Since I had the idea of making a food blog I've wanted to start it with something I've tried making perfect for ages. Lasagna. I still make version of it but I've learned that nothing can really go wrong when you do the tomato sauce and cheese sauce from start. It's not the politically correct one way to do it but good god it tastes great.
This one I did without the typical lasagna sheets since I had forgotten to buy them. But no worries, easier to get bite sizes!
Gnocchi lasagna
Tomato sauce:
400g of sieved tomato
50g of pureed tomato
100g of ketchup sauce
A dash of sugar, salt and pepper
Herbs and spices (I used chives, paprika, white pepper, cinnamon, oregano and basil. Get a mix you like, this is one of my favourites.)
2dl water
Mix everything in a pot, stirr it and let it simmer for an hour. You want all of the flavour from the spices and the tomatos so be patient with it. Stirr it from time to time and add a little water if it seems too stiff.
In the middle while....
250g of gnocchi pasta
1l water
1 cube of meat stock
Boil the water, add the stock and the pasta. When it's been there about 4 minutes, take them out and cool them with cold water.
Meat part
400g of ground beef
2 red onions
Spices
Chop the onions, fry the beef and add the spices.
Cheese sauce
50g of butter
50g of flour
4 dl of cream
4 dl of water
200g of mozzarella
Melt the butter in a pot, add flour and whisk it well. First add water in 1dl sections, whisk all the time just to make sure that there will be no lumps in the sauce. Then add cream and whisk away again. Finally add the cheese with it, stirr until it's melted and put it aside.
Take the tomato sauce off the stove, add the fried beef with it and mix them with the pasta.
We start layering now, first put some of the pasta on the bottom so that it's covered well. Then add a little bit of the cheese sauce, topping it with another layer of pasta. The goal is here to get layering the food so that the cheese sauce is finally topping of the whole lasagna.
I added some grated mozzarella on top to get a nice texture.
Put the oven to 160C and let the lasagna stay there for a good hour. If the top of the lasagna seems to go too dark, add foil on top to prevent it from darkening too much. When you take out the lasagna, let it cooldown and settle for awhile.
Now I know that many does this otherwise but this is my style and it hasn't really failed before :P I do suggest adding some mushrooms, carrots, sweet paprika, tomato and/or aubergine with the tomato sauce, gives great texture and a little bit of more flavour. :)
