Hey guys, salut, it's Alex.
So you know that I recently bought and hacked a pasta machine.
A heavy duty pasta machine straight from a factory in China.
Of course I have been using that machine to make a few ramen.
But also I've been trying,
without too much success I'm afraid,
to come up with a different recipe,
and yesterday, at the supermarket, I had an illumination!
I just saw this.
This is fresh pasta per la lasagne.
Which is odd because I've always been using dry pasta to make lasagne.
Of course, lasagne!
How could I have missed it in the first place?
Everybody loves it.
But it's also like the perfect excuse just to step up your chef game to the next level.
Like, not this level, like this level!
So, without further ado, let's just dive straight into it.
In French we call this onion, carrots and celery combination 'mirepoix'.
I believe in Italy they call it 'soffritto'.
But it's always the same purpose: to bring a solid base of flavour to any dish,
whether it be a soup, a stew, or a sauce.
And that is your very first chef skill.
Number One is mirepoix.
also known as 'sof'...
two f's, one f?
two f's!
So I just got this from a lovely subscriber, thank you man!
Super light!
So mirepoix, and that's your second skill,
is also the name of this cutting technique,
in which you are aiming at making those one centimetre cubes.
Next starts the actual cooking game because
we need to make a solid tomato sauce.
When it's nice and hot, add a good drizzle of olive oil
and a knob of butter.
The sizzling part is always the best!
So in we go with meat. I've got some beef and some pork.
The idea is just to mix the meat between the body from the beef and the fat from the pork.
And so starts another chef technique:
the caramelisation process.
And, in technical terms, it's called the Maillard reaction.
"My-yarrr!"
Not "my-yard!" I mean the more you know.
I'm just going to remove a bit of oil.
Because, basically, you don't want the food to deep fry, you want it to seal.
Ah, voila! Mon ami, voila!
That is the Maillard reaction.
The meat is still browning over there.
I just want to take this opportunity to pass on
the most boring
super important!
boring
chef's skill to you, which is health and safety.
Whenever you handle meat, you need to wash your hands thoroughly.
Spoiler alert! My hands are already clean.
Still, let's pretend.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five
Vegetables.
Two cloves of garlic.
Ah, putain!
I can't find any white wine, so I'm going to use sake instead.
It's the same. It's a dry white wine.
New chef skills in ... 3 ... 2 ... 1 ...
deglazing.
The main idea here is just
to unstick those caramelised bits from the bottom
of the pan and to incorporate them
in the sauce.
Next step, a can of peeled tomatoes,
plus another can of water.
So now you want to lower the heat.
Right so, while it's cooking over there,
let me show you another chef skill.
Take a few bay leaves
and you pair them with a bunch of thyme.
and you just tie them together.
This is called a bouquet garni.
It's supposed to infuse, a bit like tea, within our sauce over there.
It is the very minimal version,
the cheap version, if you want.
You can add rosemary, parsley, make it your own.
Bunch of herbs.
Finally, put a lid on it.
Let it cook for about two hours at least,
four hours would be best.
I'm gonna set this at the end of my studio
just because it's too noisy not because it doesn't smell good.
It smells very good.
Next
time to make pasta.
Well I can't just not use it.
The traditional lasagna bolognese
is made with green pasta
which colour usually comes from spinach.
I'm gonna leave them out
I know Italian people are going to be pissed off
but at least now they have a valid reason to be.
So this is about 400 grams of flour
to which I'm going to add four eggs.
Super easy: one egg per 100 grams of flour.
A good pinch of salt, and a touch of olive oil.
[BELL]
And that is, I believe, our chef skill number seven.
Cooking should be done by now.
I know I'm a bit of an actor, but still.
Have you seen inside? It's amazing!
Because it's all confit. It's all caramelised.
All those beautiful ingredients just became one.
Well I believe this our chef skill number eight right there.
A tomato sauce.
One of the five mother sauces of the French cuisine.
And, by the way, also an Italian sauce.
Next the second sauce of the lasagna bolognese
A white sauce, known as béchamel.
In a sauce pan goes a hundred grams of butter.
Medium heat. A hundred grams of flour.
Before you know, this is chef skill number nine.
Basically that one part flour, one part butter mixture is called a roux.
And it's a the base of any thickened food in the kitchen
like stews, soup, or sauces. Like us.
Never leave your workstation.
And then one litre whole milk.
And now I'm seriously wondering
why I did pick one of the smallest saucepans.
Grate in a bit of nutmeg.
Not much but, you know,
probably a fifth of this.
Salt and pepper.
To know if your Béchamel sauce has the right consistency
Take the spatula or spoon out of it
and then, if you get this Red Sea effect then the sauce is ready.
Soft, buttery.
That sauce is at the heart of so many dishes.
So I guess
it's a chef skill.
Fresh pasta, white sauce, red sauce. Time to assemble the dish.
Ideally, if we were living in a perfect world,
I would have a square dish.
I can't do this. It makes no sense.
Ok, anyway, I'm going to use this one instead, I know it's too big.
This one is too big now. I need like...
I got an idea!
Ta da!
That is my ugly but practical solution
to a real life problem.
Let's start again.
White sauce.
Nice.
Et, voila.
The red.
And parmesan cheese.
Yum. That sauce is mega good.
And the last layer.
I'm just going to add a final layer of aluminium foil on top.
Not that it's lacking any others.
In the oven it goes at 180 Celsius or 360 Fahrenheit
for about forty minutes, up to an hour,
because it's a big boy, this one.
Ok, I'm not going to write for you
that lasagna dish on this chef skills list
because I don't think thats something you can reuse
in another situation in the kitchen.
However, I think we earned a new one.
Adapt!
In the kitchen you will encounter
loads and loads of problematic or difficult situations
which you need to overcome one way or another.
This is not one of them, but, adapt.
Whoo!
Un. Deux.
You've got the softness from the fresh pasta.
You've got the creaminess, a consequence of using white sauce.
The bite. The body.
The bold caramelised flavour from the tomato sauce.
A very delicate crisp from the parmesan cheese on top.
So I guess I love everything about that dish
both from a tasting point of view, well it's absolutely stunning,
but also from a cook's point of view where I think it's brilliant
if you want to get better in the kitchen
and that's everything that this channel is all about.
So lasagna, Alex ... BFF for life.
No, it's best...
I hope you enjoyed that recipe.
If you did then please give this video a big thumbs up,
like it and share it over all your social media.
You know how it works.
And last, people, click subscribe 'cos I make new videos every week.
You know it's always about the food.
It's about making food more inspirational.
Anyway, take care, bye bye, salut!