EnnaEel Cooks

January 27th, 2009

The branches fell at last, greeted by the grass.

Posted by LA in Pasta, Recipes


Turkey, tomato, ricotta, and mozzarella lasagna. So, I’ve never had a friend who liked lasagna. Until now. Of course, this required a cooking experiment. And as we’ll see, not all experiments are pulled off without a hitch or two.

Sauce
1 T. olive oil
1 c. chopped onion
3/4 c. finely chopped crimini mushrooms
3 T. minced fresh garlic
8 oz. lean ground turkey
1 28 oz. can crushed tomatoes with puree
1/4 c. tomato paste
1/4 c. chopped fresh basil
1 T. golden brown sugar
1 T. dried oregano
1 bay leaf
1/2 t. dried crushed red pepper
1/2 t. white pepper

  • Heat oil in heavy large saucepan over medium heat. Add onion, mushrooms, and garlic; sauté until softened, about 12 minutes.
  • Add turkey; sauté until cooked through, breaking up meat with spatula, about 5 minutes.
  • Add remaining ingredients. Cover and simmer until flavors blend, stirring occasionally, about 15 minutes. Discard bay leaf. Cool.

    Lasagna
    15 lasagne noodles
    2 15 oz. containers part-skim ricotta cheese
    1 c. grated Parmesan cheese
    1 10 oz. package frozen chopped spinach, thawed, drained, squeezed dry
    2 large eggs
    6 balls of partially dried fresh mozzarella

  • Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cook noodles in large pot of boiling salted water until almost tender, about 7 minutes. Drain; cover with cold water.
  • Combine ricotta and 3/4 c. Parmesan cheese in medium bowl. Mix in spinach. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Mix in eggs.
  • Drain pasta and pat dry. Spread 1/2 c. sauce over bottom of glass baking dish. Cover with noodles. Spread ricotta-spinach mixture evenly over noodles. Layer slices of mozzarella evenly over ricotta-spinach mixture. Spoon 1 1/2 c. sauce over cheese, spreading with spatula to cover. Repeat layering with noodles, remaining ricotta-spinach mixture, slices of mozzarella and 1 1/2 c. sauce. Arrange remaining noodles over sauce. Spread remaining sauce over noodles. Add remaining mozzarella cheese and sprinkle 1/4 c. Parmesan cheese evenly over lasagna.
  • Can be prepared up to 1 day ahead. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate.
  • Cover baking dish with aluminum foil. Bake lasagna 40 minutes; uncover and bake until hot and bubbly, about 40 minutes. Let lasagna stand 15 minutes before serving.

    Okay, so I ran into a couple of problems.
    Problem 1: Moisture.
    Next time, I need to let the sauce cool completely before assembling the lasagne. Especially if I plan on refrigerating the dish. (Which needs to be warmed to almost room temperature before being put in the oven.) I also need to allow the spinach to dry more, and use a drier mozzarella.
    Problem B: My lacking mathematical skills.
    Having never made lasagna before, I had little to no idea exactly how much of everything I needed to make. Or even how many layers there should be, or what order they should go in, or if the pasta should be touching, or if I should be referring to the dish as lasagne or lasagna. So many questions needing answers.
    After the entire ordeal, my result was two way-too-full dishes of lasagna and a lot of leftover ricotta-spinach mixture. I needed to put some aluminum foil under the dish to prevent it from overflowing in the oven.
    Next time, how about thinner layers in a larger dish?

    The sauce though? Extremely tasty. (Though I’d add a skoche more pepper next time.)
    The leftovers are perfect for making some unattractive-but-yummy bento for the rest of the week.

    I’ve been practicing ukulele again. My current repertoire is a collection of theme songs from 80s cartoons, and a few songs from They Might Be Giants and Jonathan Coulton. The idea is to play at Chippewa Chapel sometime in the near future.
    We’ll see.

    • Listening to:: The Little Ones - New Branches
    • Status:: The Big Spoon.