Homemade lasagna.

[Idrinkmywhiskeyneat]

Is it one of the best inventions known to man?
Just stood in the kitchen with my lovely meaty, tomatoey sauce in one pan and the cheesy loveliness in the other. One of the best best is getting a spoonful of the mincemeat and topping it with the cheese sauce and just eating it off the spoon, whilst you’re stood over it, cooking it all. It has to be a very tomatoey, cheesy, thick lasagna, also extra nice, if left and eaten later in the evening or the next morning,

Anyway, sorry, just a homemade lasagna appreciation post.

Haha to me that is not nyuh at all! It's nh (how it's spelled im portuguese)!

Is it possible that your pronunciation of 'gn' in Italian is being influenced by your pronunciation of 'nh' in Portuguese then? Because in every recording of an Italian I can find, 'gn' sounds like nyuh, but when I found a recording of a Portuguese person saying a word with 'nh' in it, it didn't sound like the Italian 'gn'!

I stand by my assertion that lasagne is a faff. You have to make bechamel sauce, and to do that properly, with flavour, you need to do the whole onion, bayleaf, cloves, peppercorn in milk thing before you can start making the sauce to which you add nutmeg, never cheese. You need to make a ragu which takes ages (I mean an hour minimum after the frying of the veg, so at least 1hr 20 mins, and that's not really enough) to develop flavour - at the least you need carrot, celery, onion, beef and tomato, but probably bacon and/or chicken livers. Then you need to layer it, grate your Parmesan and cover the top in Parmesan. Then you need to put it in the oven. I don't see how you could do it in 90 minutes. The ragu would be really watery.

Because a decent lasagne is not made with a cheese sauce and a tomato sauce.

No don't think so... See this video here, explains really well the difference between the 2 sounds and how it's not a 'ny' sound.

Although I know there's a huge accent variability in Italy and sometimes it sounds a 'stronger' 'gn', other times a bit 'lighter', but there is still a clear difference between gn and ny

I just watched them. However much they go on about the tongue sliding on the palate, the resulting sound is absolutely a 'nyuh'! Not just similar to a 'nyuh', but exactly a 'nyuh'. The woman literally says at the beginning you have the 'n' sound, and then the 'gn' makes a 'nyuh' sound.

You are obviously hearing it differently from me! I'm not a fluent Italian speaker, but I do speak a little, and as a teacher of 3 foreign languages I'm no novice at learning and teaching pronunciation. Baffling!

It's difficult when some sounds are just not part of the language you grow up with. The portuguese ão sound is impossible to non portuguese people for example. Same way we struggle with other sounds. I've been here 25 years and really struggle with the difference between beach and bitch, for example. I can just about recognise the difference but can't say it.

That ^^
Unless you're using jars of sauce, it's not a quick meal! I probably have the ragu cooking for a couple of hours just blipping away slowly

Whilst there are different recipes, mostly the tomato sauce is made like a Bolognese sauce - garlic, tomato, rosemary, thyme, basil as the usual herbing and minced beef. I didn't mean ketchup. Parmesan in a roux with milk or stock and sometimes wine is fairly common usage. You don't suggest an answer to why people see it as hard work to make lasagna at home. Surely the more complex the recipe, the less the inclination to do it?

@toxic44 I think it's not so much hard/complex as it's lengthy
I don't mind it on a day when I have free time as I find cooking relaxing

I love lasagne with garlic bread and chunky, fluffy homemade chips/potato wedges and salad!

I take your point, there are simpler and quicker things to make. 🙂. I tend to batch cook and freeze, it makes heavy days lighter. Agree with you, cooking is good therapy.

And we’ve had it again…delicious!!

That looks GOOD!

It does take a bit of time to make lasagne but surely you just make the decision that on that particular day you're happy to put the time in. Maybe you'll do it while listening to music/a playlist, an audiobook, a podcast, the radio which I find fun while cooking a more time intense food. I do have to say though that it's never quite as labour/time intense as I think it would be. Same with a really good roast dinner or Christmas dinner. Also, if you do a bit of washing up as you go it means a bit less work at the end.

I guess it's just if you want to/have the time/have the energy to put the effort in. I wouldn't be able to cook a "fancy" time intense meal at the moment because I'm too feeble, but when I am able it's nice to do it once in a while because it's all about the love etc. But if you can't do that and there are really good reasons why lots of us can't, from being a bit ill to having a stressful job, kids are hard work, you're dog tired, it's all on you and no one - hello lazy husband/partner in this instance - is willing to give any help so it's all on you with little to no thanks, then of course you can't and frankly shouldn't do it. I think it's a lovely thing to do when you can, cook a lavish meal of which homemade lasagne is definitely up there as a queen of all dishes, but despite me waxing way to lyrical here, no one, precisely no one should be judged if they don't want to/can't/have decided it's way too much of a faff and would rather spend their time doing something more useful to them.

There we go. I hope I've covered all the bases!

Had it last night 😁

I agree it can be a faff to make so I get round this by making a big pot of bolognaise sauce one week (usually in the slow cooker). We'll eat half and freeze the other half so when I'm ready to make a lasagne, I'll get it out of the freezer and all I have to do is make the cheese sauce and layer it. Easy peesy!

I make a big one with a thick layer of sauce on top when staying with my son and his family. I let it cool and go solid then cut it into servings and put into his freezer for when they're in a hurry for supper. They actually prefer twirls mixed with meat sauce and bechamel, topped with cheddar, but this is too difficult to freeze in portions.

Naturally we call the one made with twirls "twirly pie". It's quicker to make than lasagne but tastes very similar - though I'm sure that the lasagne purists amongst you would disagree!

I do agree with you about potatoes, though we're more likely to bake potatoes than have them boiled

too much faff!
Tesco Finest or Waitrose.
M&S used to do an amazing lentil lasagne, but stopped a few year ago.

I've recently gone back to using my pressure cooker for bolognese, you need less liquid and it cooks very quickly (4 minutes once everything has been fried). If you add a little wine the flavour is deliciously forced into the meat. The quick cooking means that the tomato flavour is still very fresh, I think I'd find your dad's method leaves it a bit too stewed for me.
Have you ever tried a little fresh coriander in the meat sauce instead of Italian herbs and/or fennel seeds? Perhaps not for lasagne, but lovely with spaghetti or linguine. Or you can use a little Chinese five spice which should have fennel seeds in too. I also use nutmeg in the white sauce, but I only put sauce in the top not all through (except in Twirly Pie). Just don't use all these flavours together!
My DH is a great fan of meat sauce, sometimes we have it all week in different forms, ending with a chilli con carne.

We always have peas, it's the only veg that DH can tolerate. But vinegar is probably an acquired taste?!

If it wasn't for the potatoes, I'd think you were my sister. This is how we've always made it but she prefers hers with salad, me with chips. Always with garlic bread.

I've started to add a sprinkling of cheese to the layer of lasagne sheets too.

But sadly, I have no mince. I cannot make this today. And I want to so badly.

Reading replies to my own thread and wanting to eat it again! 😂

I’m making it again now 😂😂think I’m slightly obsessed
I’ve got two packets of grated mozarella AND cheddar for the cheese sauce..plus lovely potatoes to melt the butter on