Not My Mum’s Venison Lasagna
Nov 19th, 2009 | By Hank | Category: Cooking Basics, Italian, Venison | Comments | 10 Comments |
Lasagne (or is it lasagna?). Whatever, it is a bedrock staple of my childhood in New Jersey. I grew up around a lot of Italians, and everyone’s mother or nonna made lasagne for special occasions, like Sunday night. I’ve eaten more versions of lasagne than any man has a right to.
Even my own decidedly non-Italian mother made a version of the dish. And it was good. Really good. It hinged on mum’s meat sauce, which cooked all day on the stove while I was at school and she was at work. Other than that, it was pretty standard: lotsa meat, lotsa cheese and those wavy noodles that seem to serve no other purpose.
Of course mum’s lasagne is the best in the world. How could it not be? That’s the thing about lasagne. It is one of those classics everyone makes that are so evocative of warm moments in our past.
I asked mum for the recipe a few months ago. She’d lost it, sadly. “It was really nothing special,” she said. I still wanted it. “Can you look for it?” I asked. She agreed. But a few months later she called up and raved about a new lasagne recipe she’d developed and how everyone loved this one far more than the last and yadda yadda yadda. Sure, mum. But it’s still not THAT recipe. “I still can’t find it,” she said.
So it seems my memory of that lasagne will remain just a memory. Then mum sent me her “new” recipe. Looked pretty similar to the one I remembered, only maybe with some nutmeg and parsley in the ricotta. But as I read it, I realized that even armed with mum’s old recipe, it still wouldn’t be the same. Food is more than a conglomeration of ingredients, tempered by heat and eaten with steel. Like wine, it is the punctuation mark, the highlight, of a gathering of people — old friends, new lovers, family. I could make mum’s lasagne, but it would be my dish, not the one I remembered so much on those cold nights in New Jersey.
So I decided to use her new recipe to make one of my own. And because I don’t buy beef, I would use ground venison for the meat, mixed with some stray wild boar sausage I had in the freezer. I also like meaty rather than tomatoey sauces, so I shorted the tomato in mum’s recipe. I also have more of a taste for spice so I added more oregano, nutmeg and garlic than she does. If this were to be my lasagne, I might as well go all the way.
(Here is the full venison lasagne recipe.)
Lasagne seems like such a commonplace. Lunch in a cafeteria. But think for a moment: It is loaded with cheese and meat, making it deceptively expensive. I spent $12 just on the cheese, and I already had pecorino at home. All told, the recipe had three pounds of meat and two pounds of cheese. This may be a familiar form, but lasagne New Jersey style is festival food, make no mistake.
And there is all sorts of room for jazz to creep in. We know the standard, but what is your riff? Homemade noodles? A unique blend of spices and herbs in the sauce or in the ricotta? Maybe you use a different array of cheeses? Different meats? A combination of ground beef, pork and veal was common back home. I’ve thought about making a meatless lasagne loaded with mushrooms, not venison. And what about presentation? Can a lasagne still be a lasagne if it is not a layer cake?
I suspect mum would like my lasagne. It would be different enough to know that they are not the same dish, but I am sure she could see hers in my dish. As it should be. I am her son.
OTHER LASAGNE RECIPES
- Elise’s Lasagne, from Simply Recipes
- A Lasagna Tart, from Heidi Swanson at 101 Cookbooks
- An Open Lasagne with Rabbit Ragu, from Lorraine Elliott of Not Quite Nigella
Best lasagna I’ve ever had, hands down. And I can say that because I can’t for the life of me get my mom to read our blogs. (Sis, if you’re reading, don’t tell Mom.)
Italian lesson for the day: Lasagna is singular; lasagne is plural.
When I lived in Italy many years ago, lasagna was all about the “noodles” or the wavy pasta. That was it, with just a light covering of sauce.
American lasagna is to Italian lasagna what American pizza is to Italian pizza. Don’t get me wrong, I like both versions and yours looks particularly delicious with the addition of game.
Buon Appetito
One of my weaknesses when it comes to comfort food. As far as I know, there’s not a stitch of Italian in my entire family line, but I still remember Mom’s lasagna. And Kat does a tasty version too…
I’ve had it made with buffalo, venison (all sorts, deer, elk, fallow, axis) and wild pork. The lean meat challenges some of the traditional recipes, but I expect you managed that with aplomb.
And it’s a dish I’ve never actually made for myself. Strange.
I love lasagna. I have yet to make this myself.
‘a conglomeration of ingredients, tempered by heat and eaten with steel’
Way to tell ‘em Hank
SBW
Nice post, lasagna is pure comfort food. I could never even come close to my mom’s, but I try anyway. Do you parallel the noodles in straight layers or criss cross them like a basket? That was always the big debate in my family.
That quote above belongs in your book somewhere.
You’re not kidding about the cost. But it’s so worth it. There is nothing like a slab of hot lasagna snuggled up to a crisp green salad and a hunk of bread. One of my favorite lasagna memories started with a day of snow skiing, and ended with a group of friends sharing plates of lasagna around a fire with plenty of wine. Oh, yeah, baby.
My “spin” would be tofu ricotta! And spinach.
I loved Mom’s lasagna too, mmmm. But yours looks fabulous too . . . and you’re right. It would always be yours no matter what. You can’t take the cook out of the meal: it’s the secret ingredient.
SportingDays: Thanks for the Italian lesson! I actually know Italian reasonably well, but had not thought about this. Duh! Interesting to hear about real Italian lasagna, too. Figures it’d be lighter. Italian-American dishes are almost always heavier.
Phillip: Pork fat works wonders with lean meats…
Hilton: I parallel them. Cris-crossing them would make the pasta layer too thick, IMHO.
Dawn: I approve.
Sis: Tofu ricotta? Eeeeeeeew! There has to be a better way to be a good vegan without such a reliance on soy products. I know there must…
It’s all in the sauce – this is how Mom taught me her “sauce” – as best as I can remember it goes something like this: brown ground hamburg with finely chopped onions, throw in 2 canned pureed tomatoes, 1 can tomato paste, 2 teaspoons sugar, salt, pepper and then…and this was key and the fun part – then cover the whole top evenly with dried oregano. Only then do you stir. The sauce should then simmer all afternoon.
The lasagna was layers of noodles, sauce, dollops of unadulterated ricotta, slices of mozzarella, parmesan shaken out of the green can, the top layer was only sauce and parmesan.
-and there you have it!
After marrying an Italian I found out the many, many intricate variations of “sauce”.