HOW TO PREPARE THE AUTHENTIC LASAGNA
Lasagna is one of Italy's most succulent pasta dishes.
The secret lies in selecting tasty ingredients and alternating them with the pasta sheets and béchamel sauce.
We always make our lasagne both traditional, i.e. with meat sauce, and vegetarian with vegetables and cheese.
We like to make the béchamel sauce with extra virgin olive oil, which we are experts in, so it is less fatty than using butter.
To make a vegetarian lasagna, the milk for the béchamel sauce can also be oat milk.
Here are all the steps to make your own lasagne at home.
Many ingredients can be found in our shop.
Enjoy and let us know how your lasagna turned out by posting a photo and tagging egro_london.
Here the Ingredients you need for 8 - 10 servings.
Ingredients
Ragu
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 cup carrot finely chopped (1 large)
- 1 cup stalk celery finely chopped (1 large)
- 1 cup white onion finely chopped (1 large
- 1 lb ground beef (mince) (500g)
- lb ground pork (mince) (500g)
- 2.5 cups sieved tomatoes tomatoes (passata) (540g)
- 3 tablespoon tomato paste
- 1 cups red wine (250ml)
- 6 cups beef stock (1.5 litres)
- 2 bay leaves
- 1 teaspoon sea salt flakes and pepper
White Sauce
- 5 tablespoon butter (70g) or the same of extra virgin olive oil
- 5 tablespoon flour all-purpose (70g)
- 4 cups full fat milk (1 litre) or oat milk
- ½ teaspoon nutmeg
- 1 cup parmigiano reggiano freshly grated (70g)
- 1 teaspoon sea salt salt and pepper or to taste
Lasagne
- 1 lb fresh or dry lasagna pasta sheets (17 oz/500g)
- 2 balls mozzarella (8 oz/250g)
Let's start preparing the ragu.
Finely chop the carrot, celery and onion and sweat slowly with a little olive oil in a large, deep skillet or pan.
Once you've sauteed the veggies, add the meat and brown whilst breaking it up with a wooden spoon.
Add the red wine and reduce by half. Once the wine has reduced, add the sieved tomatoes, tomato paste, bay leaf, 4 cups of the beef stock and a pinch of salt and pepper. Stir everything together and leave to simmer on a low heat for 2.5-3 hours uncovered. Add the rest of the beef stock half way through.
And then the Bechamel Sauce.
Add the butter (or Evoo) to a saucepan and cook until melted and bubbling.
Add the flour to the melted butter and stir to form a paste. Let the flour cook for 1 minute.
Slowly whisk half of the milk into the butter and flour constantly whisking to avoid any lumps. Once it has started to thicken add the rest of the milk, nutmeg, parmigiano reggiano and a pinch of salt and pepper.
Continue to heat the sauce whilst stirring until thickened enough to coat the back of a wooden spoon. Take off the heat and set aside
And now you have to assemble
To assemble the lasagne, spoon a small amount of ragu on the very bottom of the baking dish. Top with and even layer of lasagna pasta sheets.
Add a few more spoons of ragu so the pasta is completely covered followed by white sauce.
Repeat the layers of pasta, ragu and bechamel sauce finishing with a layer of pasta topped with bechamel sauce (you should have 4-5 layers of pasta). Cover the top layer of the lasagne with torn mozzarella and then bake in the oven until bubbling and golden.
You can use dry or fresh pasta sheet!