Several of my co-workers asked me for my Bolognese Lasagna recipe after I posted the following pic on Flickr.

Bolognese Lasagna
The problem, I actually don't have a recipe for the lasagna. This is one of the dishes I make entirely from taste, the ratios of ingredients for a pair of 10" rectangular pyrex pans honed from practice.

Here are some cook's notes from my most recent attempt:

Since I still haven't purchased a pasta maker, I use dry. Though, I have found, and this may shock some of my readers, ready-bake pasta sheets make better lasagna, at least in my kitchen.

Ready-Bake Pasta Sheets
The reason involves the time it takes the trays of lasagna to bake in the oven. I have found dried pasta sheets, even when par-cooked or just cooked to super-al dente (a little more toothy than toothy) lose their starch coats after baking. The meaty bolognese I make is by no means wet, but enough moisture is present that the pasta sheets comes out with a slippery texture.

I usually start with 2 lb's of medium ground beef. Lean will do, but fattier beef sears off better. Yes, you read sear. Over the years, I have found that a rich ragu, which is what a bolognese essentially is, comes from scraped fond and seared ground meat. Flavour, comes from adding spicy Italian sausage meat. For 2 lbs of meat, 2-3 sausage links worth of sausage meat, generously dosed with red pepper flake, paprika, and black pepper adds spice for flavour and fat for texture.

This time around, I decided to capture juices by adding fried breadcrumbs, mixed with dried herbs, to the ground meat mixture before searing it up in a metal pan. By frying the breadcrumbs crisp beforehand, they took on some toasted flavours. Both the breadcrumbs and herbs hydrated when the meat cooked, trapping juices.

When cooking the ground meat mixture, cook in batches and let the meat sit for a minute or two to develop a crust. De-glaze after every batch with a splash of dry white wine (no more than 3 tbsp), reserving the deglazing liquid for the following tomato syrup.

For the tomato component, I made a concasse using two cans of plum tomatoes. I seeded the tomatoes, draining them of their canning liquid and juice and reserving both. The tomatoes, I roasted in the oven at 350F for 90 minutes to concentrate flavours and slightly toast the tomatoes. The canning liquid, juice, and white wine deglazing liquid mixture, I slowly reduced on a stove into a thick syrup, resembling pancake syrup. I then blended both together in a table top blender, pulsing until almost smooth.

When you purchase canned tomatoes, read the labels for sodium content. Purchase only canned plum tomatoes whose salt is no more than 50 mg/125 mL (1/2 cup). Primo brand tops out at 300 mg/125 mL (1/2 cup), an unnecessary amount.

Always, always taste the bolognese as it comes together. Some canned tomatoes taste better seasoned than others, even despite the salt content on the label.

To the tomato component, I added sweated finely chopped mirepoix vegetables: 2 parts onion, 1 part carrot, and one part celery. I find that 2 small cooking onions to 2 stalks of carrots and celery is optimal, but it depends on taste. Sometimes I add more. Sometimes I add less.

To complete the bolognese, the tomato component was mixed together with the meat component and heated through.

Every layer of pasta sandwiches a layer of ragu and a layer of bechemel. For the bechemel, I usually use 1/3 cup flour, 1/3 cup canola oil, and 2 cups of milk. To flavour it, I like to infuse garlic by dropping 3 whole cloves into the milk as it thickens. I retrieve and discard the cloves as I build the lasagna.

The topping is a mixture of bechemel and egg wash, something I borrowed from a Greek pastitio recipe I came across years ago.

That's it! When available, I make a concasse of tomato from vine ripened tomatoes. The fresh flavours transform the dish. Given that it's winter, we make do.

Ever since my less than successful first attempt at cooking lamb shanks, I have revisited preparing the traditionally long cooked cut of meat twice. Both times either produced shanks whose meat that was too soft or too firm. Neither attempt employed mushrooms. So, when Leela (@sheshimmers) of the She Shimmers and Melody (@gourmetfury) of the Gourmet Fury blogs announced February's vegetable for their Beet & Squash "Veggie Celebration Contest", I decided to attempt the only preparation of lamb shanks I have encountered that had the texture I wanted, braised lamb shanks with mushroom bolognese. That preparation was actually a frozen entree from local fine food store Epicuria (419 Mackay Street).

Given that I missed "Battle Napa Cabbage", due to other happenings this past New Year, I pulled out all the stops.

First, I went looking for the source recipe and its originator: Italian Master Chef Michael Chiarello. Then, I chanced upon Epicuria's recipe and took note of their intepretation of Chef Chiarello's recipe.

Having read up on the recipes and armed with tips from an ex-Epicuria Chef, I went shopping for lamb shanks. Before, I purchase frozen New Zealand lamb shanks from the local supermarket. This time, I sourced the lamb shanks from my neighbourhood butcher's Saslove's (1333 Wellington St. W). They turned out to be fresh Canadian lamb shanks. Mushroom-wise, I picked up two Asian varieties from a local (non-T&T) Asian supermarket, the New 168 Market, just outside of Chinatown (1050 Somerset Street W).

Now, tradition has it that a "bolognese" is a meat "ragu" that is a staple of the Bologna region of Northern Italy. It is a full-bodied meat sauce that is tomato based and flavoured with wine and mirepoix vegetables: 2 parts onions, 1 part carrots, and 1 part celery. At times, it includes milk or cream. For reference, think of the filling in a classic Bolognese lasanga. Here is one I made several weeks ago:

Bolognese Lasagna
Substituting mushrooms for meat, while bucking tradition, makes a good deal of sense. Mushrooms can be good and meaty. Though, they have to be carefully cooked or will come out rubbery.

Here is what turned out:

Braised Lamb Shanks with Mushroom Bolognese
I served it with onion polenta and yu choy.

Recipe
Here's what you'll need:

2 796 mL Cans of Low Sodium Plum Tomatoes

Approximately 230 g (1/2 lb) of one variety of mushroom

Approximately 230 g (1/2 lb) of another variety of mushroom

3 Medium to large lamb shanks

• 1 cup of chopped onion
• 1/2 cup of chopped carrots
• 1/2 cup of chopped celery
• 2 cups of dry red wine (Ours: a 2007 Jackson-Triggs Cabarnet Franc/Cabarnet Sauvignon from the Niagara Peninsula)
• 3 cups of low sodium chicken broth

According to the notes in Chef Chiarello's recipe, the shanks can be made a number of ways: braised for 2-4 hours in an oven set to 300F or braised for 6 hours in an oven set to 250F. While the shanks can be made in a covered pot on the stove top, "there is caramelization of flavors in oven braising that stove top cooking does not replicate." We went the super long route in a low oven. But first, we need a braising liquid and, since we're braising overnight, the liquid can be refrigerated during the day thereafter so the fat can rise to the top, solidify, and be easily lifted off. The braised shanks can also be aged in the refrigerator alongside.

More after the jump...

To North Americans, lasagna is a pasta casserole, consisting of alternating layers of meat sauce, cheese, and pasta. To Italians, lasagna refers to the flat sheets of pasta that are typically used to make this dish. To me, lasagna is the quintessential comfort food that takes both time and care to make. My favourite is a slightly modified classic lasagne alla bolognese (bolognese lasagna) with béchamel sauce. Traditional classic bolognese lasagna only uses parmigiano reggiano.

According to wikipedia, while the dish is generally accepted to have originated in Italy, the word "lasagna" has etymological roots in the Greek words λάγανον (laganon) and λάσανα (lasana). The former refers to a type of flat sheet of pasta dough cut into strips. The latter refers to a chamber pot.

Over the years, many variants the dish involving layers pasta with other ingredients and baking it in a vessel have emerged. Some recipes call for several cheeses, including ricotta and mozzarella. Others, include adding spinach to the pasta, colouring the noodles green and producing a lasagna verde. Still others, replace the meat ragu with seafood in a cream sauce, producing a seafood lasagna. If I were Alton Brown, this is where I'd say "lasagna is 'good eats'."

I have been puttering around with a "from scratch" lasagna recipe for years. My recipe makes a lasagna that I reserve for family or very dear friends. Save for the pasta sheets that I try to purchase ready-made but fresh, the recipe starts from fundamentals: ripe Italian tomatoes, herbs (oregano, basil, and parsley), freshly ground pepper, garlic, onions, carrots, celery, cheese, milk, olive oil, ground beef, ground veal, and ground lamb. Its method involves good knife work, careful roasting, long simmering, and a little patience. If I ever purchase a hand driven meat grinder, I'd grind the meat myself. If I ever purchase a pasta maker, I'd make the pasta as well.

Unfortunately, I only have the time to make this recipe when a weekend allows me a full day to do the prep work. With my weekends the way they are, I can barely find the time to roast a decent chicken, let alone simmer a tomato sauce for a couple hours. Happily, when a friend of mine sent me pictures of his first lasagna, I was forced to think of a quick and easy recipe. His lasagna, with its meaty ragu (spiked with chopped sausage) and layer of spinach and ricotta, made me crave lasagna so much that I had to make my own. Only, I didn't have a day to prep and I was limited to what my pantry and fridge contained.

Here's what I was able to cobble together with some canned spaghetti sauce, ready-bake lasagna noodles, and some frozen ground beef that I had in the freezer:

Baked

Sliced

One luscious square to Satisfy a Craving

Recipe follows:

More after the jump...