DECONSTRUCT
— posh ones included — that lasagne is meant to be quite a dry dish. It should have notable structural integrity, standing to attention, not coming undone in a puddle of sauce. It should be possible to divide into neat, straight-edged portions. But it should still be delicate and moist, giving way to the cut of a fork like a good mille-feuille, without any of its layers making an individual bid for freedom. And when it’s good — as it would be in most Italian homes, where it’s a staple Sunday lunch — there’s little that can touch it for velvety, indulgent comfort. As the great pasta sheet shortage of the
March 2020 lockdown proved, Brits class this key lasagne ingredient — along with toilet roll — as an essential item. But it should be used to make comforting food, not lazily made comfort food. Lasagne is a dish that takes time — particularly if you roll the pasta yourself, carefully construct your creation with a slow- cooked sauce and scratch-made bechamel, resting it for an hour before baking. A labour of love it might be, but even cheffy creations have nodded to its home-cooked nature. Massimo Bottura’s dish, The Crunchy Part of the Lasagne, for example, paid homage to the element of the bake that many families have drawn knives over: the slightly burnt corners. Bottura’s recipe, originally served at his
Modena restaurant Osteria Francescana, lives on at Francescana at Maria Luigia, another of his restaurants (also in Modena). It features a single pasta sheet — fried, toasted and seared — topped with a meat ragu and bechamel. Back in 1993, an even more ambitious creation was cooked up by chef Mark Ladner, the then executive chef at Mario Batali’s now defunct New York restaurant Del Posto. This Princess and the Pea-inspired, 100-layer, Italian-US hybrid included mozzarella, ricotta, marinara sauce and dried, wavy pasta sheets, hinting at how loosely the dish can be interpreted. The aforementioned Accademia Italiana
della Cucina defers to the Bolognese version, but many Italian regions have their own signature style, from Le Marche (with sliced truffles) to
Molise (served in a broth). In Sardinia, lasagne is made with wafer-thin pane carasau (flat bread), which is also known as carta da musica (‘sheet music’) due to its sonorous crunch. In Campania, the region surrounding Naples,
you’ll find lasagne di carnevale. This recipe, made for a pre-Lent carnival blowout, calls for a rich tomato sauce with pork, ricotta, mini pork-and-veal meatballs, hard-boiled eggs, salami and local caciocavallo cheese. The ribs and sausage used to flavour the tomato sauce are often kept for the next course. High days and holidays are lasagne’s natural
The classic Bolognese recipe uses cheese only as a garnish, while the Southern Italian version is layered with drained ricotta and caciocavallo (a provolone- like cheese), which serve as an umami-rich substitute for bechamel, plus a dusting of grated pecorino on top
preserve. Italy’s traditional meatless Christmas Eve meal, lasagne al forno, a speciality from the Dolomites, comes with spiced apples and nuts. And meatless versions are more common than you’d think. In the northern region of Liguria, lasagne Genovese substitutes ragu for the region’s exquisite pesto, made with the sweet leaves of the basil plants that thrive on coastal mountainsides, combined with creamy bechamel and topped with parmesan and pine nuts. Sometimes called lasagne alla Portofino, after Liguria’s jewel-like bay town, it’s just one of the countless plant-based versions that have seen the dish claim veggie and vegan fans. Across Italy, you’ll find roasted squash, lentils, and mushrooms as ragu ingredients, with milk alternatives such as almond often used for the white sauce, perhaps given a savoury flavour- boost with the addition of nutritional yeast. Lasagne sheets, meanwhile, don’t have to
contain egg. The preferred pasta of the Italian south comprises water, salt and flour, and plenty of shops sell dry versions, albeit without the spinach called for in the classic Bolognese recipe. You can make your own, perhaps adding nettles, the green that some say predates the use of spinach here. But those shop-bought dry pasta sheets (eggless or otherwise) are a win for home cooks. Unlike fresh egg pasta, they’re more likely to hold lasagne’s proud angular form, and ready-made sheets win back some prep time that can be spent perfecting the ragu and bechamel. Buon appetito!
Fourth century The Romans use lagane (a pasta) to make lasagne patina apiciana, which calls for sow’s belly and fish.
TIME LINE
Ancient Greece Laganon (pastry sheets) are first used in cooking. The Romans later adapt the name to describe their lagnum, or lagane.
1304 Medieval cookbook Liber de Coquina records a recipe of boiled square pasta sheets, layered with spices (including nutmeg) and cheese.
14th-16th centuries Eggs appear in a proliferation of Renaissance recipes and find their way into pasta dough.
20th century Spinach, used to colour lasagne sheets, is popularised in Bologna, along with ragu sauce, bechamel and grated parmesan
NATIONALGEOGRAPHIC.CO.UK/FOOD-TRAVEL 73
14th century Multilayered lasagne is credited to Bolognese scholar Francesco Zambrini. Today, between three and five layers is considered to be optimal.
16th century Tomatoes reach Italian shores and are quickly adopted into Neapolitan cuisine, becoming a key ingredient in lasagne di carnevale, a version of the dish still popular across the south.
1982 The Accademia Italiana della Cucina registers a recipe for lasagne verdi alla Bolognese with the Bologna Chamber of Commerce.
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