Vegetarian Lasagna

I would like to introduce my vegetarian take of the iconic comfort food Lasagna. Although this dish has developed countless versions all over the world, I remain a traditionalist. For me, Lasagna centres on the wonderful combination of aromatic tomato sauce with velvety béchamel sauce and Italian pasta, topped with a crust of melted cheese.

Accordingly, my vegetarian version features tomato sauce layered with mushrooms and a sinful amount of béchamel sauce. My guys prefer the traditional way of making Lasagna with a ragout sauce. However, recently I hosted a dinner for vegetarians with Lasagna as the main dish and I thought it would be nice to introduce my recipe here.

To make a proper béchamel, you need a rather large amount of butter. I believe Lasagne is not a dish where you can skip the calories. I would not advise substituting the béchamel with anything else. Au contraire, I suggest to splash a bit more cheese in between the layers. Lasagna needs to ooze buttery deliciousness. If you want to loose weight, don’t eat Lasagna.

I would like to warn you about one thing though. Don’t fill your baking dish to the brim. Remember, that the pasta sheets inflate quite a bit. If you don’t leave enough space, the Lasagna goes overboard and spills into your oven.

Because Lasagna takes quite a bit of effort, I always fill my biggest baking dish, which holds eight servings. If you want, you can prepare the Lasagna one day in advance. Bake it until almost done, keep it in your fridge and then warm it up for your guests. This makes Lasagna an ideal recipe for stress free dinner parties.

Wishing you happy cooking, always!

Kornelia Santoro with family

 

Vegetarian Lasagna

Ingredients (for 8 servings):

• 400 grams mushrooms (2 packets here in Goa)
• 250 grams Lasagna sheets (best Italian)
• 500 grams Mozzarella (or any other cheese that melts well)
• salt
• pepper
• butter to grease the baking dish
• baking dish 34 cm (13 inches) long, 19 cm (7.5 inches) wide and 6 cm (2.25 inches) deep

For the tomato sauce:

• 6 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 3 medium onions
• 4 big cloves garlic
• 2 medium carrots
• 1 medium beetroot
• 1 stick celery
• 2 packets tomato puree (200 ml each) or 1 big tin of Italian tomatoes
• 1 tablespoon dried oregano

For the béchamel sauce:

• 1 litre milk
• 100 grams butter
• ½ cup flour

Method:

I always start with making the tomato sauce. If you want to take a shortcut, you could substitute the homemade tomato sauce with a ready made one. However, making Lasagna is a lot of work anyway so you might as well make everything from scratch. For sure it is healthier this way.

Clean the onions, garlic, carrots, beetroot and the celery and chop everything into small pieces. I use my blender for this job. Place the vegetables into a pressure cooker, add the oil, the tomato puree or the tinned tomatoes and half a glass of water, close the lid and boil for half an hour after the first whistle. You can also use a normal pot and boil the tomato sauce until all the vegetables are really soft.

Season the sauce with salt and pepper and stir in the oregano. Dried oregano should never cook for a long time, that’s why it is better to add it after boiling the vegetables. If you want, you can take the taste of the tomato sauce into different directions with adding different herbs. You could for example use thyme or basil. Remember never to chop basil finely because the aromatic oils will evaporate.

While the tomato sauce is cooking, you can clean the mushrooms. I always peel them and give them a quick rinse with water. Never leave mushrooms in a bowl of water because they will soak up the liquid and not taste well. Grate the cheese and keep it aside.

  Now it is time for the béchamel sauce. Melt the butter in a pot over low heat. You don’t want to burn the butter. Stir in the flower and mix very well. There should be no lumps. 

Add a dash of milk to it. At this moment is it essential to keep stirring continuously. When the mild hits the butter-flour-mixture, it seizes up and turns it into a rather thick affair. Keep stirring until you have a homogenous mix before adding more milk. 

Always add only a cup or so and stir until the sauce has absorbed the liquid well. Keep adding until you have incorporated the full litre of milk. Now you need a bit of patience until the sauce boils. Keep stirring occasionally. When the sauce finally bubbles, switch it off and season with salt. Some people like nutmeg in their béchamel; I prefer it without. 

 

Now it is time to assemble your Lasagna. Slice the mushrooms and butter the baking dish generously. Keep everything in easy reach and use some big spoons or ladles.

Start with a layer of pasta sheets. Spread béchamel over it. Then follow with tomato sauce, sliced mushrooms and some grated mozzarella. Layer the ingredients into your baking dish. There might be some sauce left over (or maybe not). It is difficult to make exactly the amount needed. Remember not to fill the baking dish until the brim.

 

Finish with béchamel, a bit of tomato sauce and a lot of grated mozzarella. Bake the Lasagna in the oven at 190 degrees Celsius for 45 minutes. The cheese should form a golden brown, crunchy crust. If you have a gas oven like me, you might want to give it a few minutes under the grill to crisp up the cheese crust. Enjoy!

Cheese, a prime source for calcium

Take your daily dose of calcium!

Calcium is one of the most important minerals for our bodies. They are needed for many different functions, but I guess the most important is the health of our bones and teeth. Teenagers especially need a lot of calcium to grow healthy bones. Also elderly people need quite a bit of calcium to avoid osteoporosis (check the list below).

Cheese contains on average around 1000 milligrams of calcium per 100 grams. If you consume 150 grams of cheese every day, you meet your daily requirements. Of course, cheese and other dairy products are not the only sources for calcium but they are the most easily available. Small fishes like anchovies and sardines deliver around 400 milligrams of calcium per 100 grams. Calcium rich foods for vegetarians are broccoli, spinach, sesame seeds and other nuts.

Our bodies absorb calcium easily when they are young. However, you need vitamin D to be able to really use the calcium in your diet. Don’t be afraid of the sun. Around 15 to 20 minutes of direct sunlight helps your bodies to perform well. Recently, scientists discovered other benefits of high calcium intake. It may prevent weight gain because it helps the body to burn fat. It also shows beneficial effects with PMS, cancer prevention, high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease.

The Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) of calcium:

Children (ages 1-3): 500 milligrams per day
Children (ages 4-8): 800 milligrams per day
Youth (ages 9-18): 1300 milligrams per day
Adults (ages 19-50): 1000 milligrams per day
Adults (ages 51 or older): 1200 milligrams per day

Mini-Mushroom-Cheese-Pies

 

Dear all,

The best compliment for a cook is a hearty appetite. It is frustrating to put a lot of effort into preparing a lovely dish when you hear from your guests: ‘Only a tiny slice, please!’ I believe dinner parties are not the right place or time to think of losing weight and dieting. During a recent lunch party at our home, my guests ate almost everything. That made me happy. The Mini Mushroom Cheese Pies from this month’s newsletter vanished almost immediately.

Actually, I had prepared these pies by chance. I had made a spannakopitta, a Greek spinach pie, and I had some pastry left over. As I hate waste, I just threw the Mini Mushroom Cheese Pies together without a recipe. They turned out so well, that I decided to make them the subject of this newsletter. To be sure of the measurements and for the pictures, I made them again yesterday. Amazingly, my son and one of his friends (both teenagers) ate more than half of the two-dozen pies I had made.

These pies deliver a serious amount of calcium, always a good thing. The secret of the taste lies in the combination of three different cheeses; one of them is smoked cheese. Nowadays, you can find smoked Edam or Gouda cheese made in India in many supermarkets. I mixed this cheese with ‘mozzarella’ and goat cheese also of Indian provenance.

These Mini Pies are a great starter for a dinner party or a simple snack. You can prepare them in advance and just heat them in the oven before serving.
 
Wishing you happy cooking, always!
 
Kornelia Santoro with family
 

 

Mini Cheese Mushroom Pies

Ingredients (for 24 small pies):
 

• 3 cups whole-wheat flour
• 6 tablespoons olive oil
• 8 tablespoons cold water
• 300 grams cheese, preferably three different kinds, one of them smoked cheese
• 2 eggs
• ½ cup cream
• 200 grams white button mushrooms
• 2 cloves garlic
• butter or ghee for the pie moulds
• salt
• pepper

Method:

I am not an expert on short crust pastry but this savoury version works well for me. It is important not to over mix the ingredients. You don’t want to activate the gluten in the flour, which makes pastry hard. Pour the flour into a bowl; add the olive oil, the water and half a teaspoon salt. Mix everything with a spoon first and then bring the dough together with kneading it by hand – only until you have dough that sticks together. You might need to add some more water. Never mind if it is not completely smooth. Cover it with cling film and let it rest in the fridge for at least 30 minutes. This helps the pastry shells from shrinking in your pie moulds.

The next step is preparing the filling. While watching Heston Blumenthal on TV, I learned that it is better to grate cheese finely when you want it to melt smoothly. Actually, that is a great tip. Sometimes, little things like this decide if a dish turns out just nice or great. Anyway, grate the cheese on the fine side of a cheese grater. I cannot do this with my Philips Blender because the holes of the grating disc are too big. Place the grated cheese into a bowl.

Peel the mushrooms, give them a quick rinse and chop them into fine cubes. If your mushrooms are clean, you might not have to peel them. I prefer to peel them. Just don’t bath them in water: Mushrooms are like sponges; they soak up the liquid and taste horrible. Add the mushrooms to the grated cheese. Crack the eggs into the bowl. Clean the garlic, crush it and add it to the bowl. If you don’t like garlic just omit it. Add the cream, a pinch of salt (be careful if you have used salty cheese) and freshly grated pepper according to taste. Mix everything well together. You should have quite a solid mix. You don’t want it to be runny. This would turn the pastry shells soggy because we don’t blind bake them.

Now it is time to prepare the moulds. I use trays with small muffin moulds for this recipe. You can use any moulds or ramekins that you have in your kitchen. It is important to grease them properly with butter or ghee so the pies come out easily after baking.

Take the dough from the fridge and roll it out on a flat surface dusted with flour. If the dough cracks, try spreading cling film over it before rolling. That works most of the times. Take a glass that is big enough to cover the bottom and the sides of your moulds. Cut out circles with the glass and tease the dough gently into the moulds.

Preheat your oven to 190 degrees. Fill the mushroom cheese mix into the pastry shells and bake them in the oven for around 35 minutes, until they are golden brown on the top. I give them a few minutes under the grill in my gas oven to make sure they are properly cooked from the top. Remember that baking times vary according to your oven. The pies are done when they look cooked and there is a tiny gap between the pastry shells and the mould. Enjoy!