Classic Lasagna - General Cooking Principles
Italian lasagna has rightfully gained popularity all over the world. Classic lasagna consists of several layers of dough and the filling - vegetable or meat. Here are the basic principles of cooking this dish.
Bechamel sauce. This sauce is a must-have for classic lasagna. It is used most often to fill the dish, but if the filling is thick, they also smear the dough. It is easy to cook, you need butter (about 150 grams), cream (300 ml), flour (1-2 tbsp) and spices. Ground nutmeg is most commonly used, but you can take oregano or basil. It is necessary to melt butter in a saucepan, pour cream into it, add flour and spices, and then stir until the flour lumps disappear. If it seems to you that the sauce is greasy, then you can replace the cream with milk. Also, at your discretion, you can add basil, garlic, pepper to Béchamel.
Rule two, which is followed when cooking classic lasagna - the dough must be made from unrefined flour. To taste it will not be so tender, to which we are accustomed in dumplings and dumplings. No wonder, because for baking, we most often use top-grade flour. From the point of view of proper nutrition, this is incorrect - the refined flour “gets rid” of useful minerals contained in wheat grains during processing. Knowledgeable people eat bran and rye bread, and pasta is prepared only from durum wheat. Italians always use the “right” flour for all their culinary creations. If you are preparing the sheets for lasagne yourself, keep this in mind.
Classic lasagna should be juicy. If you overdry a dish, it will turn out inedible. The secret is not only in adding the sauce, but also in the right cooking technology. Baking temperature should not be 160 degrees. The cooking time is 30 minutes for the meat filling and 25 minutes for the lasagna with vegetables. It is important to remember about the foil - before sending the lasagne to the oven, cover it with the deck.
Classic Lasagna - preparing food and dishes
First of all, choose good sheets of dough for the dish. It is better to purchase an imported product. Not so long ago, domestic pasta manufacturers began to make dough for lasagne, but in most cases it is made from ordinary flour.
You will also need components for the filling. It all depends on what kind of lasagna you plan to cook - meat, with mushrooms, fish or chicken. However, whatever recipe you choose, you definitely need a bow for zazharki, oil, cheese, spices.
Classic lasagna is cooked not only in the oven, but also in the slow cooker. Put in the bowl, buttered, layers of ingredients, pour half the sauce and leave to bake for 25 minutes in the mode "Baking". 5 minutes before the end of the program you need to pour the lasagna with the remnants of the sauce and sprinkle with cheese.
Recipes classic lasagna:
Recipe 1: Classic Lasagna (with vegetables)
One of the most popular types of dish was and remains lasagna with vegetables. You will need mushrooms and eggplants. Italians choose these vegetables because they have a dense structure and aroma, similar to meat.
Ingredients Required:
- Dough
- Eggplant - 1 pc.
- Mushrooms - 230 gr.
- Kefir - 230 gr.
- Bulbs - 2 pcs.
- Spice
- Cream - 250 ml
- Cheese - 130 gr.
- Flour - 1.5 Art. l
- Butter - 100 gr.
- Egg - 1 pc.
Cooking method:
- Cook the vegetables. Peel and chop the eggplant. Wash and cut mushrooms. Shred bulbs. Fry vegetables in a small amount of oil for 13-15 minutes.
- Prepare the bechamel sauce.
- Hard cheese grate.
- Mixer combine egg, spices and kefir. Add cheese to the sauce.
- Layers lay out the dough and fried vegetables. Each layer must be smeared with kefir sauce. The last layer of lasagna to pour sauce Bechamel.
Recipe 2: Classic chicken lasagna
For lasagna, you can use any kind of meat, including poultry. Try cooking classic lasagna with chicken. You can use any parts of the meat - legs, hips or fillets.
Ingredients Required:
- Lasagna dough
- Chicken meat - 340 gr.
- Leek - 170 gr.
- Sour cream - 200 ml
- Cream - 240 gr.
- Butter - 100 gr.
- Flour - 1.5 Art. l
- Nutmeg
Cooking method:
- Soak poultry meat for 10 minutes. Remove the skin from it, separate it from the bones, and cut it as small as possible.
- Cut the leeks (for the dish you only need the white part).
- Fry the onions in a pan, add the chicken and simmer for 10 minutes. Add sour cream, make less fire and put out 3 more minutes.
- Prepare the bechamel sauce.
- Lay out in the deck alternately layers of dough and stuffing. Top with lasagna pour sauce Bechamel.
Recipe 3: Classic Lasagna with Cheese and Mushrooms
Whatever stuffing you come up with, the lasagna will turn out delicious. Italians mix soft cheese and fried mushrooms, season lasagna with Bechamel sauce and enjoy a unique delicate flavor. You can take any soft cheese, but in Italy prefer mozzarella, as it has a low melting point.
Ingredients Required:
- Mozzarella cheese - 200 gr.
- Mushrooms - 210 gr.
- Onion - 2 pcs.
- Carrots - 1 pc.
- Lasagna Sheets
- Cream - 270 ml
- Butter - 130 gr.
- Flour - 1 tbsp. l
- Spice
Cooking method:
- Peel the onions and carrots, wash the mushrooms. Finely chop vegetables, rub carrots.
- Fry the onions and carrots in a little oil, add the mushrooms. Fry the vegetables for 12 minutes.
- Grate Morzarella on a coarse grater. Connect with cooled vegetables.
- Make the bechamel sauce.
- Lay out the dough and the filling, each sheet of lasagna grease with Béchamel sauce, pour the top layer with it. Bake 25 minutes.
Recipe 4: Classic Lasagna with minced meat
You can take any stuffing for this dish, but mix pork and beef.
Ingredients Required:
- Dough sheets
- Tomatoes - 4 pcs.
- Stuffing - 360 gr.
- Onions - 1 pc.
- Basil
- Ingredients for Bechamel Sauce
Cooking method:
- Scald the tomatoes, carefully peel them and chop them into puree.
- Finely chop the onion.
- Put the stuffing on a preheated pan and start to fry. In the sixth minute, add onion, another five minutes, pour in tomato puree, salt, add dry basil. Simmer the meat for about 3-4 minutes, then turn off the heat.
- Combine the butter, cream and salt to get the bechamel sauce.
- Lay the ingredients in layers. The filling does not need to be smeared with anything, as thanks to the tomato sauce, the lasagna will be sufficiently juicy.
Recipe 5: Classic seafood lasagna
For this dish you can take any ingredients, but if we talk about classic lasagna, then red fish, mussels and octopuses are most often used.
Ingredients Required:
- Dough sheets
- Melted cheese - 100 gr.
- Hard cheese - 110 gr.
- Red fish (fillet) - 180 gr.
- Octopuses - 120 gr.
- Mussels - 120 gr.
- Cream - 300 ml
- Butter - 120 grams
- Flour - 1 tbsp. l
Cooking method:
- Wash the fish, make sure there are no bones in the fillet, cut it and the octopus meat.
- Hard cheese must be grated, melted - cut into cubes.
- Put the seafood in a hot saucepan. Stir fry for 5 minutes. Pour half of the cream into the skillet, put the melted cheese. Close the lid and make less fire. After 6 minutes, remove the saucepan from the heat - the filling for classic seafood lasagna is ready.
- Mix the remaining cream with melted butter, add flour and grated hard cheese - this is the sauce for pouring.
- Lay out dough sheets and fish stuffing.
Mushroom Lasagna - secrets and tips from the best chefs
If you can not get the sheets for lasagna, then you can prepare them yourself. Regular flour for the dough does not fit - it is refined and does not carry any value. Here you can do the following. The first - combine rye flour and plain white in a 1: 1 ratio. In this case, for 400 grams of flour you will need 5 eggs and 2 tablespoons of water.
The second way is to add crushed bran to the flour. In stores and on the market food bran is sold and they are inexpensive. All that is needed is to grind them in a coffee grinder to a state of flour, and then add to the dough. The proportions of bran to flour is about 80 grams per 300 grams of regular flour. In the dough also need to add 4 eggs.
You made the dough, but it seems to you pale? That's right, most of the time, a little bit of turmeric is added to the dough for classic lasagna. This is an Indian spice of bright lemon color with a slight pleasant aroma. Add 1 teaspoon of spices per pound of flour, and the sheets turn out to be a nice shade.
