Lasagne Using Homemade Egg Pasta Sheets

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Lasagne Using Homemade Egg Pasta Sheets

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Homemade lasagne sheets will bake the softest of lasagne. Once you taste a forkful of lasagne made with them, you would be reluctant to go back to that box of dried lasagne sheets.

Apart from making the pasta sheets, this recipe is not fiddly. It uses ingredients available from your neighbourhood supermarket and you don't even need to boil your pasta sheets before using.

Yummy as bechamel (white) sauce is, this recipe does not use it. Making fresh pasta is enough work as it is. So that it's not daunting for those making fresh pasta for the first time, I have saved a recipe for lasagne using bechamel sauce and a bolognese sauce for another day, thereby simplifying and speeding up execution of this recipe.

Lasagne is great party food. It's portable, reheats well and feeds many.

Recipe for making the fresh pasta sheet is in my previous post, Lasagne - The Fresh Pasta Sheets. 

LASAGNE WITH FRESH EGG PASTA                                 

Prep:	30 minutes
Cook:	30 - 45 minutes
Inactive:	-
Level:	Moderately easy
Makes:	Bakes into a slightly over 1" (2.5cm) thick lasagne that measures ~17" X 13" (33cm X 43cm). Feeds ~ 6 people generously.
Oven Temperature:	380F (190C)
Can recipe be doubled?	Yes
Make ahead?	Pasta dough and the sauce can be made the night before and refrigerated. Freezes very well.

Just the ingredients The fresh egg pasta sheets Click here, Lasagne - The Fresh Pasta Sheets, for detailed recipe and instructions with lots of pictures for making the egg pasta sheets. The tomato sauce 2 large onions diced (2 cups)  1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil 1.1 lb (500g) ground beef 3 bay leaves 4.31 lb (1.95kg) prepared tomato sauce 1 and 1/2 teaspoons salt 1/2 teaspoon pepper 1 and 1/2 Tablespoons sugar Cheeses 1.1 lb (500g) shredded mozzarella 1.1 lb (500g) shredded sharp cheddar 8.81 oz (250g) ricotta

Ingredients

The fresh egg pasta sheets
Click here, Lasagne - The Fresh Pasta Sheets, for detailed recipe and instructions with lots of pictures for making the egg pasta sheets.

The tomato sauce
2 large onions diced (2 cups) 
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
1.1 lb (500g) ground beef
You could also use all or a combination of beef, pork and veal. A percentage of pork sausage meat also makes for a tastier sauce. Why would it not? It's already pre-seasoned. Adjust quantity for salt though as sausage meat is salty.

4.31 lb (1.95kg) prepared tomato sauce

I like Prego Marinara Sauce and I use 3 bottles of their 23oz (652g) bottles. If you are using a different brand, adjust seasonings to suit your taste.

3 bay leaves
1 and 1/2 teaspoons salt

1/2 teaspoon pepper

1 and 1/2 Tablespoons sugar

Cheeses

1.1 lb (500g) shredded mozzarella

1.1 lb (500g) shredded sharp cheddar
It is important to use a sharp or aged cheddar as shredded mozzarella is very mild tasting. I have used an aged Red Leicester (above). Made in the United Kingdom, it's coloured with Annatto seeds and is a crumbly cow's milk cheese that is a good substitute for sharp/aged cheddar.

8.81 oz (250g) ricotta
If the ricotta is too liquid, drain for at least 2 hours or up to 2 days before using. The brand I use is perfect as you can tell from the photograph above. It is firm, doesn't weep whey and even holds its shape when unmoulded. I tried a few brands before finding an Italian one that I like.

Method

Fresh egg pasta sheets

Click here, Lasagne - The Fresh Pasta Sheets, for detailed recipe and instructions with lots of pictures.

Tomato sauce

In a deep pot, add the extra virgin olive oil and onions. Turn the heat up to medium-high and fry the onions until they have soften.

Add the ground beef, bay leaves and stir until the beef is no longer pink. 

Add the tomato sauce and bring it to a boil. Turn off the burner, add the salt, pepper and sugar. Stir to mix. Taste and adjust seasonings.

Assembling

Turn on your oven to 390F (190C), oven rack adjusted to lower middle position. 

For this recipe, I used my roasting tray. It measures ~17" X 13" X 3" (43cm X 33cm X 7.6cm) and I had lined it with aluminium foil and lightly greased it.

• On fair weather days, it would be ideal if you could work outdoors. Rolling out pasta is a messy affair. Outdoors, there is no need to clean floury kitchen flours and counters!

• If it has to be done indoors, to minimise clean up, contain fly away flour by placing dampen kitchen towels on immediate areas of your work surface that you would not be using for rolling pasta. It keeps the 'fly away flour' contained and helps prevent the flour from drifting down to the flour.

• To keep the floors less floury and to prevent your feet from transferring flour to other areas of the kitchen, spread a dampen floor mat directly under where you would be standing.

Organise your work surface as you will be transferring the rolled pasta sheets directly onto your sauce and cheeses. Have the following ready:

• Attach pasta machine to work surface. Dial adjusted to number 1.
• ~ 1/2 cup of flour for dusting
• A sifter
• Bench scrapper to cut dough sheets to size
• Baking vessel (grease it if you are lining it with aluminium foil)
• Pre-prepared fresh pasta dough cut into 6 portions (well covered in air-tight container to avoid drying out)
• Pre-cooked tomato sauce -no need to cool to use (mentally divide into 6 portions as you will be spreading it out over 6 layers)
• Shredded mozzarella (mentally divide into 5 portions as you will be spreading it out over 5 layers)
• Shredded cheddar (mentally divide into 5 portions as you will be spreading it out over 5 layers)
• Ricotta (mentally divide into 2 portions as you will be spreading it out over 2 layers)

Have all the ingredients and necessary equipment ready as you will be rolling out the dough and combining it immediately with your sauce and cheeses.

1.Bottom layer: Tomato sauce to cover the entire bottom surface.
2.Then: Freshly rolled out lasagne sheets, close any gaps with strips of pasta sheets cut to fit.
3.Followed by: A few dollops of tomato sauce, sprinkle mozzarella and cheddar.

4.Next: Lasagne sheets, close any gaps with strips of pasta sheets cut to fit.
5.Followed by: Tomato sauce.

6.Next: Mozzarella, cheddar, 1/2 of ricotta.

7.Then: Lasagne sheets, close any gaps with strips of pasta sheets cut to fit.

8. Followed by: Tomato sauce

9. Next: Mozzarella, cheddar, 1/2 of ricotta

10.Then: Lasagne sheets, close any gaps with strips of pasta sheets cut to fit.

11. Next: Tomato sauce, mozzarella, cheddar.

12. Followed by: Lasagne sheets, close any gaps with strips of pasta sheets cut to fit.
13. Finally: Tomato sauce, mozzarella and cheddar.

Bake for 30 to 45 minutes until the top looks wonderfully bubbled up. Cool until just warm before serving. It makes for cleaner cuts of lasagne.

This tray is headed to a party.

Tips

• If you want to bake this lasagne using boxed lasagne, you would have to cook it (if they are those that needs to be boiled) according to package directions before using. 

• Keep in mind that dried and 'no-boiling required' lasagne sheets would require more tomato sauce so make a little more.

WHAT'S COMING UP NEXT?                                                 

Update on 11 April: Yes, I did attach a photograph of my Green Tea Cupcake with the intention of posting the recipe in the post following this current one. However, it's not perfect and I am not going to share the recipe until I am positive that it is the best possible rendition of a Green Tea Cupcake that I can bake. To date, I have baked 10 variations of it and I think I am getting closer! My trousers are so snug!!