Making the Best Lasagna! Like a Pro chef!

today we are going to be making lasagna and today  is actually one of my recipes believe it or not I   do have a lot of recipes one thing I want you  guys to keep in mind today is that this recipe   is flexible so feel free to modify it how you  see fit and this is not going to be like Jim's   recipe and we're not going to be adding English  mustard to this and we're not going to be adding   any lemon to it and no bloody nuts as well but  in any case hey Vincenzo I'm giving you some content   today we're making an Italian recipe so so I'd  like you to review it let me know what you think   there's nothing quite like making an Italian dish  with Spanish ingredients today we're going to be   making this delicious lasagna but we are going  to be using Spanish olive oil and if I'm not   mistaken this olive oil actually won the 2019  world championship for olive oils in the world   so it's actually quite a good olive oil and of  course the red wine that we're going to be using   today is from La Rioja which if you don't know  this is one of the regions in Spain which is   extremely famous for wines today we're going to  be making more of a bolognese type lasagna with  minced meat there are other types of lasagna that  we will make in the future as well but today we're   going to be doing this one and the mince meat is  half beef half pork you can do all beef you can   do all pork if you want but if you do half it  enhances the flavor it really does and if you   want to make this recipe even more delicious you  can add a little bit of pcheta to this yeah that   would also be quite tasty one important thing to  keep in mind though with making lasagna is the   ingredients or the quality of the ingredients so  we do have mozzarella di bufala actual Buffalo Mozzarella   from Italy and this brand from  Mercadona (grocery store) is actually pretty good if you get   good mozzarella if you get good parmigiano reggiano as well fresh basil and some other ingredients   that are high quality the as well as the minced  meat this was important and of course the tomato   sauce today we had to get just this um it enhances  the flavors and that in the end result will make   an even tastier lasagna and this is true for all  other recipes as well as far as the pasta Sheets   if you have fresh it's much easier these are  instant and well we're going to see how they   turn out because I didn't have much of a choice  unless I made it myself and I'm not going to make   it myself today because it's going to be it's  a bit of a laborious process making your own   pasta you can do it at home but it's going to  take a few extra hours and if you're going to   make a production is good but if you just want  to make something like quick and easy you Best   Buy it first we're going to prep the Sofrito  now the Soffritto Italian, Sofrito is the same   As Mirepoix in France yeah onions carrots and celery  these are the aromatics and if you haven't tried   celery before celery especially when it's fresh  and when you break it open it's very pungent so   you don't want to use too much of this because  otherwise it's going overpower the dish but   these are the aromatic vegetables that enhance  flavor so this is the base the foundation and   a Mediterranean Cuisine the Sofrito or as well as  in front with the mirepoix is very important also one   little cheffy thing is to have like a little  trash can next to you so you know instead of   taking this and then going over to the trash  you just dump everything here it makes life a   lot easier we're going to be cutting everything  Brunoise which means very very very small Dice and   if you guys want like a video on how to cut  burn Wall's dice or nothing like this I made   a video that I can leave a link down below for  you guys to learn how to use your knife a little better and if you have any little long pieces in  here like that it's okay as long as you cut it   thinly um you can go through this again like so  yeah just to chop it up now for the celery this   isn't really important but if you want to take off  the extra fibers you take a Parry knife such as   this and you can just peel the fibers back it's  not a must but it's optional if you want to do this if your pieces of celery are a little   big then just go through them with  the knife a few times to make them smaller now when peeling a carrot you can go  this way if it's easier for you yeah up and   down and turn slowly or you can hold it like you  would a potato in your your hand and go from top   to bottom some people also go from bottom to  top because this you can go both ways but I do   it top to bottom and slice or peel the whole  thing and of course if you have mulsh if you   have a garden you can use this for scrap which  is great so that way you don't throw it out if   you have a mandolin it helps also if you have  one with like a little burn wall setting these   little blades make your life easy and if uh  it comes with a protector it's even better more or less you want the size of the carrots  onions and celery more or less the size very   small also the reason why we cut the mirepoix so small is so it cooks faster and when we make   this sauce basically the ingredients will just  disappear if you have larger pieces and you want   to see them that's fine but if you don't want  to see like big pieces of onion and celery and   carrots cut them small today I'm going to show  you a few little chef Secrets as well so anytime   that you get any fresh herbs basil rosemary  thyme tarragon if you can find it anything like this if you take a paper towel  wrap them up damp in the paper towel they'll   actually last a lot longer in the fridge several  more days than they would otherwise because I got   these about 4 days ago and the state of the basil  is still quite fresh also if you take a little   basil choot like this and actually put it in a  glass of water after a few days you'll start to   notice Roots so if you want to grow some basil at  home um you don't have to go to the nursery just   go to this grocery store get a couple of these  stick them in a glass of glass of water and uh   you'll have some basil growing at home now we're  going to cook once the Pen's hot olive oil goes in throw on the leaves okay once you start  to see Ripples and it's slightly smoking   time to put the minc meat in we want  to Brown this off so keep it on high heat We'll add a little bit of salt you want a super hot pan  and you want to keep that heat   high enough because otherwise it won't  Brown so if you hear sizzling which you   still hear this is good because  it's sautéing no you're searing it you want this color that's the color that you want and once you get you know you start to see  that it's starting to stick like this where you   have nice Brown that brown flavor this is what  you want all right so leave it on high or medium   depending on your burner some burners cook a  little faster than others as well as a pan and   let it get that nice color you want to get it nice  and brown one thing that you want to make sure is   that you do not burn all of this on the bottom  it's very important not to burn this cuz this   is all the flavor so if you have a nice spatula  such as this you can scrape it off yeah or the fond more oil lots more oil once the Pan's hot yeah  keep in mind we don't want to burn this veggies go in and if there's not enough oil add a little more so whenever we're cooking anything it's  very important to season every element of   the dish you don't want to overseason it  meaning with salt or Pepper or anything   like this but you do want to season it  we can season it at the end however if   we're season it while we're cooking  it helps to enhance the flavor even more now what we're going to do is  we're going to add the meat back in and if you have a little too much  fat with the meat then you need to   like separate a little bit of it because we  don't want too much fat yeah give this a good   mix and now we're going to add the wine so  what we're going to do is that the wine is   going to deglaze the pan so it'll help  release all of this like fond that's at   the bottom this is important nothing like  a bit of Spanish wine and an Italian Dish little more so once the wine has reduced  at least by half and as you can see   here the meat has actually absorbed the  wine we're going to add the tomato sauce in so normally when you make bolog you don't want  it like super wet the sauce you want it more of   a meaty sauce and the consistency right now  is okay we want it a little wet why because   the pasta sheets they need to absorb extra liquid  and we don't want it to dry out in the oven so the   consistency more or less right now is pretty good  but what's going to happen this needs to cook for   a good you know 30 minutes 45 minutes or more  uh you want to bring it up to high heat bring   it up to a boil drop it down to low heat and then  what we're going to do is we're going to add the   top to it yeah you're going to put it on low and  let it cook nice and slowly and all the flavors   are going to then come together so while the  bologan sauce is finishing we're going to prep   these little pasta sheets so these little pasta  sheets um they're crap but in any case it's the   only thing I could get I have two options one we  can either put them in as is and we need to add a   little more water and everything to the lasagna  so they absorb it or we preo these for a few   minutes before we actually do it normally when you  pre-soak them if you take them out of the water um   before you actually layer the pasta they stick  like a you know what to each other so we need   to keep them in the water uh so the best thing to  do this is to get another like little tray fill   it with hot water and then leave them and then  when we go to layer this we take them out one by one also when you're making the pasta it  is a good idea to actually take the pasta   sheets take the tray that you're going to be  using we're not using this one we're using a   bigger one and count how many you think you're  going to need because if you don't have enough   you need need to make a trip to the store  I have two types of Ricotta this one's from   mercadona this one's from Italy one from mercadona is like tasteless one from Italy that has a lot   more flavor also the consistency is much  smoother yeah the one from mcadon has like   a very rough texture if you can see this this  would be better I'll mix the two one egg yolk   we just add the yolk not the white we don't  want this too runny just want this to firm   up a little bit while it's cooking so we'll  use the yolk little bit of salt little bit of pepper and there we have our mix later now as  you can tell the tomato sauce has reduced and   all the flavors that we have been cooking  and cooking and cooking have concentrated   when you swipe it like this if you can see  that it's dry on the bottom which it is still   it's a a little firm this is good you may  need to add a little bit of water to this   just so we have more sauce to use when we're  making the lasagna but this consistency isn't   that bad but we need just a little more  sauce so I'm going to add a little more water this is very subjective you need to use  your better judgment when you're making this   yeah because it'll be different for you on how  much you going to need to add yeah it depends   on how hot the pan is the cooking time etc etc  now is a good time to check to taste to see if   it needs more seasoning M that's really good so  for the monzarella de Bula since it is a fresh   cheese it can be extremely wet and if it's a  little too wet what you may want to do is to   literally cut it in half or smaller pieces and  just try to dry it off a little bit because we   don't want too much water yeah we don't want to  make this super super super wet first thing we   want to add a little bit of sauce to this you  can add just a little bit of tomato sauce if   you want but since I don't have any extra I'm  going to add a little bit of bolog yeah but uh   just a little bit you need to add sauce to the  bottom because otherwise it's going to be too dry it is a good idea to try to get these as close   together as possible sometimes to  make these work you have to cut them so sauce pasta sauce pasta ricotta and when you're making the lasagna  take your time yeah keep in mind this is   like layering a sandwich you want to take  your time and think about how you're going   to layer it and when layer it in it I'm going  to be adding flavor you basil fresh basil rip   it up add a few pieces here and there you  can add a little bit of parmesano as well parmesano and I'm going to add a little  bit of mozzarella not too much I'm just   going to add a little bit this just adds to  the goodness because this type of mozzarella   since it's Buffalo mozzarella and it's  from Italy it has a lot of flavor in   it and mozzarella is a good melting  cheese so if you want that gooiness   when you go into cutting it be sure to  add a lot going to put the rotta in the middle now since we did add egg to the ricotta  not much it is going to puff up a little [Music] bit today we're going to be doing four layers  you can do three minimum at least three this   is why I mean you need to make extra because  if you have this little Gap here you need to cut that little piece rest of the bolog is on top all right so once you have  everything on top we're going   to add a little more basil to  this I love basil as you can tell now you can add the basil at the end stage  when making the bowling use but um I prefer to add   it like this you also have the leaves you can see  it it's fresh you can distribute it more evenly   as well just make sure that you cover it with  cheese because otherwise it will dry out in the [Music] oven we're not going to be putting a bechamel on this  so we are going to be adding extra cheese to   this so we have that color and to prevent  the cheese from burning before the lasagna   is actually done all we need to do is heat  this up to a certain temperature where the   cheese inside melts and to where everything  all the flavors combine we need to cover this   so the cheese on top doesn't burn before that  happens and then at the end we can raise the   temperature in the oven higher put it on broil  and then get a nice golden brown color with the cheese all right now we're going to put this in  the oven for about 45 minutes to an hour [Music] [Music] eventually I'm going to let this cool down for  a few minutes because it's still a little too   hot and you do want to check it because we added  egg to this to make sure that it gets to at least   165 F yeah you want to make sure that you put the  thermometer directly in the center it looks good   if you want to put more cheese on it put more  that way you can get you know more of a nice   Browning on top also if you do use a bechamel you  will get a nicer color on top than what we have   here taste test time that is delicious the thing  is though about this is that when you leave this   for like a day or so the pasta absorbs more  of that flavor so when you eat this the second   day it's even better all right so a few little  things to keep in mind when making this recipe   the quality of the ingredients will enhance it  even more the thing that I would like to actually   improve with this recipe is next time maybe using  actual good tomatoes instead of the stuff that we   have but you know in any case it is what it is let  me know Down Below guys if you try this recipe and   how you like it also more importantly Vincenzo rate  my recipe let me know what you think Vincenzo did I   do a good job today uh what would you change would  you make it a little differently I did use a few   Spanish ingredients as well so you know it's not  100% Italian you know we did use wine from laa we   didn't use Italian and well the olive oil is also  Spanish it's not Italian as well so in any case   let me know what you you guys think down below  and be sure to check out this next recipe coming   up here on this next video and I will see you  guys again very soon until then take [Music] care

Channel: Chef James Makinson

Views: 76,352

Keywords: kitchen, James Makinson, Chef James, lasagna recipe italian, lasagna recipe vegetarian, food asmr, lasagna recipe food fusion, lasagna recipe, how to make lasagna, homemade lasagna, how to make lasagna at home, vincenzos plate, pro chef makes, like a chef, how to cook like a chef, How to Make Lasagna..Like a Pro Chef, chef james makinson makes, chef james makinson lasagna, food review, cooking asmr, food vlogs, italian cuisine, italian lasagna recipe with ricotta cheese

Id: RWK2JnPhpZk

Length: 19min 46sec (1186 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 14 2024