LASAGNE ALLA BOLOGNESE

Easter is here!
So, what is better than a traditional Lasagna to celebrate with my family?


According to the tradition, we should eat Tortellini in Brodo (bellybuttons with broth), but as we'll have lunch at Garda lake, lasagna is easier to transport.


Everybody has a "personal" lasagna with a particular (and almost ever secret) ingredient.
This is mine, with no secret ingredients, just a traditional simple but rich lasagna, following my grandmother's unwritten recipe.


Enjoy!

LASAGNA ALLA BOLOGNESE (for a 34 x 25 cm pan)
What we need:
        for meat sauce (ragù):
0,50 lb grounded pork
0,50 lb grounded beef
4 tbs olive oil
1/2 stick butter (50 gr)
1 cup white (or red) wine
1 cup tomato sauce
1 slice smoked bacon
1 carrot
1 onion
1 celery
2 leaves sage + rosemary
salt and pepper
        for besciamella:
1 lt milk
1/2 cup + 1 tbs flour
1 stick - 1 tbs butter (90 gr)
salt and grounded nutmeg


1 (500 gr) and half pack of dry lasagna (for ex. Emiliane Barilla)
grounded Parmesan


How to do it:
melt butter with oil in a pan, then add onion, carrot and celery, chopped; add bacon (chopped) and the meat; stir until light. Pour wine, let evaporate it a little bit, then add the tomato sauce. Add sage and rosemary, salt and pepper.
     For besciamella: in a pot, melt butter, move from the fire, and add flour stirring to make a velvet thick sauce; then add the hot milk, stirring constantly. Put again on fire, add salt and nutmeg and cook stirring for about 15 minutes until thick as a yogurt (not too thick and not too liquid).
     Prepare a pot with hot water, where cooking the lasagna for just a minute, one layer each time.
Mix meat sauce with besciamella, then put a couple of spoons of the mix on the lasagna pan (to avoid the first layer to stick).
Put a layer of (cooked) lasagna, cover with the meat and besciamella mix, sprinkle with parmesan and continue with cooked lasagna, mix and parmesan until the pan is full! end with a layer of mix and parmesan.
      Cook for 30' at 400 F° or until a nice crust forms on the surface. Let stand for 10' then.....enjoy it!!

Tips: don't forget to cook the dry lasagna for about one minute (although in the packet they write that is not necessary) otherwise you'll have a dry and crunchy lasagna..to avoid cooking it, you should make a veery liquid besciamella, but it's a risk.
on the other side, don't cook the lasagna too much! it has to be "al dente" when display on the pan, or you'll have an overcooked Lasagna alla Bolognese!!