Six Hour Birthday Lasagna
Lasagna is the perfect birthday food. It’s festive, it feeds a crowd, and depending on which recipe you choose, the work that goes into it can become a gift in and of itself. Such was the case with this lasagna that I made for Craig’s [age redacted] birthday this weekend. The recipe comes from Chris Morocco of Bon Appetit and, except for this Lasagna Alla Bolognese al Forno that I once made, it’s the most elaborate lasagna recipe that I’ve ever embarked upon.
What makes the recipe particularly unique is the technique involved. It’s a full-on meatball approach to Bolognese sauce.
It’s a fascinating concept. Instead of going the Marcella Hazan route (my normal go-to Bolognese recipe), where you cook the meat gently with soffrito and milk for three hours, here you brown meatballs to develop a fond on the bottom of the pan before adding pancetta, the veg, garlic, tomato paste, white wine, tomatoes, milk, and chicken stock.
The meatballs accomplish two things: they let you achieve brownness (and flavor) without drying out the meat and they lend more complexity to the sauce than if you just cooked the raw meat in liquid.
By the time you add the tomatoes, you have a warm bath ready for those meatballs to simmer in for four hours while you go about your day (it all happens in the oven).
When they come out four hours later, they’re fall apart tender… and that’s good because the next step has you mash them up with a potato masher (!). That’s how you get it to look like a Bolognese. That plus some simmering to thicken it.
Meanwhile, you make a Béchamel the standard way: with butter and flour that you toast a bit before adding whole milk (be sure to use whole, or it won’t thicken up) and, once thickened and off the heat, seasoning with nutmeg, cayenne, and a ton of Parmesan cheese.
(Careful observers will note the Parmesan rind on the spoon rest; I threw that into the sauce after grating the Parmesan to give it extra flavor.)
Then it’s just an assembly job: a layer of Bolognese, a cooked pasta sheet, Béchamel, Bolognese, and so on. Winston was very fascinated by this process.
You put a final layer of Bechamel on top, cover with foil, bake at 325 for an hour and then remove the foil and bake at 425 for an extra 15 minutes. To get the top really brown, I stuck it under the broiler.
By the time I brought it to the table, I’d put more love into this lasagna than most parents put into their children.
And the results? They were sublime — at least I thought so — though I did wonder if everyone would’ve been just as happy with Ina Garten’s turkey sausage lasagna that takes half the time. (Plus that one has way more cheese.)
Who knows? All I know is that I’m glad that I made it and Craig was glad too. Happy [redacted] birthday, Craig!
Six Hour Birthday Lasagna
My take on Bon Appetit’s “Best Ever” Lasagna.
For the ragu bolognese:
2 pounds ground pork
1 pound ground beef chuck (20% fat)
Kosher salt, freshly ground black pepper
2 Tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 ounces pancetta or slab bacon, chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
1 celery stalk, chopped
1 medium carrot, chopped
6 garlic cloves, sliced
2 tablespoons tomato paste
3/4 cup dry white wine
1 28-ounce can whole peeled tomatoes, crushed by hand in a large bowl
1 cup low-sodium chicken broth
1 cup whole milk (be sure to use whole!)
Béchamel and Assembly:
7 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/4 cup plus 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
6 cups whole milk
4 ounces Parmesan cheese, coarsely grated (about 1 cup)
Pinch of cayenne pepper
Pinch of freshly ground nutmeg
Kosher salt, freshly ground black pepper
1 1/4 pounds dried lasagna noodles
Extra -virgin olive oil (for greasing)
Instructions:
First make the Bolognese:
Preheat the oven to 275 (note: the original recipe says 225 but that wasn’t high enough to get my sauce to simmer). Using your hands, mix the pork and the beef in a large bowl and season well with salt and pepper and mix well. Form into 18 large meatballs and place them on a cookie sheet.
Heat the olive oil in a large pot (I used my Dutch oven) and start browning the meatballs on medium-high heat, trying to get color on all sides. You’ll need to work in batches (if you crowd the pan, the meatballs will steam). Use tongs to remove the browned meatballs to a cookie sheet, and watch the heat so you don’t scorch the bottom of the pan.
Reduce heat to medium and add the pancetta, stirring all around, until starting to brown. Add the onion, celery, carrot, and garlic, a pinch of salt, and continue to stir until vegetables are soft. (Use some of the liquid that gets released to scrape up the brown bits at the bottom of the pan). Add the tomato paste and toast it in the fat until beginning to bronze — that’ll add another layer of flavor.
Deglaze with the 3/4 cup of white wine, continuing to scrape and stir, until it’s mostly evaporated. Then add the tomatoes, another pinch of salt, and stir all around and cook for 8 minutes until the sauce looks jammy and reduced by half. Add the chicken broth and milk, return meatballs to the pot, and bring to a simmer. Cover the pot partially with a lid and place in the oven for 3 to 4 hours until the meatballs are fall apart tender. (Check the liquid every so often to make sure it’s at a low simmer: if it’s simmering too fast, lower the oven temp; if it’s not simmering, increase it.)
Use a potato masher to mash the meatballs into the sauce and if it looks very wet (mine did) cook on the stove on medium heat until it thickens. Taste and adjust for salt and pepper, then set aside.
The Béchamel and Assembly:
Make your Béchamel the standard way: melt 7 tablespoons of butter in a large pot over medium heat. Add the flour and stir, cooking the flour, until it starts to smell a little nutty, about 4 minutes. Quickly add the milk and whisk whisk whisk, bring it to a simmer, then lower the heat and cook until the mixture is smooth and velvety — about 10 minutes. (You’ll know it’s ready when you dip in a wooden spoon and you can drag your finger across it, leaving a path.) Off the heat, add the Parmesan, cayenne, nutmeg. Taste here and adjust with salt and pepper. (Mine needed a lot more salt.)
Preheat the oven to 325. Cook the lasagna sheets in salted boiling water for about three minutes (you don’t want to cook them all the way), then shock in ice water to stop the cooking. Lay the lasagna sheets on a greased cookie sheet and separate the layers with greased parchment paper — you don’t want your noodles to stick together.
To assemble the lasagna, grease a 9 X 13 pan with olive oil. Spread in 1 1/2 cups of Bolognese, then do one layer of noodles. Spoon 1 1/4 cups of Bechamel on top and use an off-set spatula to spread it all around. Top with 1 1/2 cups of meat sauce, do another layer of noodles, and repeat until you create 5 or 6 layers of pasta. Finish with a layer of pasta with just Béchamel sauce on top.
Cover with a lightly oiled piece of aluminum foil and bake in the oven for one hour. Remove from oven, remove foil, increase heat to 425 and bake for another 15 minutes until starting to brown. If the top doesn’t get brown enough, you can broil it. Allow to rest for 15 minutes before serving.
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For visual learners, here’s the process on video!
