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Photo by Holly A. Heyser
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 lasagna for special occasions, like Sunday night. I’ve eaten more versions of lasagna 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 lasagna 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 lasagna 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 lasagna, 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.
Lasagna 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 lasagna 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 lasagna loaded with mushrooms, not venison. And what about presentation? Can a lasagna still be a lasagna if it is not a layer cake?
I suspect mum would like my lasagna. 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.
Venison Lasagna
This is a riff off my mother’s lasagna, and of course, everyone’s mother makes the best lasagna, right? This one is supremely meaty, supremely cheesy. There’s something like 3 pounds of meat and 2 pounds of cheese in this bad boy. But it makes 8-10 servings, so don’t worry about it. This lasagna, like most, reheats well, too.
And of course you can use regular ground beef and pork for this if you don’t have access to venison or wild boar. It’ll be just as good.
Serves 8-10.
Prep Time: 30 minutes
Cook Time: 3 hours
- 1 pound ground pork or wild boar
- 2 pounds ground venison or ground beef
- 1 chopped onion
- 1 head of garlic, chopped
- 1 28-ounce can of crushed tomatoes
- 1 8-ounce can of tomato sauce
- 1 can of tomato paste
- 1 cup red wine
- 1 teaspoon fennel seeds
- 1/2 teaspoon fennel pollen (optional)
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 1/4 cup chopped fresh basil leaves
- 2 tablespoons dried oregano
- 1 15-ounce container of ricotta cheese
- 1 pound mozzarella cheese, shredded
- 1 cup grated pecorino cheese
- 1/2 nutmeg
- 1/2 cup chopped parsley leaves
- 12 lasagna noodles
- Salt and pepper
- Make the Sauce. Brown the meat in a large Dutch oven. Take your time and do this in batches. It could take as long as 20 minutes. Put all the browned meat back in the pot and then add the chopped onions and cook for another 3 to 4 minutes, then add the garlic and cook for another 2 to 3 minutes. Add seasonings – fennel seeds and pollen if using, oregano, basil — and mix well.
- Mix the wine and tomato paste and pour in the pot. Bring to a boil over hig heat, stirring often. Add the tomato sauce and can of crushed tomatoes and mix again. Bring to a simmer and cook slowly for 1 to 2 hours. This can be done as much as two days ahead of time.
- Prepare the lasagna. Soak the lasagna noodles in hot water for 15 to 20 minutes. Preheat the oven to 350°F.
- Meanwhile, mix the parsley with the ricotta cheese in a bowl. Grate the pecorino and shred the mozzerella. Grate 1/2 a nutmeg into the ricotta. If you can’t find whole nutmegs, use 1 teaspoon.
- To assemble, spread a good amount of the meat on the bottom of a standard 9-inch by 13-inch casserole pan. Remove the lasagna noodles and lay on the meat sauce. Spread half the ricotta cheese mixture on the noodles, then half the mozzerella cheese, then 1/2 the percorino.
- Add another layer of meat sauce — you will have one final layer after this — then the rest of the noodles. Add the remaining ricotta and mozzerella, plus 1/2 of the remaining pecorino. Spread the remaining meat sauce on this, then sprinkle with the last bit of pecorino.
- To cook, cover the lasagna with foil. You might want to spray the underside first with non-stick spray so the cheese doesn’t stick to it. Bake covered for 25 minutes. Carefully take off the foil and bake for another 25 minutes. Let the lasagna rest for 10-15 minutes before serving with a strong red wine.
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”.
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This looks absolutely mouthwatering. The addition of fennel with the gamey taste of the venison and boar sounds wonderful!