I haven’t fired up the oven for some time, but since I’m not too keen on making sugary things, I decided to try my hands at making lasagna. Being the overachiever-wannabe that I am, I decided to also make my own lasagna pasta sheets instead of buying premade from the store. This dish is completely homemade.
Pasta hanging out
On hindsight I am a reckless if not fearless cook. This is my first time making lasagna, and I insisted on making my own pasta sheets. I do not own a noodle rolling machine thingy ( that creates noodles from dough), so everything had to be by hand. I have never made pasta noodle dough before, and I went according to the recipe I found online. For most parts. I tweaked the recipe being the smart aleck that I am, and came up with a too-hard dough and it was too late to add more moisture to it by the time I acknowledged that it was my mistake and the dough is completely gross. So I had to roll it own painstakingly. I don’t own a typical rolling pin either. Mine is a plain cylindrical wooden stick, without handles like the Western sort of rolling pin. So imagine this – palm rolling on rolling pin exerting force on too-hard dough. Now as I press my palm together I feel bruised, like a dull ache you get when you press on your orcheh (blue-black bruise). The result? I couldn’t get thin and stretchy sheets. All I got were thick sheets not unlike the kind used in meehoonkueh /minfunkoh , a Chinese noodly dish.
But I pressed on. I cooked the beef and tomato filling, I grated my cheeses and assembled the thing and popped it into the oven. It certainly looked the part.
The cheesy layer makes up for everything I suppose. I simply adore the taste of oven baked cheddar; there’s this complex saltiness that reminds me fondly of squid snacks. the filling is leaking everything, it was a mess, but I suppose deep-dish lasagna ought to be like this – messy, wet but nonetheless comfort food.
I managed to cut and extract a piece for a cross-section shot, which in my opinion is a feat by itself. This, I applaude myself.
In case you’re wondering, I have no bechamel or white sauce layer; only copious amounts of cheddar and mozzarella cheese layered among the dough and tomato beef.
Overall, if I can improve the texture and thickness of the pasta layer, I have a winning dish. This requires some tweaking, but I suppose I will eventually get there someday.
