Use Your Noodle IV: Lasagna - Recap
The watchword of 21st century marketing may just be comfort. To prove his point Alton surfs through several commercials (all narrated by a suspiciously familiar voice). Each of them extols the virtues of its product's comfort, from shoes to car air conditioning to a giant sack-like cocoon suited for home lounging. The concept extends to food: comfort food, eaten to produce an improved emotional state. Several more commercials, extol the comforts of mashed potatoes and meatloaf and macaroni, suggesting these products are just like Mom used to make or perhaps even better. If comfort is king, shouldn't a cook want to prepare the most comforting food there is?
Alton recently received a grant, he says, and conducted a study to discover the most comforting thing. More comforting than a recliner, or a friend's shoulder to cry on. More comforting even than cute puppies or your favorite pair of stinky sneakers that your Mom told you to throw out. It's... lasagna. The dish, and the noodle for which the dish is named. And unlike those other sources of comfort, you can make it yourself, after just half an hour of... Good Eats!
Alton starts with the history of lasagna, a very old dish with a very old name that comes either from an Arabic word meaning “almond cake”, or a Latin word for “cooking pot”. In the first century A. D. a Roman gourmand wrote of thin, wide noodles cooked in oil and tossed with pepper and a kind of fermented fish sauce called garum. By the thirteenth century folks in England were boiling such noodles and tossing them with cream, possibly an early ancestor of macaroni and cheese. By the sixteenth century wide, folks were cutting wide, flat noodles, tossing them with sauces and baking them in northern Italy.
A few centuries later saw this dish imported to a then new land, America. It was delicious, economical, and one could purchase home-made wine in Little Italy enclaves even during Prohibition. The end of World War II saw convenience rise in culinary importance; this often involved casseroles, and lasagna emerged as one of the most popular. It delivered all that modern Americans wanted: ooey, gooey, fatty, cheesy and starchy flavors and textures. For his part, Alton finds comfort in the complex strata of flavor, contrasting textures, pleasant aroma and culinary ease. But - the difficulty of preparation must not offset the delight of the dish. Italian men will claim lasagna in any form is not difficult to make, but they have a secret weapon: Italian women (Alton's backdrop falls away to reveal his kitchen and a round Italian woman cooking therein.)
Alton hasn't got actually got a round woman to stir sauce all day in his kitchen, but he does have a crock pot, or slow cooker. Invented in the 1960s by Chicago's Naxon Utilities Corporation, the early pots were simple ceramic vessels with low wattage heating coils. These went largely unnoticed until the Rival corporation acquired Naxon for their line of heat lamps, and an unsung Rival home economist saw something in the simple pots. Rival added some trim and fancies and re-introduced these pots as the Crock Pot. The late 1970s saw an explosion in the number of microwave ovens sold, and these extremely convenient cooking devices spelled the end of the Crock Pot's dominance until relatively recently, when cooks began rediscovering the advantages of low heat and slow cooking. Newer crock pots have timers and digital controls, but Alton prefers his older analog model.
With the history lesson done, Alton returns to the software: lasagna noodles. (A single noodle is 'lasagne' with a final 'e', which many noodles and the casserole are 'lasagna' with a final 'a'). While fresh lasagna is good for some dishes, Alton believes the factory prepared and dried noodles are the right choice for his casserole. These come in American and Italian varieties, the principle difference being that the American sort are thicker and therefore bring more “chew” to the dish. Too much chew for Alton's taste, leading him to select Italian noodles. There are also no-boil noodles which are pre-cooked, but Alton has tried them, and does not recommend them.
Most recipes call for boiling lasagna noodles, but Alton doesn't need his cooked, just flexible. He achieves that by putting them in a shallow pan and pouring hot tap water over them then letting them soak for about fifteen minutes.
Lasagna (the dish) has just a few components. The noodles Alton has just taken care of, which brings him to the meat, vegetables and sauce. A three to three ratio between meats and vegetables leads him to choose three traditional Italian vegetables: eggplant, zucchini, and portobello mushroom caps. Meat choices will be sausage, half of it mild and the rest hot (and all removed from its casing), and ground pork.
The vegetables take a little work. First, Alton slices the mushroom caps thinly. Next, he slices the end off the zucchini and halves it, then runs it length-wise through a mandoline set to a 3/16” depth. This razor sharp appliance cuts hands as easily as it cuts food, so Alton dons an armored glove for safety. Setting aside the sliced zucchini, he slices the woody end from his eggplant and cuts the rest into quarters. Working quickly so the slices don't have time to oxidize brown, he runs each quarter through the mandoline. To make the vegetables more flexible (like cooked pasta) requires removing moisture. A little kosher salt and some time exploits osmosis to draw water out of the vegetables.
A lot of American lasagna casseroles (87.3% according to Alton) are “swampy messes”. This is because they feature cooked noodles that cannot absorb any more cooking liquid, and watery, factory-made ricotta cheese. In restaurants, the problem is worsened because they usually use a pair of commercial sauces, one a meaty Bolognese ragù, and a dairy based Béchamel-like sauce. Alton wonders if he can get the flavors of these sauces in his meal without the extra liquid, and of course there is a way. For the tomato-y sauce, he'll go with a few peeled Italian tomatoes and a little of the packing liquid (but only a little). For the dairy sauce, he needs milk carbs and milk flavor. He can get that from powdered milk. He selects powdered goat's milk, because “it has a little funk”, but any powdered milk will do.
Each year, Alton tends an herb garden on the porch, consisting of oregano, marjoram, thyme, rosemary, basil and sage. He dries a good bit of his crop, then chops it into “Alton's Italian Seasoning”. Of course, one could buy Italian seasoning, but it won't be as tasty.
The vegetables have given up a good deal of their moisture, so a quick rinse removes extra salt and a spin in a salad spinner extracts surface water and certain bitter compounds carried out of the eggplant with the departing water.
At the noodle pan, Alton pulls the noodles and lays them on tea towels. They don't have to be bone dry; they should be flexible.
Ingredients prepared, Alton builds his casserole inside his slow cooker. He starts by layering the outside of his crock with noodles, working his way from the bottom up. The flexible noodles They'll stick with a little pressure. That done, he begins building the layers: a tomato, squeezed into the bottom, followed by a quarter of the sausage, a quarter of the powdered milk, some flour, a quarter of the herbs, and a quarter of each of the vegetables. He tops that with a layer of noodles, and uses a pot lid to gently press down, collapsing any air pockets. Continuing, he builds more layers until he has used his ingredients; he prefers to use the ground pork in the very top layer. A layer of noodles caps the lasagna, and a little of the tomato juice (from the can) sprinkled atop these keeps them from drying out too much during cooking.
Assembled, lasagna will keep in in the refrigerator for as long as two days. But Alton plans to cook his right now. It will take around five hours to cook the meal. Newer crocks have delayed start features, but those with an older crock can achieve the same effect with a lamp timer (of the sort used to trick burglars). Alton sets his to start and stop so the lasagna will be ready when he is. Then he just walks away. No further interference is needed or will help the casserole.
Some time later (7.3 hours, to be exact), Alton returns home to a wonderful aroma. One so good, it has his ersatz Italian mother (from earlier) convinced he's a good boy... sometimes.
A common complaint about lasagna is that it contains a lot of fat. That's difficult to deal with in a rectangular vessel, but in a round crock pot, it's easier. Selecting a lid with a raised outer rim and that is a slightly smaller diameter than his crock pot, Alton presses in gently onto the lasagna surface. This forces liquids up and over the raised rim and into the top of the lid. Most of what flows into the lid is fat, since this rises to the surface of the liquid portion during cooking. Carefully lifting the lid so as not to spill, Alton removes this fat and discards it (but could easily save it for some future use).
This lasagna has no cheese, which is fine with Alton. Those who want cheese can add that now, and Alton demonstrates how. He sprinkles shredded mozzarella over the top and re-lids the cooker to let residual heat melt the cheese, which takes about ten minutes. To toast the cheese he uses a plumber's propane soldering torch, but notes that a heat gun also works. Both may be purchased at any hardware store or home center. In either case, keep the torch moving at all times to avoid burning the cheese.
What Alton has made is not a traditional lasagna, but it has a lot of the same properties, and for Alton it's a 9.5 on the comfort food scale. Can he reach 10? Dessert should get him there, and it also uses lasagna noodles.
In Yiddish, a kugel refers to a kind of pudding, what Yiddish cooks consider “Jewish lasagna”. Many savory kugels exist, but one of the most comforting of all is lokshen kugel, or noodle pudding. Recipes typically call for fresh egg noodles, but Alton believes lasagna does an even better job for sweet kugel.
Alton begins his recipe by cooking lasagna noodles al dente in boiling water, then removing and draining these, laying them on a board to cool, and cutting them along the noodle's width into one inch strips. A pizza cutter works well for this. Finally, Alton tosses the cut noodles into a bowl with some melted butter.
Hardware preparation is next; Alton sprays non-stick cooking spray into an 8” × 8” pan. For a crunchier kugel, he'd use a 13” × 9” pan, which would create more baking surface area.
The custard is chiefly sour cream and cream cheese, both at room temperature. They go in Alton's blender with whole eggs, melted butter, sugar, a little kosher salt and vanilla extract. He spins that on low to medium speed until it is smooth. Right now, some folks are realizing that this is very fatty. Alton acknowledges this, but comments that he's making comfort food, not spa food. There IS no such thing as comforting spa food!
He pours the custard over the noodles, stirs in dried apricots and golden raisins and pours it all into his prepared pan, then tops it with a little sugar and freshly grated nutmeg. He covers this with foil and bakes for around 30 minutes at 350° F. Removing the foil, he bake for another 15 minutes or until the custard sets and the noodles brown.
Alton's final caution before he signs off? If you want to eat comfort food but remain comfortable in your pants – portion control is highly recommended!
Share this article with your friends
Alton recently received a grant, he says, and conducted a study to discover the most comforting thing. More comforting than a recliner, or a friend's shoulder to cry on. More comforting even than cute puppies or your favorite pair of stinky sneakers that your Mom told you to throw out. It's... lasagna. The dish, and the noodle for which the dish is named. And unlike those other sources of comfort, you can make it yourself, after just half an hour of... Good Eats!
Alton starts with the history of lasagna, a very old dish with a very old name that comes either from an Arabic word meaning “almond cake”, or a Latin word for “cooking pot”. In the first century A. D. a Roman gourmand wrote of thin, wide noodles cooked in oil and tossed with pepper and a kind of fermented fish sauce called garum. By the thirteenth century folks in England were boiling such noodles and tossing them with cream, possibly an early ancestor of macaroni and cheese. By the sixteenth century wide, folks were cutting wide, flat noodles, tossing them with sauces and baking them in northern Italy.
A few centuries later saw this dish imported to a then new land, America. It was delicious, economical, and one could purchase home-made wine in Little Italy enclaves even during Prohibition. The end of World War II saw convenience rise in culinary importance; this often involved casseroles, and lasagna emerged as one of the most popular. It delivered all that modern Americans wanted: ooey, gooey, fatty, cheesy and starchy flavors and textures. For his part, Alton finds comfort in the complex strata of flavor, contrasting textures, pleasant aroma and culinary ease. But - the difficulty of preparation must not offset the delight of the dish. Italian men will claim lasagna in any form is not difficult to make, but they have a secret weapon: Italian women (Alton's backdrop falls away to reveal his kitchen and a round Italian woman cooking therein.)
Alton hasn't got actually got a round woman to stir sauce all day in his kitchen, but he does have a crock pot, or slow cooker. Invented in the 1960s by Chicago's Naxon Utilities Corporation, the early pots were simple ceramic vessels with low wattage heating coils. These went largely unnoticed until the Rival corporation acquired Naxon for their line of heat lamps, and an unsung Rival home economist saw something in the simple pots. Rival added some trim and fancies and re-introduced these pots as the Crock Pot. The late 1970s saw an explosion in the number of microwave ovens sold, and these extremely convenient cooking devices spelled the end of the Crock Pot's dominance until relatively recently, when cooks began rediscovering the advantages of low heat and slow cooking. Newer crock pots have timers and digital controls, but Alton prefers his older analog model.
With the history lesson done, Alton returns to the software: lasagna noodles. (A single noodle is 'lasagne' with a final 'e', which many noodles and the casserole are 'lasagna' with a final 'a'). While fresh lasagna is good for some dishes, Alton believes the factory prepared and dried noodles are the right choice for his casserole. These come in American and Italian varieties, the principle difference being that the American sort are thicker and therefore bring more “chew” to the dish. Too much chew for Alton's taste, leading him to select Italian noodles. There are also no-boil noodles which are pre-cooked, but Alton has tried them, and does not recommend them.
Most recipes call for boiling lasagna noodles, but Alton doesn't need his cooked, just flexible. He achieves that by putting them in a shallow pan and pouring hot tap water over them then letting them soak for about fifteen minutes.
Lasagna (the dish) has just a few components. The noodles Alton has just taken care of, which brings him to the meat, vegetables and sauce. A three to three ratio between meats and vegetables leads him to choose three traditional Italian vegetables: eggplant, zucchini, and portobello mushroom caps. Meat choices will be sausage, half of it mild and the rest hot (and all removed from its casing), and ground pork.
The vegetables take a little work. First, Alton slices the mushroom caps thinly. Next, he slices the end off the zucchini and halves it, then runs it length-wise through a mandoline set to a 3/16” depth. This razor sharp appliance cuts hands as easily as it cuts food, so Alton dons an armored glove for safety. Setting aside the sliced zucchini, he slices the woody end from his eggplant and cuts the rest into quarters. Working quickly so the slices don't have time to oxidize brown, he runs each quarter through the mandoline. To make the vegetables more flexible (like cooked pasta) requires removing moisture. A little kosher salt and some time exploits osmosis to draw water out of the vegetables.
A lot of American lasagna casseroles (87.3% according to Alton) are “swampy messes”. This is because they feature cooked noodles that cannot absorb any more cooking liquid, and watery, factory-made ricotta cheese. In restaurants, the problem is worsened because they usually use a pair of commercial sauces, one a meaty Bolognese ragù, and a dairy based Béchamel-like sauce. Alton wonders if he can get the flavors of these sauces in his meal without the extra liquid, and of course there is a way. For the tomato-y sauce, he'll go with a few peeled Italian tomatoes and a little of the packing liquid (but only a little). For the dairy sauce, he needs milk carbs and milk flavor. He can get that from powdered milk. He selects powdered goat's milk, because “it has a little funk”, but any powdered milk will do.
Each year, Alton tends an herb garden on the porch, consisting of oregano, marjoram, thyme, rosemary, basil and sage. He dries a good bit of his crop, then chops it into “Alton's Italian Seasoning”. Of course, one could buy Italian seasoning, but it won't be as tasty.
The vegetables have given up a good deal of their moisture, so a quick rinse removes extra salt and a spin in a salad spinner extracts surface water and certain bitter compounds carried out of the eggplant with the departing water.
At the noodle pan, Alton pulls the noodles and lays them on tea towels. They don't have to be bone dry; they should be flexible.
Ingredients prepared, Alton builds his casserole inside his slow cooker. He starts by layering the outside of his crock with noodles, working his way from the bottom up. The flexible noodles They'll stick with a little pressure. That done, he begins building the layers: a tomato, squeezed into the bottom, followed by a quarter of the sausage, a quarter of the powdered milk, some flour, a quarter of the herbs, and a quarter of each of the vegetables. He tops that with a layer of noodles, and uses a pot lid to gently press down, collapsing any air pockets. Continuing, he builds more layers until he has used his ingredients; he prefers to use the ground pork in the very top layer. A layer of noodles caps the lasagna, and a little of the tomato juice (from the can) sprinkled atop these keeps them from drying out too much during cooking.
Assembled, lasagna will keep in in the refrigerator for as long as two days. But Alton plans to cook his right now. It will take around five hours to cook the meal. Newer crocks have delayed start features, but those with an older crock can achieve the same effect with a lamp timer (of the sort used to trick burglars). Alton sets his to start and stop so the lasagna will be ready when he is. Then he just walks away. No further interference is needed or will help the casserole.
Some time later (7.3 hours, to be exact), Alton returns home to a wonderful aroma. One so good, it has his ersatz Italian mother (from earlier) convinced he's a good boy... sometimes.
A common complaint about lasagna is that it contains a lot of fat. That's difficult to deal with in a rectangular vessel, but in a round crock pot, it's easier. Selecting a lid with a raised outer rim and that is a slightly smaller diameter than his crock pot, Alton presses in gently onto the lasagna surface. This forces liquids up and over the raised rim and into the top of the lid. Most of what flows into the lid is fat, since this rises to the surface of the liquid portion during cooking. Carefully lifting the lid so as not to spill, Alton removes this fat and discards it (but could easily save it for some future use).
This lasagna has no cheese, which is fine with Alton. Those who want cheese can add that now, and Alton demonstrates how. He sprinkles shredded mozzarella over the top and re-lids the cooker to let residual heat melt the cheese, which takes about ten minutes. To toast the cheese he uses a plumber's propane soldering torch, but notes that a heat gun also works. Both may be purchased at any hardware store or home center. In either case, keep the torch moving at all times to avoid burning the cheese.
What Alton has made is not a traditional lasagna, but it has a lot of the same properties, and for Alton it's a 9.5 on the comfort food scale. Can he reach 10? Dessert should get him there, and it also uses lasagna noodles.
In Yiddish, a kugel refers to a kind of pudding, what Yiddish cooks consider “Jewish lasagna”. Many savory kugels exist, but one of the most comforting of all is lokshen kugel, or noodle pudding. Recipes typically call for fresh egg noodles, but Alton believes lasagna does an even better job for sweet kugel.
Alton begins his recipe by cooking lasagna noodles al dente in boiling water, then removing and draining these, laying them on a board to cool, and cutting them along the noodle's width into one inch strips. A pizza cutter works well for this. Finally, Alton tosses the cut noodles into a bowl with some melted butter.
Hardware preparation is next; Alton sprays non-stick cooking spray into an 8” × 8” pan. For a crunchier kugel, he'd use a 13” × 9” pan, which would create more baking surface area.
The custard is chiefly sour cream and cream cheese, both at room temperature. They go in Alton's blender with whole eggs, melted butter, sugar, a little kosher salt and vanilla extract. He spins that on low to medium speed until it is smooth. Right now, some folks are realizing that this is very fatty. Alton acknowledges this, but comments that he's making comfort food, not spa food. There IS no such thing as comforting spa food!
He pours the custard over the noodles, stirs in dried apricots and golden raisins and pours it all into his prepared pan, then tops it with a little sugar and freshly grated nutmeg. He covers this with foil and bakes for around 30 minutes at 350° F. Removing the foil, he bake for another 15 minutes or until the custard sets and the noodles brown.
Alton's final caution before he signs off? If you want to eat comfort food but remain comfortable in your pants – portion control is highly recommended!
Share this article with your friends
Smash Gets a Shake Up Courtesy of New Head Honcho
Ask and you shall receive, as the old adage goes…but rarely does it turn out that..
Awake Creator Explains The Ending Of The Finale And Where The Show Would Have Gone In Season 2
Fans have now had two days to digest the events..
Who Will Be the Next Celebrity Apprentice? Find Out Tonight!
It’s been a long hard season in which viewers had to endure the rantings..
Info Center | Contact | Advertise | TOS |
Privacy | Copyright | RSS | Banners | Writers Wanted