(Bologna's lasagna recipe - Traditional Italian recipe from Bologna)

Italian lasagna, Bolognese style made with sheets of fresh pasta tossed with tomato and meat sauce and bechamel

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500 g (1,1 lb) fresh lasagna sheets
85 g (3 oz) bacon
200 g (7 oz) minced beef
200 g (7 oz) minced pork
85 g (3 oz) raw ham, in a piece
125 g (4 1/2 oz) fresh sausage
60 g (2 oz) young fresh onions
85 g (3 oz) carrot
20 g (3/4 oz) celery
1 400 g (14 oz) can peeled tomatoes
250 ml (8 fl oz - 1C) red wine
200 ml (7 fl oz - 3/4 C) vegetable stock.
4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
75 g (2 1/2 oz) unsalted butter
200 g (7 oz) grated Parmesan cheese
Salt
Pepper, if you like
For béchamel
60 g (2 oz) white flour
60 g (2 oz) unsalted butter
600 ml (21 fl oz - 2 1/2 C) milk
Pinch grated nutmeg
Salt
Pepper, if you like.

Time:
preparation: about 60 minutes
cooking: about 3 hours and half
Difficulty:
laborious recipe
Nutrition Facts (amount per serving):
Calories: 910 (kCal) 46 % GDA - 3806 (kJ)
Protein: 46.0 (g) 92 % GDA
Total fat: 54.4 (g) 77 % GDA
Total carbohydrate: 59.6 (g) 22 % GDA
Sugars: 8.4 (g) 9 % GDA

Bolognese lasagna is a traditional recipe from Bologna made with egg pasta sheets, ragù (meat sauce) and béchamel.

Prepare the sauce (ragù). Peel and crumble the sausage. Chop the raw ham. Purèe the peeled tomatoes in a blender or food processor until smooth. Prepare the vegetable stock.
Clean and wash the onions, carrot and celery; chop them together with bacon. Put them in a saucepan together with 4 tablespoons of olive oil and 30 g (1 oz) of butter. Let them fry lightly for few minutes and then add the sausage, raw ham and meats. Brown all the ingredients a bit and then pour the red wine into the saucepan; let it evaporate over a fierce heat. At this point add the purèed tomatoes and stock, lower the flame, season to taste with salt and pepper, and keep on cooking for about 3 hours, half-covered, stirring now and then. Add other stock, if necessary.
If you have only dried lasagna you have to cook the sheets according to the instructions on the package. Remember: it's important to add 2 tablespoons of olive oil into the water! This avoids that pasta rectangles stick. Remove lasagna from boiling water with 2 skimming ladles, cool them in cold water and arrange on a napkin in order to let them dry. You can avoid all these steps if you use pre-cooked lasagna or fresh lasagna sheets.
Prepare béchamel following our instructions. In this case this sauce must not be too thick.
Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F). Butter a shallow ovenproof dish. Line the bottom with a layer of lasagna sheets and spoon in some tablespoons of sauce and béchamel; sprinkle with Parmesan. Cover with other lasagna sheets and continue until all the ingredients are used up, remembering the top must be made of béchamel mixed with sauce. Sprinkle with Parmesan and arrange the remaining butter, cut into little pieces, on the top. Bake for about 30 minutes or until the surface is golden. Remove the dish from the oven; wait 5-10 minutes before serving.
You have to serve this dish in its cooking dish.

Note

- If you want to prepare dough too, you can follow our instructions. But remember that the best dough for Bolognese lasagna is without water. You can also prepare a green dough with 400 g (14 oz) of white flour, 2 eggs and 45 g (1 1/2 oz) of boiled and purèed spinach. You have to avoid that spinach form water and so our suggestion is to put them in a little non-stick frying pan and let them dry very well over a low flame.
- If you want, you can substitute traditional béchamel with a light version. We have 2 recipes. In this case we suggest to use the recipe with cornstarch and milk.
- This recipe is full of fats, calories and proteins. The best thing would be to serve it as one-plate meal; you can serve a seasonal salad after this dish in order to eat also vegetables. However we suggest you a complete menu around lasagne. If you have guests, you can consult it for a special occasion (Italian dinner menu for special occasion).
- We use to make some variations to the traditional recipe of Bolognese lasagna to reduce fat and calories.
We prepare the sauce with all the ingredients without sauteing them. We use only olive oil (4 tablespoons) and so we eliminate the butter. We don't use the vegetable stock too and so we cooked it for only 30 minutes. In Italy nowadays we prefer to cook less this sauce: in this way all the ingredients preserve better their nutritional characteristics. Besides we add the olive oil only when the sauce is ready, after switching off the gas.
- Another little suggestion: use beaten eggs (about 2) among the layers of pasta instead of béchamel. It's a tradition in Abruzzo to make pasta pie using beaten eggs instead of béchamel. It's very tasty!
- Do you know how tasty is this dish if you have some pieces left and warm them up?

What's the right wine?

Our suggestion is: Merlot dei Colli Bolognesi (red wine from Emilia - Italy).

A little history

Some writings that belong to 1200 tell us about a sort of lasagne. They are not the recipe we know. Women from Emilia in Italy are very good in kneading dough; in the past they have created many successful recipes. Among them there are baked lasagne.