The Cynosural Blog

For her birthday, Mom asked for lasagna and cheesecake, as she's somewhat fanatical about both. I had a meeting in Palo Alto on Friday, so picking up a tiramisu cheesecake from The Cheesecake Factory was a no brainer, as I knew I wouldn't have time to shop and prepare both things.

The Americanized lasagna with which I grew up, and that will make my Mom the happiest is cooked from dried, curly-edged pasta layered with a ricotta and cheese mixture and tomato-meat sauce. I would prefer a more traditional lasagne, as made by Gianugo Rabellino. But, I also want to make a vegetarian lasagne. So, I'm combining the Italian tradition with the Italo-American tradition, and I'll make two lasagne, one meat with a ragù and one vegie with eggplant and portobello mushrooms.

On a recent visit, Gianugo told me that portobello isn't a mushroom's name in Italy, but that there is a portobello orange. Here's the mushroom:

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I'm also using so-called Italian Eggplants, which are smaller, more slender, less bitter and with fewer seeds than the large, globular Eggplants more commonly sold in the USA.

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The cap of the mushroom is about 4-inches (~10 cm) across. I'll make a sauce from these, similar to a ragù, but using the eggplants and mushrooms without any meat.

I'll also be serving some extra sauce on the side, the same as in my post on Abruzzo Polpettine, but with a rack of baby-back pork ribs rather than the veal shank, as my father prefers the ribs.

I'll be using sheets of fresh egg pasta, cut to fit the pans that I'll be using. These sheets don't have curly edges After cutting to fit the pans, blanch in salted, boiling water for two minutes and set aside, laying flat or draped over a drying rack.

In addition to the ragù and eggplant-mushroom-tomato sauce, I need enough balsamella sauce for both lasagne.

The tomatoes are cooking down in the wine with a red onion studded with bay leaf and cloves. I've cleaned, sliced and sautéed the mushrooms with garlic, in olive oil, and simmered in red wine. The eggplant was sliced, salted, set aside to drain (necessary with larger eggplants, and a matter of caution with these, to remove the bitter, soapy oil that eggplants have in their seeds) and sautéed in more olive oil and garlic slices. So, while the tomatoes, are cooking, I made the balsamella, and started blogging

Béchamel or Balsamella

Fill a greater-than-2-quart crockery bowl with hot water and set aside. I started with 2 sticks (16 tablespoons) of unsalted butter. Melt them over low heat in a large, porcelain coated pain. When the butter is melted and just starting to foam, grind in 16 turns of white peppercorns, and slowly whisk in a cup of unbleached, white wheat flour. Allow the flour to cook for at least three minutes, but don't let it brown. While the flower is cooking, heat in the microwave (or start this earlier if in a pan on the stove) 6 cups of whole milk mixed with one cup of heavy cream. When the flour is cooked, slowly whisk in the warm milk & cream. Cook for five more minutes over medium heat, whisking frequently. Grate a quarter-pound of locatelli romano hard, sharp cheese and whisk into the sauce. Salt to taste. Drain and dry the crockery bowl. Transfer the balsamella into the bowl, cover with a square of buttered parchment paper, and allow to cool for three hours.

Ricotta & Cheese

Now to make the cheese mixture. Start with ricotta. By the way, ricotta isn't a cheese, more of the anti-cheese, as it's made from the whey that is left-over when the curds are made into cheese. For my two lasagne, I'll need four pounds of fresh ricotta, with one egg per pound plus one egg per tray of lasagne, making for six eggs total. Mix in grated cheeses: one-half pound of parmigiano-reggiano, one-half pound of pecerino-toscano, and one-quarter pound of locatelli-romano and a hand-full of chopped Italian (flat-leaf) parsley.

Assemble the Lasagne

1. In the bottom of two large roasting or lasagna pans, put a ladle of the appropriate tomato sauce (ragù or vegie) and a tablespoon of olive oil. Make sure the bottom and sides of the pans are coated.
2. Lay a cooked sheet of pasta in the bottom of the pan
3. Imagine the squares each portion of lasagne will be; in each square put a rounded teaspoon each of
   • basil-garlic-pignoli pesto (note that the pesto for the vegie version also has blanched baby spinach leaves),
   • balsamella,
   • ragù or vegie sauce and
   • ricotta mixture
4. top with a pasta sheet, squeeze flat, do it again until the pan is full or you're out of materials
5. top with remaining balsamella

Place the lasagna pans into an oven preheated to 350ºF, and cook for 45 minutes. Check every 15 minutes to makes sure that the balsamella doesn't burn. If it gets very brown, cover with aluminum foil.

Sever with a salad, and the same type of red wine that you used in the sauce. I used Thalia Sangiovese from Viansa.

I've got to get back to cooking. If I have a chance, I'll update with pictures of the finished products.

Update: Finished eating the salad and entrée; here's a picture of the meat lasagne:

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And here's the vegie lasagne.

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I have to go back and get ready for cake, and I already feel like I'm about to explode.

Another Update: Here's Mom blowing out her candles.

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I'm going to go die now. I couldn't even finish my piece of cake.

Enjoy. Happy birthday, Mom.