Lasagna

[cjsmith]

Welcome to the latest installment of CJ Feels Stupid In The Kitchen!

This time it's lasagna, a dish even I cannot usually screw up. I decided to add Italian sausage, not in the sauce, but just adding it in between the sauce and the cheese. I made all the layers and remembered to leave a big bunch of mozzarella to put on top. I'm so smart.

When I grated that mozzarella, I took a good chip off the base of my thumb, a minor but painful goof I haven't made for years. Considering that I know better than to serve this to anybody but myself, I figured this attempt was just barely still a success. I spread out the cheese prettily.

Then I noticed the other two-thirds of the sausage, still waiting. Dangit. The only layer I remembered to put sausage on was the bottom one. So I dumped that large pile of crumbled sausage on above the cheese, pressing it down in the hopes the cheese would sort of bubble around it. Durrr. It's going to look like pizza.

But the whole thing is baking now, and mmm the smell. I adore Italian sausage.

I better get cracking if I want bread today. This will be the first time I ever try rye.

Comments

[eichin.livejournal.com]

> It's going to look like pizza.

You say that as if it were a *bad* thing :-)

The thing with lasagne, is that it's a particular instance of a general class of "yummy things with pasta + sauce + cheese + meat". It's all refinements from there; sauces, different pastas, cheeses... for the last chocolate party, we made a fairly generic lasagne (a bunch of ground beef, ricotta, parmesan) with a normal red sauce... to which we added, mmm, 2 or 3 oz melted dark chocolate to 32 oz of red sauce, and a bunch of vietnamese cinnamon added to the chocolate. It was devoured :-) (and it was suggested that we add *more* spices next time.)

[recordersmith.livejournal.com]

Oooh. I have to try that. OK, the next lasagna I make is getting chocolate added in.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Heck, I've seen lasagne without meat or cheese or even red sauce -- one I'm remembering was a scrumptious veggie lasagna with white sauce. Perhaps the only thing it really has to have is the noodles. Well, and probably it has to still be a savory dish, but the addition of chocolate is now making me think of a dessert variant... chocolate and cinnamon and noodles and whipped cream, anyone? :)

[eichin.livejournal.com]

Note that in this case it was still savory - the chocolate served more like it does in a Mole' sauce.

Also, "without meat or cheese ..." gives it away, linguistically: it's still a lasagne because it's defined in terms of those ingredients, if only by their absence - otherwise it's a "very wide fettucini alfredo" :-) I'm including, for example, ziti casserole in the same class of substitutions.

(Had something last night called "Dessert Ravioli" - fried pastry pockets with molten chocolate and caramel inside. Served with ice cream because it would have been too sweet (!) without it. Mmmm.)

Mostly what I'm getting at is that this really is a fundamental "element" of dinner-food-cooking, which is very amenable to changing any and all parameters - it's a "safe" space to explore :-)

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Ah, but I'm guessing ziti casserole would not be viewed by most as a lasagna, while a vegetable variant with white sauce (and the wide flat noodles, in layers) would. At least, I've seen the latter at a restaurant as a lasagna.

I see the point, though, I think: this is a basic unit that is easy to mess with. Pasta plus red sauce plus cheese plus (optional) meat is pretty good no matter what you do with it. As long as the meat gets cooked. :-)

Dessert ravioli sounds really good. I'd want to opt out of the caramel (too sweet) but that sounds absolutely scrumptious. Now I want to make it. :-)

[lisa-marli.livejournal.com]

White sauce, cinnamon, noodles - Now that's a Kugel. They can be sweet or savory and they are always Yum. Food Network has recipes for both, just search on Kugel.