Lasagne from scratch

Hello HTS Community

Today I am sharing my recipe for making a lasagne from scratch. Lasagne is an Italian classic dish, layered with thin sheets of pasta, alternating with a filling (ragu or vegetables), cheese, seasoning and spices.

We will make our own pasta sheets, filling and ricotta to fully enjoy the fruit of labor. I have also mentioned the vegan substitutes for each element. Lasagne freezes very well, and every time you heat a slice, it tastes even better. This recipe makes 4 medium sized slices.

I prefer using ricotta instead of béchamel in my recipe, as it adds a good bite and protein to the dish.

Ingredients you will need:

For pasta sheets

• All purpose flour- 1 cup
• Semolina- 1 tablespoon
• Egg- 1
• Pinch of salt

For Ricotta

• Full fat milk- 1 litre
• Lemon juice or white vinegar- 3 teaspoon
• Pinch of salt
• Pinch of nutmeg powder

For the filling

• Carrots- 1/2 cup diced
• Zucchini- 1/2 cup diced
• Eggplant- 1/2 cup diced
• Onion- 1/2 cup chopped
• Tomato- 1+1/2 cup pureed
• Garlic cloves- 3 finely chopped
• Olive oil- 3 tablespoon
• Balsamic vinegar- 1 tablespoon
• Salt and pepper
• Mozzarella cheese- To put on top

Steps:

Pasta sheets

• Take the flour, semolina, add pinch of salt, and make a well in between. Crack the egg and make a smooth dough. Pasta dough requires at least 8-10 minutes to turn into a smooth dough, so if it sticks in the start, don’t worry just keep working on it. Wrap the dough in a cling sheet and let it rest for 1/2 an hour.
• For vegan version, skip the egg and make the dough using water at room temperature.
• After resting, divide the dough in 4 parts and start rolling until the sheet is 1mm thick. Cut in the shape of the baking utensil, dust with flour and keep aside. Repeat the process with the other parts.

Ricotta

• Start with heating the milk in a pot. Make sure to use full fat milk, else you will end up with no so good ricotta.
• Once the milk comes to a boil, switch off the flame and add a glass of normal water to bring down the temperature. Add lemon juice or vinegar and stir gently. Leave it for 10 minutes for the curds to form.
• Use a sieve to separate whey and you have beautiful ricotta ready.
• Once it cools down a bit, give it good mix in the blender with salt and nutmeg.
• For vegan version, make a béchamel using 2 cups of almond or soy milk, 3 tablespoons of flour and 5 tablespoon of vegan butter. Melt the butter, mix flour at low heat and cook for 3 minutes. Pour a few tablespoons of milk and whisk so that no lumps form, add rest of the milk and keep whisking until smooth. Season with salt and nutmeg.

Vegetable filling

• Heat the olive oil in a pan, add onion, garlic, carrots, eggplant and zucchini and cook over medium heat. Add each vegetable one at a time, in the order mentioned, allowing each ingredient to fry a bit before adding next one. Add extra oil as necessary to avoid burning.
• Add tomato puree, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper and let it simmer it simmer with a lid on for 5 minutes.

Final Assembly

• Preheat the oven to 200 degree Celsius, and boil a pot of water and season with plenty of salt to cook pasta sheets. Once the water starts boiling, add the pasta sheets and take out after 1 minute. Keep each of them separately aside.
• In a medium sized baking dish, start with a thin layer of vegetable filling at the bottom of the dish. Layer up with one pasta sheet, and then a layer of ricotta on top of it.
• Repeat the layering process, vegetable filling, pasta sheet, ricotta, until the dish is full, should have about 4 layers.
• Sprinkle cheese on top and bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes, until the top is golden. Let it rest for at least 15 minutes before you devour yourself.