The Ultimate Lasagna Recipe

Today I would like to show you how to make great lasagna. Okay guys I'm not Italian but I think I know a lot about cooking and I would like to take you step by step to make this mincemeat and tomato sauce amazing. The bechamel sauce with little tricks really really making your mouth taste buds crazy and the whole thing a big feast. Lasagna consists of actually three steps. One is making the mincemeat mixture, secondly it's the bechamel sauce and third how you combine it and put it in the oven. Let's start with the first one. For the mincemeat, I have a big pan. This is something we have designed in Turkey together with Karaca. I'm going to use this big pan and I'm going to put my double grind half a kilo of mincemeat. We're gonna beat it while it's on the pan. First the meat is gonna go light brown on one side and we turn to the other side and when the pinks are almost gone, we add the grinded onions. The onion juice is gonna get into the meat, soften it, make it even more tasty and first it's gonna go together we're gonna see the white onions then the white onions are gonna slowly disappear and then the meat is gonna slightly turn brown. It means it gets the millet reaction which it increases its taste. That's perfect in that sense. Then when it starts to lightly brown, we add the diced carrots but we don't cook them on the heat a lot, we just like have a few turns. Then I make a hole in the middle and I use tomato paste. Put a bit of olive oil to lighten up the mood and add a bit of flavor to it and I love the olive oil with lasagna very much and then put the salt and pepper. Before the meat gets diluted, we have to make sure that the meat soaks the salt and the pepperiness of everything. Then either add, if it's the season, tomatoes themselves which is like three whole big tomatoes would be great. If it's not the season and if you live in Turkey for example, I put tomato puree. With the tomato paste, they go really well. If you don't have tomato paste or puree, put canned diced tomatoes. 700 grams in total would be enough. To balance the acidity and the edge of the tomato taste, we need something. It could be either wine, red or white would do or if you don't use wine or don't have it at home right now, you can use vinegar. Then put the bay leaves, fresh would be good, dry could be okay and then a bit of rosemary. This will simmer for about 30 minutes and in 30 minutes, everything is gonna come to a taste balance which is gonna be gorgeous. With rosemary and bay and the smell of Maillard reaction is amazing. Now I have put it to the smallest eye of the stove and then also put the lid on. It's gonna just simmer. The Maillard reaction taste is gonna go to the tomato juice and the tomato is gonna swell the mincemeat making it bigger and larger so each spoon get more of that great taste. Now let's move to making the béchamel sauce. For the béchamel, a tablespoon of butter starts to get melted, we add two tablespoons of olive oil. I preferred olive oil, you can just do two tablespoons of butter but I like the lightness of the olive oil because the whole dish is quite heavy but this way this becomes a really light and enjoyable lasagna. Put two tablespoons of flour, when they're combined, it becomes a thick paste. Slowly the flour starts to become more runny, then you start to hear that nutty smell and that's the time to add the milk. The milk is plain milk, I also have a whisk in my hand, put a bit of milk and I start to whisk very fast and put a little more. This prevents it from lumping after around 300 milliliters. When I make sure there are no lumps, I add rest of the milk. Time to time, whisk it. I add a bit of salt and black pepper, then the nutmeg. Nutmeg takes the béchamel sauce to the next level, to a higher level. It's not a must but when it's there, it is amazing. So one third of a nutmeg gets in. At the final stage, the cheese. I have this Turkish string cheese called dil peyniri but you can also add a bit of mozzarella. This will thicken up the sauce, increase the taste very much. First, it will be runny, it will elongate, then it will stop and make it a thick paste. We're gonna cool both of them down and then we can move to the third stage of combining them together. All my ingredients are here, already cooled down, minced meat mixture, the sauce. I have this lasagna sheets. There are two types of lasagna sheets, one boiled with water and then used and these are ready-made. You can use them and in 20 minutes of cooking time, they become balanced. The juiciness of the fillings are made according to these sheets and then I have of course the cheese. This is Turkish string cheese and Bergama Tulum, Izmir Tulum. You can either use these beautiful cheeses, if you don't have access to it, you can use mozzarella and parmesan. You might say guys, we're making a lasagna, of course we're gonna use mozzarella and parmigiano but this is a Turkish chef showing people from in Turkey and around this region and everywhere in the world, so I try to give both of the alternatives for the ones who don't have the access to it. And for the tray, I have this 20 to 26 centimeters of a tray, so that you can arrange yours accordingly. Now when we start layering, the first layer is not the lasagna sheets, it's actually the meat. We put two big tablespoons of minced meat. You want to put more but we don't want because we have so many layers to fill. Widely spread it. Put a bit of béchamel sauce and the béchamel sauce is gonna be in thin chunks. You will have this tendency to straighten the béchamel sauce but don't do it. We want the chunks of the béchamel sauce and the meat mixture in separately, in each spoon. We want them to come to our mouth separately, so we do it this way. Then we put the lasagna sheets, three sheets for one layer. On the second layer, we start again with the minced meat and then the béchamel sauce. This time, we add a bit of cheese. Either mozzarella or the Turkish string cheese would do. For the next layer of lasagna sheets, we do not repeat what we have done before. Think of it as bricks. When you want to make a wall, you don't put the bricks on top of each other. You put it one side and the other side. So two horizontal, one vertical this time. This will repeat itself again and again until eight layers are done. On the top layer, what we're gonna do, first we put the minced meat again. We put a little bit more béchamel sauce because it's gonna dry a bit and I don't want it to dry. Watch out the sides. Sides can sometimes go very dry so I put extra béchamel sauce on the sides and then I put a bit more string cheese. Finally, either parmesan or Izmir tulum cheese. I grate a bit of it and then I put it in the oven. We're gonna use the lowest rack. Turn the rack upside down so it's gonna be a little higher but it's not in the middle. This way the bottom is gonna cook perfectly. It's gonna be 220 degrees Celsius. The Fahrenheit is written below. We don't want to dry it. So no fans, top and bottom. After 20 minutes our lasagna is gonna be ready but we shouldn't eat it immediately because everything's gonna be so hot and wiggly. We won't be able to cut it properly and it was gonna fall over the place. It's gonna taste amazing but let it rest at least for 5 to 10 minutes and then go on and eat it. I have a New Year's present. Actually he's a person we have met through YouTube. You guys also might know him in one of the videos I said vanilla pods are too expensive and I got a huge box from him with variations of all kinds of vanilla pods and extracts and everything and he's such a generous heart. Sometimes he comes to Turkey and he brings me some presents. This time the present is himself. So we're gonna share our lasagna with him. Thank you. I know you're full but I hope you'll enjoy it. This is the first thing that you're gonna try from my hands. Yeah I'm looking forward to it. Thank you. The first one always doesn't look great. I hope you enjoy it. No it looks good. Are you a lasagna person? I am yeah. I'm not allowed to make it anymore at home but yeah. Really? Yeah. Why? Because I don't make food very well. You make a mess or? Yeah Usually. Oh. Making a mess means... Sorry. I like it. Very tasty. Thank you. Take another bite. Okay. Thank you. It's very good. You didn't like it? No I did like it. It's very good. I just I don't know what to say. He's very full. Okay, okay. Don't move. Too embarrassed. No, no, no. I don't like. I prefer that side of the camera. Okay. Me too in fact. Yeah. I just wanted to thank him. I hope you enjoy the food by the way. Take good care. Loads of love. Well thank you for my lasagna. I'm gonna have another peace session. Okay.