So much fun to make this with the kids, all the chopping and dicing! If they’ll eat the final product remains to be seen…..
What you’ll need for 4 persons:
For the fresh pasta:
– 300 grams plain flour (if you have tipo ’00 is great)
– 3 free range medium eggs
For the lasagna:
– 1 red pepper, half diced, half sliced
– 1 courgette, sliced into approx. 1 cm think slices
– 1 aubergine, diced after “drained”
– 1 onion, finely chopped
– 4 gloves garlic
– 1 small to medium butternut, peeled and sliced
– about 2 handful of freshly grated parmesan
– 1 fresh mozzarella ball
– 2 cans peeled whole tomato (pomodori is you have)
– some sprigs of rosemary, dried oregano
– olive oil
– 1 teacup of milk
– 1 bay leave
-Salt and pepper to taste
Wash and slice your aubergine into approx. 2 cm slices, spread them out on a board and sprinkle with salt. The salt will drain a lot of the excess liquid in this vegetable; you will notice that after a few minutes it will start to “sweat”.
Heat up your oven to about 180 degrees Centigrade. Get your peeled and sliced butternut, half of the red pepper (sliced half) 3 gloves of garlic with their skin on and the courgette onto a baking tray lined with baking paper. Sprinkle the vegetables with some olive oil, salt, pepper and some oregano, add most of the rosemary, and pop it in the over for about 30 minutes.
In the mean time you can get to work on your sauce:
Towel dry the aubergine and dice into small squares. Take a heavy based pan, heat it up and add some olive oil. Once the pan and the oil are at the right temperature, add the aubergine. The aubergine will absorb most of the olive oil, so be sure to add some more, this is a thirsty veg!
Once the aubergine is covered and browning a little, you can add the chopped onion and garlic, stir it in with the aubergine, at this stage you can turn down the heat a little. Add the dices pepper, the bay leave and the left over rosemary. Give it all a good stir and fry the vegetables for about 5 minutes together, add the teacup of milk. This will give the sauce a velvet texture. Let the vegetables cook in the milk for a little while and then add the cans of tomatoes. Bring to the boil and lower the heat. (Check up on your roasting vegetables, they should be about halfway cooked)
Now we get going on your pasta, here is how you can make your own homemade pasta: http://www.mymunchies.nl/homemade-pasta/
Take your pasta dough and take it through the machine up to size 5, leave the sheets of pasta to rest. While your dough is resting, check up on your sauce and give it a stir.
The oven vegetables should be done by now, check with a fork if they’re cooked and soft.
Assembling your lasagna: First a layer of sauce, followed by some freshly grated Parmesan. Layer the some of the oven roasted vegetables onto the sauce (be sure to peel your garlics and squeeze it), add the fresh pasta (the sheets are easy to cut with scissors), and repeat.
You should end with a layer of sauce, sprinkle some more Parmesan and add the sliced mozzarella.
Pop it in the over for about 20 minutes or until the mozzarella has browned on top.
You might not finish all of it at once, lasagna is great to freeze.