CAMILLE AUBRAY'S LASAGNE ALLA PETRINA

Camille Aubray’s Lasagne Alla Petrina

Everybody's been asking me for recipes from my novel, THE GODMOTHERS, so here is my Lasagne Alla Petrina (Bolognese) . This is the meal that Petrina, one of my characters in THE GODMOTHERS, cooked for Lucy in Chapter 26 (page 291) of the book.

But first, here are few basic things to know about Lasagne:

THE CORRECT NAME: This dish is called "Lasagne" with an "e" at the end of the word, NOT an "a". That's because one single piece of pasta is a "lasagna" with an "a". And you can't make a whole dinner with just one strip of pasta! Glad we got that settled!

NORTH AND SOUTH: The lasagne in THE GODMOTHERS comes from Bologna, a city in northern Italy. This lasagne is made with a red meat sauce, and only one kind of cheese: parmesan, because it also has a luscious white béchamel sauce. My recipe is below.

Southern Italy doesn't use the béchamel sauce; instead they use mozzarella cheese and/or ricotta cheese, as well as parmesan. Hence, my recipe for "Three Cheese Lasagne" comes after the Petrina one.

Recipe for Lasagne that appears in the novel “THE GODMOTHERS”

RECIPE FOR CAMILLE AUBRAY'S LASAGNE ALLA PETRINA (BOLOGNESE)

Ingredients:

1 carrot, chopped to fine dice

1 medium onion, chopped same

1 celery stalk, chopped same

2-3 cups ground meat

olive oil

1/2 cup of dry white wine

16 oz of Italian tomatoes, diced or crushed

1/2 cup of low-salt beef broth (optional)

2 cups of parmesan cheese, freshly grated

1 lb of lasagne pasta strips

Make the red sauce: In a heavy-bottomed cooking pot, heat about 3 tablespoons of olive oil per pound of ground beef. I like to grind the beef at home, but I must confess, my husband operates our meat grinder.

In the hot oil, sauté the carrot, onion and celery for a minute or two. Then add the ground meat and brown it on medium/high heat. Add the wine and cook a minute or two. Add the tomatoes and beef stock, then reduce the heat to a gentle simmer for about a half hour. This bolognese red sauce can be made a day ahead.

Preheat the oven to 400 F degrees. Set your biggest pot of water on the stove and bring to a boil; then add a tablespoon of olive oil in little drops. Stir, then add the pasta strips one by one, and keep stirring them gently to separate. When they return to the boil, cook until just tender. Take them out gently and drape them over the edges of a large bowl so that they can cool down without sticking to one another.

Meanwhile, grease with sweet butter a rectangular, ovenproof dish with more sweet butter. This dish doesn't have to be huge. Then grate your parmesan as finely as possible. and set aside.

Make the white sauce (béchamel):

4 tablespoons of sweet (unsalted) butter

3 tablespoons of flour

1 cup of milk

sprinkle of nutmeg, preferably freshly grated

freshly ground black pepper

sea salt

In a small, deep heavy-bottomed saucepan, melt the butter till it starts to foam. Sprinkle in the flour and whisk while you cook it on low heat for about 4 minutes. Add the milk all at once while still whisking away until it starts to bubble. Grate in the nutmeg and a few turns of black pepper. Turn the heat down low and cook for about 15-20 minutes, stirring regularly to keep it from sticking on the bottom, until the flour is cooked and the floury taste is gone. Add just a little sea salt.

To build your lasagne:

Lay down each lasagna strip slightly overlapping one another onto the buttered dish. Using two tablespoons, spread some meat sauce on the pasta. With another clean tablespoon, layer some white béchamel sauce on top of the meat sauce, and use the back of your spoon to spread it out. Sprinkle some parmesan cheese atop the white sauce, then dot with small pieces of sweet butter.

Repeat this again until you have used all your ingredients BUT leave some béchamel and some parmesan for the topping, again dotting with a few tiny pieces of butter, and giving it a few quick turns of freshly grated pepper.

You can freeze your lasagne as it is right now. Or go ahead and cook it!

Pop your lasagne into the oven and cook for 30-50 minutes, but keep an eye on it. It's usually done when you can smell its delightful scent and the sauce is bubbling. You want to brown the top but you don't want the pasta to curl or harden. If it looks like it's starting to curl, make a tent of tin foil and cover it. If your lasagne was frozen, it's best to thaw it out in the refrigerator overnight, and when you put it in oven, cover it with tin foil from the beginning, then remove the cover at the last ten minutes to brown the top.

When your lasagne is cooked, take it out of the oven and let it sit for 3-5 minutes to set.

RECIPE FOR CAMILLE AUBRAY'S SOUTHERN ITALIAN 3-CHEESE LASAGNE

This lasagne can be made with the red meat sauce above, except that you add a small crushed garlic clove to the vegetables at the beginning, and then some basil and/or oregano, preferably fresh and torn, when you put in the tomato sauce. You can also add a little diced Italian sweet sausages to the layering. And you will need 3 cheeses: ricotta, mozzarella and parmesan. Cook the pasta and preheat the oven, then grease the ovenproof dish with sweet butter, all as above.

Layer your pasta with the meat sauce and sausage chunks first; then, add little spoonfuls of ricotta (full-fat and drained of excess water) and press slightly with the spoon to flatten. Add freshly shredded mozzarella (full-fat) and then grated parmesan. Continue to add more layers of pasta, meat sauce, and 3 cheeses until you are at the top layer, which should be just a bit of red sauce, parmesan and dots of sweet butter. At this point you can freeze it or cook it.

Bake in the oven just as in the previous recipe.

For both lasagne meals, serve with a green vegetable on the side, like a salad, or some sautéed spinach or swisschard or radicchio.

Serve with a nice dry red Italian wine like chianti or montepulciano.

Salute!

All Text and Pictures here are under copyright ©CamilleAubrayLLC