this an 8 out of 10.
- It's meaty, it's cheesy, it's hearty,
and I really like it.
8.5 out of 10.
- Standard, delicious traditional lasagna.
It's an 8 out of 10.
- So today I'm making duck ragu lasagna.
(Jacob imitates a kiss)
So I make mine a little bit different.
I'm doing my lasagna sheets,
not horizontal, but vertical.
Whoa!
In a pot, on a medium to high heat,
I've got a good glug of olive oil,
half a chopped onion, half a carrot,
as well as a celery stick,
got three cloves of garlic,
few sprigs of thyme, chopped sage leaves.
And I let that simmer away
just until the onion is nice and soft.
Now I'm going to be adding
about a quarter of a cup of tomato paste.
And here I've got two cups of confit duck
that I've prepared earlier.
Add one cup of red wine. Yum.
And then I've got two cans here of crushed tomatoes.
Now, just to season it,
I'm going to add a teaspoon of sugar for sweetness,
and then I'm gonna let it simmer away
for about 10 to 15 minutes.
Okay, so for the bechamel sauce,
I'm putting on a medium heat,
I'm adding 80 grams of butter
followed by 80 grams of plain flour,
and mix this for about two to three minutes
until it's well combined and I've cooked the flour out.
Now I'm going to slowly add my milk,
continue stirring it,
and now I'm just gonna flavor it
with two bay leaves and two cloves.
Once the bechamel is thickened up,
I'm gonna add some Parmesan cheese.
(Jacob imitates a kiss)
One once the be mile is done,
I'm gonna take it off the heat
and let it cool to room temperature.
So this part is a little bit messy.
I'm gonna lay out my fresh pasta sheets,
and now I'm going to do a thin layer of bechamel sauce,
followed by some spoonfuls of the ragu.
Now I'm just gonna roll each one up,
cut it in half and put it in vertically
into a round cake tin.
Repeat until your cake tin is full with lasagna.
Now that's all done,
I'm gonna add any remaining duck ragu
and bechamel sauce to the top of the dish,
followed by some thin layers of mozzarella cheese.
Put it in the oven for about 40 minutes and wham.
Okay, for the final garnish,
what I'm going to do is just a couple of sage leaves.
Get them really nice and crispy.
Beautiful. Look at those layers.
Duck ragu lasagna for the win. Come on.
Hmm, mm, mm.
- Dun dun dun dun!
Whoa, look at that.
- Wow.
Is this a lasagna cake?
- A mammoth on a plate.
It's very hefty.
- Holy wow. Look at the layers.
- A very different technique.
- It's really clever.
- Oh, the cheesy stretch there.
- Hmm.
- That's so rich.
- The duck's cooked beautifully.
It's nice and moist and it's soft.
- It's very gamey.
It's a really good contrast.
The softness of the pasta and the bechamel sauce,
and then you have this ragu
like you could actually bite into it.
- There's like a really strong garlic hit to it.
The pasta sheets, they are a little bit dry on the outside.
Let's try and add some more sauciness to it.
But I think the flavor in this lasagna dish
is what makes it a winner for me.
An 8 out of 10.
- Mozzarella on the top.
Crispy Sage. Yum.
I wish the bechamel was just a bit more wet.
Today we're gonna go an 8 out of 10.
- I always like different.
I'd give this 9.
It needs to ooze.
- So today I am making your classic style lasagna,
but we're doing everything from scratch
and I'm also adding a bit of a fancy twist.
We combine beef with veal and pork,
with some oil, red onions, my herbs,
as well as a lot of salt and pepper.
There's basically a lot of ingredients going in here
that are going to help make it a lot more rich.
We're adding in some diced tomatoes
and then some tomato paste.
I'm adding in bay leaves.
And then I wanna add a little bit of my own personal touch,
so I'm adding in some Worcestershire sauce.
That's going to cook with a lid on for about two hours
and just give it a stir every now and again,
and then take the lid off to reduce it.
And so that's gonna thicken up.
So now I'm doing bechamel.
Mine has a secret ingredient.
Got your flour, butter, milk in a pan.
Basically bring that down and reduce it.
To make this a little fancy,
I'm adding in a whole wheel of brie.
Add in salt and pepper.
So much cheesy flavor.
It's going to be rich.
So much more different to your classic.
I'm making my pasta sheets from scratch.
You do two parts of 00 flour to one part semolina.
You add in four eggs and then an extra egg yolk,
and then you basically just combine it all.
So you mix it round, give that a knead for about 10 minutes.
It's a super dry and stiff dough.
So actually requires like a lot
of elbow grease to get in there.
- [Narrator] Five hours later.
- Roll it out and cut it.
Now it's time to assemble.
So to layer my lasagna, we start with a little bit of meat,
and then we go pasta, meat with bechamel and a bit of basil.
And then it's just repeat the whole way to the top.
Once we get there, we're doing thick layer of bechamel.
So I'm putting on about half an inch.
I know it's a lot, but it's going to taste amazing.
And then I'm adding on some mozzarella cheese
and some Parmigiano-Reggiano.
So this is going into the oven,
putting it in at 200 degrees for about an hour
and it's gonna come out bubbly
and crispy and golden perfection.
But wait, there is more.
I am also plating my dish up with a super delicious sauce,
which is tomato paste, some cream,
some vodka, garlic and chili.
And I'm mixing that all together.
They're gonna get a mouthful of saucy goodness,
as well as delicious lasagna.
Just a simple garnish of chives to finish it off.
And that's it.
(light music)
It's got a nice subtlety to it.
The brie, it's definitely like
the strongest flavor coming through,
so I really like that about the bechamel.
- Oh yummy!
- Whoa!
- That looks like you'd get that plated up in a restaurant.
- It has a pool of sauce.
I wanna go swimming in this pool.
It looks so cheesy and tomato-y.
It almost looks like the color of butter chicken.
- Yum. I love the presentation.
You know, it's really hard to present lasagna.
- It looks sloppy.
Tick from me.
- Seriously, they're on point. I could wear this.
- [Tom] Or you could spill it on your shirt and-
- And no one will know.
That's the point right there, I think.
(light music)
- Mm.
- Oh my God. - Hmm.
Yeah. Okay.
I love it.
- You can taste the love in this.
- Yeah. Wow, this is so good.
And this sauce, it reminds me
of one of my favorite pasta dishes, pasta alla vodka.
- It's so flavorful.
You can taste the sweetness, you can taste the heat.
I would never ever really think about adding vodka,
but it bloody works.
I'll definitely try that.
- The pasta, it definitely tastes fresh,
like it's been freshly made.
That sauce. That's on another level.
- Yeah, wow, shivers. Look at this.
That is solid cheese.
It's like almost perfect, right?
It's very rich.
That's not a bad thing,
but that's probably just a warning.
I'm gonna give this 9.5 outta 10.
- This is a bloody 10 outta 10.
I can't faulter.
- I love it.
I'm gonna give it 10.
Yes, please.
- Can you guess where I'm gonna make?
You guessed it! Moussaka.
So moussaka is a delicious eggplant,
potato, lamb bolognese, bechamel sauce,
all baked in the oven.
It's bloody delicious.
I didn't put any Ouzo in my meal,
but I thought I'm gonna give everyone
a cheeky shot of Ouzo after they've tasted the moussaka.
Ooh, this is strong. 38%.
Should I get 'em drunk?
Yeah.
To make the delicious bolognese,
we're gonna add some olive oil, brown onion,
beautiful cinnamon, dried oregano, fresh parsley.
Gonna add our lamb mince, salt and pepper.
We're just gonna brown that up for a couple of minutes
and then tomato passata and a cup of water.
And we're gonna simmer that
for about 30 minutes until it's saucy.
All right, let's prep the eggplant.
We're gonna place the eggplant slices in a frying pan
with some spray oil and we're gonna get 'em nice and golden
and just a little bit crispy with a bit of color on there
for about four minutes on each side.
Okay, my favorite part, the creamy bechamel sauce.
We're gonna add some butter,
we're gonna add the flour,
then we're gonna add some milk,
salt and pepper, Parmesan, egg yolk,
and get that nice and saucy
and thick and creamy and yum.
All right, now let's assemble the moussaka.
We're gonna do a first layer of eggplant,
then we're gonna do the lamb mince
and then we're gonna do the cooked potatoes,
and we're gonna repeat that two more times,
top with that beautiful bechamel sauce
and sprinkle with some breadcrumbs
and a little bit of crushed pepper.
We're gonna bake it in the oven uncovered
for about 30 minutes.
You wanna serve this extra hot.
So get a spoon and pop it onto the bowl,
sprinkle bit of parsley and we are done.
Yum, enjoy.
Tastes bloody amazing.
I'm gonna win.
- It looks beautiful.
There's some really fancy crumbs on the top.
- Is that pasta?
I think that's potato.
- Eggplant instead of pasta.
All the way
- I'm spelling cinnamon.
Definitely not traditional in the Italian sense.
- We got some moussaka.
This is a Greek version of lasagna.
- Is it a lasagna?
It is, because it's layer.
Lasagna is all layers though.
It's just different way of serving it.
I reckon it's all about flavors.
- Different from all the other ones that we've tried today.
So I like that.
- Opa, let's try this.
(upbeat music)
- Wow. This is incredible.
- The eggplant melts apart in your mouth.
- I really love the lamb.
It's very cinnamony. I love that.
Good combination.
- Probably something that you would love
on a winter's night.
The texture of the crumbs as well,
it's like mini croutons.
So definitely a play on layers of food here,
which I am really loving the creativity.
- This has to be the standout for me.
I think because the flavors give me something new
in like a really strong manner.
There's not really much I can fault.
Maybe the spice level could be toned down on this dish.
So I'm gonna give this one a 9 out of 10.
- Yeah, quite rich and hearty.
I'm gonna give this a 8.5 out of 10.
Or maybe 9.
8.5.
Oh gosh, this is so hard.
Oh, let's be generous today.
They were generous.
I'm giving it a 9.
- I think a little more bechamel sauce in between.
I will score it 7 outta 10.
- [Tom] So the winner of Chefs Try Each Other's Lasagna is
Ryan!
- Me? No.
You're not pulling my leg?
I guess that this proves you just have
to make your pasta from scratch.
It's the best.
Yeah.
Okay, let's go celebrate.
(Luisa cheers in Greek)
(all cheer in Greek)
- Whoo!
- Oh my God. Oh my God.
- [Tom] Come on, Vikki!
- Whoo!
(cheerful music)
- [Vikki] I can't Greek dance and I don't like Ouzo.
I'm a bad Greek. (laughs)
Whoo!
- [Ryan] Thanks watching, guys.
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