Simple (but so good) Chard and Sausage Lasagna

When I cooked at The Still Life in Fremont I had a love/hate relationship with lasagna as the lunch special. Love because it's easy (serve with salad, done) and endlessly adaptable to what's on hand or in season. Hate because half the time it turned out a little too wet and slippery and made for terrible presentation. Then I learned a trick: don't cook the noodles ahead of time, and I mean regular lasagna noodles, not the no-cook kind. When the noodles cook right in the dish with everything else, they soak up a lot of the liquid so a lasagna with vegetables doesn't turn into a sloppy mess. The recipe below includes sausage and chard, but you can use just about anything (pre-cooked) for the "flavor layer" - butternut squash, zucchini, chicken, ground beef, mushrooms, and on and on. We make a 9x13 pan for dinner and freeze the leftovers for emergencies, a.k.a. nights when we're too tired to cook.

Lasagna with Chard and Sausage
makes roughly 8 servings

6 cups cups tomato sauce (about 1 1/2 jars)
11/2 pounds mozzarella, grated
1 cup grated parmesan
1 15 oz container of ricotta
15 dried, regular lasagna noodles
1 onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 large bunch of chard (or other hearty greens)
1 pound hot italian sausage, out of the casing

• Preheat the oven to 375.
• Saute the onion in a little olive oil until the edges start to brown. Add the garlic and saute until its edges are just starting to brown. 
• Add the sausage and cook until done, breaking it up into small pieces as you go.
• Cut the chard into thin strips and give it a rinse. Add this to the sausage and onions in the pan. Cook until wilted. This is your flavor layer.
• Combine the parm and mozzarella and divide into three piles (the third one a little bigger than the other 2).
• Heat up and doctor the sauce however you'd like. It's annoying that 1 jar of store-bought sauce is too little and 2 is too much. I use 1 jar, a can of tomatoes, about 1/2 a cup of red wine that's been reduced, and a bunch of herbs to make about 6 cups. 
• Set aside 2 cups of sauce for the final layer. If you are running short in the middle layer your can skimp on sauce, but you can't skimp on the top layer or the trick of the uncooked noodles won't work.
• Follow this order to layer the lasagna into a 9x13 pan: sauce, noodles set down the short way (break off the ends to make them fit), sauce, flavor layer, ricotta (don't bother spreading it, just drop it down in little lumps), cheese, noodles, sauce, flavor layer, ricotta, cheese, noodles.

 

• For the top, use a generous amount of sauce and make sure that all of the top noodles are covered. Sprinkle with the remaining cheese. 
• Bake covered for 45 minutes (do your best to tent the foil a little so it's not resting on the cheese), then remove the foil and bake until the top is browned - usually 15 minutes more. I put a sheet pan on the rack below to catch any drips of bubbling sauce.
• Let it cool for 15 minutes before serving or it will goo all over and burn the roof of your mouth. I set the timer and make myself wait. Portion it out for leftovers the next day when it's cold.

The List, week of May 31st

Possible new posts (if the recipes turn out just right): Lasagna, Beans and Rice, Paella.

Carbonara

I love Carbonara. First of all, what's not to like? It's a simple pasta made of eggs, cured pork (guanciale, pancetta, or bacon), Parmesan or Romano cheese, and black pepper. Second, I have a double dose of nostalgia for this dish. When I was growing up one of my most favorite dinners was one Mom called Bacon Spaghetti. She laughed to hear that is was my favorite because it was something she made when she was feeling broke and the cupboards were a little lean. It wasn't until I went to Rome in college that I realized that Bacon Spaghetti was really Spaghetti alla Carbonara. As I continued to travel in Europe I had Carbonara almost every time I saw it on a menu. In Italy, it is often came as a swirl of creamy, salty, perfect spaghetti with a raw egg yolk floating in the center. The second it arrives at the table you stir in the yolk.

The night we made this we splurged and bought guanciale (cured pork jowl) from Sea Breeze Farms and, though not necessary, it made it extra good.

Pasta alla Carbonara

serves 4

1 poound spaghetti or bucatini

8 oz. cured pork (guanciale, pancetta, or bacon)

1 egg and 3 yolks
1 cup finely grated Parmesan or Romano cheese, plus extra for garnish

black pepper and/or red chili flakes

• Put your pasta water on to boil. This dinner comes together very quickly.
• Cut the bacon into cubes and cook in a pan until just starting to brown. Sprinkle generously with fresh cracked pepper and a pinch of red chili flakes. Continue to cook until the pork is light brown (about 2 or 3 minutes more).  If you're using pancetta or guanciale, add a little olive oil and be careful not to over-brown - they have less fat and are a little more sensitive to temperature than bacon
• Remove the pan from the heat and let cool while you wait for the pasta.
• When the pasta has about 5 minutes left, put the eggs, 1 cup of the cheese, and everything from the bacon pan, including the fat and the pepper, in a largish bowl. Using a fork, beat the heck of this mixture. It should be really well combined and maybe a little like a paste.
• When the pasta is done, scoop out about a half cup of the pasta water, drain the pasta, and quickly add it to the bowl. Use your fork to mix everything together. Add a little pasta water bit by bit until the sauce is silky. Using very hot pasta and hot pasta water, is important so that the eggs are tempered.