Lasagna

One of my favourite dishes to make! This is for 4 people, if you eat a lot you can double the ingredients. It's mostly the meat that needs it's amount changed, the rest doesn't matter that much.

Ingredients

• 500 grams minced meat (ground meat for the people from the US of A)
• 1 big onion
• 1 pack of pasta sheets
• 1000ml crushed tomatoes (or use tomato paste with water)
  
• Grated cheese (I use what you call Edam cheese, but mozzarella is fine as well)
• Pepper, salt, Paprika, garlic, basil, Oregano
• Mixed vegetables (like bell pepper, tomatoes, leek, Zucchini, table mushroom, Cabbage, onions)
  
• (optional) Spinach
• Olive oil

For the Béchamel sauce

• 500ml milk
• flour (white, I think wheat)
• 50g Butter
• pepper, salt, Nutmeg

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---- PREHEAT THE OVEN ON 180 Degrees Celcius

Making the red sauce:

• Heat the olive oil in a pan, and saute the mince meat (so it's all small parts). Add some salt en pepper.
• Bake an onion with it at the end.
• Add the vegetables and bake them as well.
• If the minced meat is fully baked, add the crushed tomatoes till it's a sauce, but don't add to much. Use your judgement, it should be a firm sauce.
• Add as much garlic (pressed or cut in small parts) as you like. I use one "toe"
• Season it with a bit (teaspoon) of paprika. Use your taste to decide how much Basil and Oregano to add, I usually take a spoon full of Oregano or more and half a spoon of Basil.

If you finished this, stir it well and let it boil.

Now make the bechamel sauce.

• Put a pan on the fire, and melt the butter.
• Put the fire down
• Add flour to the butter and stir till it's a dry, yellow substance (if you use the wrong flour you get a dark substance, you should use the really white stuff)
• Slowly add milk while stirring till it's a thick, white homogeneous solution
• Add pepper, salt and nutmeg to taste
• Add a little bit of butter to make it a smooth sauce

If you let it stay to long on the fire, it'll be to thick to use. Just add some milk and stir.

If you want to add spinach just boil it for 3/4 minutes in a little bit of water now.


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Making the lasagne itself:

• Take a "furnace scale" and grease it with olive oil.
  
• Put a bit of the red sauce at the bottom (just thick enough that everything is covered)
• (Optional) Add some spinach
• Put 1 layer of pasta sheets on top of it (don't let them overlap)
• Put another layer of red sauce on that
• (Optional) Add some spinach
• Put another layer of pasta sheets on top of that
• Repeat till you're out of red sauce (or pasta sheets)
• Add one more layer of red sauce on top of the sheets (so the top layer is the red sauce)
• Add the Bechemel sauce on top of that
• Cover it in cheese.

Put some aluminium foil on top, and put it in the oven for about 30 minutes. Remove the foil after around 15-20 minutes to make a nice crust on top.

After it's done, let it stand for about 5 minutes and then ENJOY!


Comments and better translations are welcome!


Picture of the first time I made it:

good recipe mate gonna try it today....

To help with your translation Which is very good.... A couple of things.... 1 segment of garlic in English is called a clove all the pieces together are called bulbs.... The term Baked refers to items heated in a oven.... to say cook the mince meat is fine or saute the mince which is to cook quickly with oil or butter in a wide bottom pan (or saucepan) on the stove top.. For the word solution, smooth glossy paste may be a better discription.

Even with these tiny mistakes it's still an easily understandable recipe. I just add this for you own benefit as I have a couple of Dutch friends who welcome help with some of the finer points of their English translation as people are reluctant to say anything because their English is so good and people don't want to seem rude.. I think this is because in the English speaking world we are so lazy in learning other languages we don't like to be seen to be criticising anyone who has bothered to learn English ..

hope this helps

I changed the bake into sauté, which is what I really meant. Smooth glossy paste isn't exactly what it is, so I changed it into substance. It should be dry.

Also does anyone know the correct translation for "bloem" (and it's not flower, and "meel" means flour)

Lasagna is made different in the States than in Europe.
In the States we add a seasoned tomato sauce (like spagetti or pizza sauce) and never a white sauce. I was really disappointed the first time I had lasagna here and thought the white sauce was weird. But the kids liked it. And unless it is a vegi lasagna the only vegis you get are the ones added to the sauce.
Also using Gouda or Edam isnt very common in the States they mostly only use Mozarella. Using Gouda or Edam would be alot more expensive.

bloem is bloom Im pretty sure can also mean bud the beginning of a flower or a baby flower

Are you trying to say whole grain? Or multigrain/wholewheat flour. Is it made from wheat or corn? Wholewheat still has part of the wheat buds in the flour and isnt bleached white like common flour is.

Bloem is grain (sometimes, wheat) with the shelling, bran and sprouts (used google translations for those 3 words) removed and made into a very fine powder.

As for the seasoning, it's the garlic, basil, pepper, salt and oregano. The only difference between what I use and seasoned tomato sauce is that the seasoned one adds loads of salt making it taste better (although very unhealthy).

I use this:

ya thats whole wheat. I posted it wrong previously multigrain is the one with parts of the grain and whole wheat is finely ground just like white flour.

mince meat would be hamburger. Mince meat in the States is a filling for pies made of rasins I think. Although a long time ago it was an assortment of both.
Here you go mincemeat
Ive never had the original mincemeat with real meat only the one with fruit mostly rasins and spices.

here found this recipe for you of typical American style lasagna so you can see how different they are. This site is cool it will give you the measurements and stuff in standard and metric just by selecting one or the other right above the ingredients. (Forgot the ricotta cheese most important and best part of the lasagna )

American style lasagna

This post has been edited by Shebuddy: Aug 11 2008, 04:24 PM

In the UK,We call meat and sweet pie filling mince meat (depending on the recipe depends on the type of mince) ... Ground beef is probably a better description in a multi cultural forum, lasagna with raisins and orange peal yum.....

@shebuddy: I think it'll taste great, much sweeter then mine I suppose. I'm not that much of a fan of sweet tastes personally.

The long boiling of the sauce makes a much more firm lasagne, and will work quite well in my recipe as well. But it takes me to long so I only let it boil for about 10-20 minutes. Also

I changed squashed tomatoes to crushed and added ground meat to the recipe. Also, I think it's good to use 1000ml crushed tomatoes instead of 500ml, as 500ml is good for 2 people.

Also, you can exchange the vegetables for anything you like or leave them out altogether.