The Wong Ohana

LASAGNE:

This is a family recipe passed down from generation to generation, but its really very simple, and can be changed to meet your own likes and desires. For example, my daughter is a vegetarian - has been since she was 14 years old, so no matter how everyone cheers and applauds a recipe, if it has meat in it she won’t eat it! So for her, I just leave out the meat layers, and replace with alternating cheese layers. Sometimes I even throw in a layer of finely chopped broccoli (her favorite) for a veggie-type lasagne.

When I make a cheese lasagne, I also always remember to add a separate dish of meat sauce and Italian sausage for those meat eaters at the table, and then everyone is happy. So keep in mind that you can add or subtract any particular layer and improvise to make a yummy recipe of your own!!

Here’s how our family makes Lasagne:

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 box of lasagne noodles
• 1 tub of Ricotta cheese (if you can’t find it you can substitute cottage cheese - not exactly traditional, but a good substitute in a pinch. Seriously, you won’t notice the difference at all!)
• 2 balls of Mozarella cheese (You can also get the pre-shredded if you prefer - grab 2 large bags)
• Parmesan cheese
• 2-3 jars Spaghetti sauce (We grew up making our own sauce, that’s another recipe, for another day - look for it, I’ll add it later. If you don’t make your own sauce, don’t fret, use your favorite store brand)
• Large / Deep caserole dish
• 1 pkg lean Ground Round
• 1 pkg Ground Pork (You can also use pork sausage if you prefer)
• Garlic Salt (you’ll notice this shows up in all my recipes - its a staple in my kitchen!)
• Olive Oil (this can be used as a substitute in any recipe calling for oil. Its so much better for you, and the taste can’t be beat! Also a staple in my kitchen!)

This recipe is so easy and fun to make that most people are amazed! You can surprise and impress your family and friends by serving this at any special holiday or family dinner! Its also a great crowd pleaser at pot lucks!! You’ll be the hit of the party!

There are a couple of tricks in making and building a lasagne. If you keep these little tips in mind, your lasagne will turn out perfect every time.

First, you will want to start your water boiling. Remember, you will be using multiple ingredients, so you’ll want to do this in a particular order to make sure everything is ready and on time, so get that large pot filled with water and boiling.

Next, take your box of lasagne noodles, and before putting them in the pot, good tip here: break them carefully in half. I do this for a couple of reasons. First, no-one will see or notice, as the noodles get covered in each layer. Second, they’ll fit in the pot better, and you’ll avoid those little burn marks from the noodles laying against the side of the pot before they’re soft enough to bend. Third, they’ll be easier to remove from the pot once cooked for building your lasagne.

Once you see the bubbles start to form in the bottom of the pot, toss in your noodles. Don’t worry if some break uneven, or if you have little bits - toss ‘em in. You can use it all!!!

Now get a large skillet ready to cook your meat. Even if you’re planning on making a veggie, or cheese lasagne, you’ll probably want some meat sauce on the side for those carnivores at the table, so whether you want it on the side, or in your lasagne, now is the time to get it going.

I usually start by putting a nice medium fire under the skillet, then another tip: sprinkle a light layer of garlic salt evenly over the bottom of the pan. This makes it easy and alleviate any need for measuring (you know how I hate to measure stuff!!).

Then I break up the defrosted meat in my hands into little clumps or pieces and drop them onto the skillet. If you are using different types of meat, like ground round and pork, just put them both in and mix them all up. Let the meat brown on the bottom and then start to mix and stir until all there is no raw or red meat showing.

Pour a whole jar of spaghetti sauce into the pan, reduce the heat and let it simmer. Another good tip here: Next, I scoop a little water from my cooking noodles to swish around in the jar to make sure I get all the sauce out - you know me, waste not, want not! This not only get thesauce from the jar, but adds a little of that great starch from your noodles to the sauce as a thickening agent.
Now check on your noodles, they should be starting to soften. Tip: I like to add a little olive oil to the water (a great tip) and gently stir then noodles (try not to break them or disturb them too much, but just keep them moving around in the pot. This not only helps them to cook evenly, but also spreads the olive oil between them so they won’t stick together in one big clump. You want the noodles as separate as you can so that it will be easier to get them out of the pot when the time comes.

Now lower the heat, and let it simmer.

Next take your Ricotta cheese, and pour half of it into a large bowl. Add some sauce to your cheese and mix until it becomes a nice rosy color. set this aside. As you need more (and you will) just mix up the rest with sauce as above and you’re good to go!

Now take your Mozarella balls and start to cut the entire ball into thin slices. Mozarella is a very soft cheese, and isn’t that easy to cut, so if it starts to squish when cutting don’t worry, it will be fine. Once your ball in about half cut, you can turn the piece on its side and continue cutting - that will make it easier. Now count all fingers, if you still have ten, continue on!! If you bought the shredded cheese, just skip this step.

Your noodles should be ready now, so give them another stir, get that olive oil mixed in, and turn off your heat. Some people like to pour out the noodles into a collander, but I leave them in the water. This keeps them from sticking to each other, and you can take your time building your lasagne. You can also use the water to add to your meat sauce if it starts to get too thick. The consistency of this water from the pasta cooking is a great thickening agent so your sauce won’t get watery tasting even if you are thinning it out just a tad.

Another great tip: One sure way to check your noodles to see if they’re ready, is to take a piece out of the water (use that fork, the water is hot and you don’t want to just reach in there!!) and cut (or as we Italians do - bite) into a noodle and look at the cross cut end of the piece. If its still white inside, and you can see the change in color, its not quite done yet. The piece should be all one color and soft all the way through, not crunchy or hard in the middle.

Once you’re assured your noodles are cooked to perfection, we’re ready to build our lasagne.

Now here comes another tip: Take your large caserole pan and put a number of large spoonfulls of sauce in the bottom. You’ll want enough to coat the entire bottom of the pan and up the sides almost to the lip, so be generous, and roll and turn that pan until it is covered with sauce, if you need more, keep adding until you evenly cover the entire inside of the pan. This keeps your needles from sticking to the sides of your pan during the cooking process and ensures that you will be able to cut and lift out pieces of lasagne without having to chip it off the sides of your pan. Great tip here, and if you remember anything at all from this post, this is a good one!! Also, it aids in the cleaning and washup after you’re all done. Its so much easier to clean a pan that’s been “prepped” this way than to try to scrape, and chip off cooked noodles and cheese. This tip alone is worth all the reading here!!
Now that your pan is sufficiently covered with sauce (it will drip back down the sides as you build it, but don’t worry, as long as you got it on there, enough residue will be left to do the trick - so don’t panic!), its time to get started.

Its a good idea to get a good bearing on your pan now. You’ll be adding the noodles in criss cross layers, but each layer will be covered so you can’t see it, that’s why its important to remember which direction your pot is facing. If you have handles great - notice which way they are pointing. If not, put a piece of tape or something on the outside of the pot temporarily (don’t worry, you’ll remove it before cooking it).

The reason for this is that if you put all your noodles facing the same direction, your lasagne will fall apart when its cut or served. You want to have nice squares all together in one piece no matter how or where you cut it, so you’ll be putting the noodles in alternating directions. First, layering up and down, next layer side to side, then the next layer up and down again - get the idea? If you don’t get a bearing on your pot before you get started, then you’ll forget, or it will get turned around, or whatever, so this is an easy, but in my opinion, an important step.

So now we know which direction our pan is facing - right? You will start building your lasagne with a layer of noodles. I normally use a fork to remove the noodles from the hot water using a fork. Another tip: Slip the noodle between the fork tines, don’t “stab” it as it will break and split. If you slip it between the tines, you’ll be able to lift it out of the pan successfully in one piece (most of the time - remember you’re working with a noodle here, some will break, again, don’t stress, it really won’t matter when all is said and done, just do your best).

So now you have your noodle hanging from your fork, dangling over your pot, allow it to drip a moment, then place it going up and down in the bottom of your caserole dish. Grab another noodle and place it next to the first one, then repeat this process until the bottom of the pot is covered.

Typically it takes 3 noodles side by side (depending on the size of your pot), and on occasion if you’re using a larger pot, you’ll want to fill in a bit around the edges with those broken pieces - don’t worry, you’ll have plenty of those by the time we’re done here. If your noodle is too long, don’t worry about cutting, just allow it to run up the side of the pot. If you have room left ,use the broken bits. It will all work out - so don’t stress too much over “noodle placement”!!! Just cover the bottom.
Once the noodles are strategically placed, take a large serving spoon and smooth out a nice layer of sauce to cover the noodles. This serves as flavoring and keeps your lasagne moist and tasty. Have you ever eaten a lasagne, and it was kind of dry, or tasteless? Not enough sauce between those layers! So a nice generous layer, is good evenly spread out.

Now on top of the sauce, spread a layer of the Ricotta cheese completely covering the bottom of the pan. That was easy - and now your building your lasagne!! Cool!!!
Next comes another layer of noodles. Now remember, if you started the first layer going top to bottom, then next layer will be placed side to side. Its this criss cross pattern that will keep your lasagne together as one solid caserole so that you can nicely cut pieces for serving! Now on top of this layer, another couple of spoonfuls of sauce. You’ll do this each time you add the noodles, so keep in mind, that noodles + sauce is one layer.

And just remember no matter what ingredients you choose to make your lasagne with, put one layer of noodles and sauce between each one and it will be great!!
Next add a layer of meat from your skillet (If you’re cooking veggie, or cheese lasagne, leave out the meat and substitue with the next layer of mozarella cheese. Sprinkle some Parmesan over the meat (or mozarella) for a nice taste.

The rest is easy, just keep alternating layers of all your ingredients:

• noodles & sauce
• ricotta (the ricotta already has the sauce mixed in, so you don’t need to add additional sauce to this layer)
• noodles & sauce
• meat (optional, if no meat, add cheese or thinly sliced veggies)
• noodles & sauce
• mozarella covered in sauce
• noodles & sauce
• ricotta,
• etc. etc. etc. until you either run out of ingredients or room in your pot
• You’ll end with a layer of noodles generously covered with sauce and topped with a nice thick layer of mozarella

When this is done, REMOVE THE TAPE or any other marking you may have put on your pot to keep track of your noodle orientation BEFORE putting in the oven.

Bake at 350 until the cheese is melted and bubbling on top, and a nice golden brown around the edges. The time will vary depending on the size of pot you are using and the altitude you are at. Typically, mine range from 30 min to an hour depending on the size I’m making.

If you have any noodles left, you can make small individual size servings with whatever ingredients you have left over, which end up being great for lunches or snacks!!!

Once its done, and out of the oven, let it sit for an hour or more before serving. This allows the cheese to cool slightly and “set”, so it won’t slip and slide all over the place when you try to serve it.

Any leftover meat should be put in a large bowl and served at the table as additional sauce.

We love adding it to our salad. The combination of the meat sauce and the vinegar from the Italian dressing (what else would we use??) is just fantastic!

Of course, adding garlic bread only improves the whole meal and will bring raves from everyone!!!

Being raised in a large Italian family, this was our main holiday meal served every year, (and often in between!! So I hope you’ll like to try it out, and maybe use it for your next big family get together!!

As we say in Italian: Mangiana, Mangian - which means, Eat! Eat!!

I’m going to end this with a little reminder of all the hints and tips we used for building our perfect lasagne:

1. Cottage Cheese can be substituted for Ricotta if you can’t find it
2. Break your noodles in half before boiling
3. Sprinkle your seasoning in an evenly distributed layer on the bottom of the pan before adding the meat, its easier, quicker, and alleviates the need for measuring.
4. Add a little olive oil to the water so your noodles won’t stick together
5. Scoop a little of the water from your boiling noodles to swish in the bottom of your sauce jar to loosen up and get the remainder of the sauce out.
6. Bite, or cut into a noodle to see if its done yet - look for color, and soft consistency, no hard white layer in the middle
7. Cover the entire inside of the pan with sauce before building your lasagne so it won’t stick to the sides when cooking
8. Keep track of the direction you are laying your noodles, (mark your pan with tape if you must) you will want to alternate up and down, with side to side in a criss cross fashioin, so your lasagne won’t fall apart.
9. Slip the noodle between the tines of a fork for easy removal from the hot water.
10. Use the broken pieces to fill in bare spaces and edges
11. Add sauce in between each layer for added flavor and moistness!
12. Use left over ingredients to make small individual size portions
13. Serve with garlic bread and a large salad!!