Lasagna

I’m very proud of this one.

Sure, it’s nothing special. Anyone can make a Lasagna. But this was the first time I tried making my own fresh noodles. It was a gamble to try to turn this into a video without practicing it first, but I really think it paid off. There are some things I will do differently in the future, and I’ll get to those at the end of the blog.

Ingredients

For the Meat Sauce

• 2lbs Sausage

• 1 Head of Garlic

• 1 Cup of Marsala Wine

• 28oz can of Tomatoes

• Water (about 14 oz)

For the Cheese Sauce

• 8oz Ricotta Cheese

• Parmigiano-Reggiano (I didn’t measure…)

• 1 lb Mozzarella

• Bunch of Parsley

• 1 Egg

For the Noodles

• 400g Flour

• 1 tsp Kosher Salt

• 4 eggs

Recipe

Brown up the Sausage in some Olive oil, then add in an entire head of minced Garlic. You’ll want to brown the Sausage for a good 10 minutes or so, but the Garlic only needs to sweat for about 1 minute. Deglaze with the Marsala wine. Add in the Tomatoes, rinse the can out with the 14oz of water and add that in too. Simmer for at least 2 hours. covered. After it simmers, I like to raise the heat after 2 hours and reduce the sauce to thicken it up nicely. If yours is too thick, just add a little water. This can be made the day before.

For the cheese sauce, just mix all those ingredients up. Easy, right? Oh, and I’m sorry I didn’t measure the Parmesan cheese when I made this. I’m going to guess it was 1/2 a cups worth, or maybe 1oz.

For the Noodles… well… watch the video. If you can’t piece it together from the video, I guess I’ll spell it out here.

Make a dough by beating 4 eggs and mixing them with the flour and salt. You can try the classic “make a well out of flour and beat the eggs in the flour,” but I always mess that up. Just do it in a bowl if you want.

Knead the dough for 10 minutes, then wrap it and let it rest for at least 30 minutes. This is crucial. You can skimp on the kneading if you really want to, but for the love of God, let the dough rest for a full 30 minutes. It won’t roll right if you don’t. It needs all that time to hydrate and do… chemical stuff. Look, I don’t know, I just know it’s a pain in the ass to roll out dough immediately after you knead it.

There’s my amateur baker tip for you: having trouble rolling out dough for pizza or noodles or tortillas? Let the dough rest.

Run the dough through the “0” setting 2-3 times, then through the “1” setting 2-3 times. Then the “2” setting 2-3 times. See the pattern? Keep going until you get to “6.”

You can assemble your Lasagna however you want, but here’s how I did mine:

• Meat Sauce

• Oil (Optional Drizzle)

• Noodles

• Cheese Sauce

• Meat Sauce

• Noodles

• Cheese Sauce

• Noodles

• Meat Sauce

• Mozzarella

• Parmesan

Cover it and bake around 375F for 30 minutes. Then another 30 minutes uncovered at 350F, or until it’s nicely browned.

Let it rest for at least a Half Hour, fool.