I’ve by accident purchased too many containers of dried lasagne sheets. How can I take advantage of them up?
Jemma, by e mail
That is sounding all too acquainted to Jordon Ezra King, the person behind the A Curious Prepare dinner publication. “It’s humorous Jemma asks this,” he says, “as a result of I used to be on this very same scenario earlier this 12 months after over-catering for a shopper dinner.” The very first thing to say is there’s no instant rush, he provides: “It sounds apparent, however you possibly can maintain the containers for a very long time.” Happily for Jemma and her buying mishap, nonetheless, lasagne sheets are additionally versatile, and their form doesn’t need to dictate what you do with them.
With this in thoughts, soupy issues are good to get on the weekly dinner rotation, be that pasta e ceci or minestrone, the latter being the go-to of selection for Mattie Taiano, chef and co-owner with Ravneet Gill of Gina’s in Chingford, Essex: “Simply bash up the lasagne sheets with a rolling pin and chuck in all of the bits.” Theo Randall, chef-patron of Cucina Italiana on the InterContinental London Park Lane, in the meantime, would break the pasta lengthways and cook dinner it in boiling salted water: “Add that to a ragu-like sauce with a number of the pasta cooking water and a beneficiant knob of butter. Simply be sure to cook dinner the pasta and sauce collectively for no less than three minutes, so that they mix in texture and flavour.”
Ezra King and Randall’s subsequent port of name could be the fragile silk handkerchiefs of Liguria in north-western Italy. “In case you had been to make the pasta your self, you’d primarily be making lasagne sheets anyway,” Ezra King says. Historically, these pasta squares are layered up with pesto for mandilli de sea, for which Randall cooks lasagne in boiling salted water earlier than lifting them into a big frying pan with a ladleful of the cooking water. Add some (ideally home made) contemporary pesto, then cook dinner, tossing, and serve topped with grated parmesan and black pepper.
Jemma might additionally stuff and roll her boiled lasagne sheets into cannelloni, Gill advises, and be as adventurous as she likes with the filling (assume squash and chard, or spinach, sausage and ricotta). However it might be sensible to not dismiss lasagne itself fully out of hand, Ezra King says: “The bolognese model dominates individuals’s creativeness, however lasagne is rather more of a framework.” That line of pondering can “set you free”, he provides, be that by roasting pumpkin to layer between pasta sheets with bechamel (“swap the same old nutmeg for sage”) and possibly fonduta. “In case you go farther south in Italy, they put little meatballs in there, or hard-boiled eggs,” Ezra King notes. “There are not any guidelines to lasagne, which is sort of cool.”
If time is a priority, in the meantime, there are a number of methods to getting it on the desk sooner. “A superb one is to combine the ragu and bechamel collectively, so that you’re not having to spoon them in individually,” Ezra King says. “In spite of everything, as soon as baked, they’re going to mix into one another, anyway.”
If all else fails, in the meantime, Gill could be inclined to get a bow on these containers: “You possibly can at all times give them away as presents,” she says. Effectively, it’s practically *whispers it* Christmas.
