No one knows cooking like grandmas. Especially Italian grandmothers, who love cooking large amounts of food for their families. It’s their way of showing their love.
Of course, one of the most common dishes in Italian households is pasta. It comes in all shapes and sizes, and it can be prepared in many different ways, as well as it can be accompanied by a wide variety of sauces and impress even the most demanding palate.
Everyone loves lasagna
Lasagna is probably the oldest type of pasta and it originated in Italy during the Middle ages, while it has been traditionally associated with the city of Naples.
The traditional Neapolitan lasagna, or lasagne, is made with meatballs, sausage, eggs, and ricotta cheese. However, there are plenty of alternatives including mozzarella cheese, ragù, meats, and veggies. What they all have in common, however, is that they are all baked.
Meet the Pasta Grannies
While it is best to try lasagna in Italy, made by an original Italian cook with fresh ingredients coming from Italian grocery stores, you can try making them at home. And Pasta Grannies is a YouTube channel that intends to show you how Italian grannies cook their unique recipes.
Grandma Maria
Like Maria, the 91-year-old grandma who is teaching us how to make traditional lasagna in the video below.
As she explains, she has been making pasta all her life, so this probably means she can cook it with her eyes closed! Indeed, the way she makes the pasta dough and the sauce indicates she is a pro.
She makes it look easy
As Maria and her daughter, Paola, prepare the pasta and the sauce, we have the chance to admire the old woman’s skills and how effortlessly she does everything in her kitchen.
As you can see in the video below, Maria first prepares the pasta dough, using spinach, flour, and eggs. She then rolls out the dough to make the lasagna. After that, she moves on to the preparation of the ragù.
Once the meat sauce is ready, Paola prepares the bechamel sauce, and then it’s time to assemble the dish.
Her method
The experienced home cook puts layers of boiled pasta, meat sauce and bechamel in a baking dish and tops it all with parmesan cheese. Once baked, the dish is ready to devour!
For the pasta you will need:
- 10 eggs
- 1 kilo 00 flour
- 100g fresh spinach, leaves only
Mix the spinach leaves with the flour thoroughly. Then, add the eggs and knead your dough. Use a rolling pin to roll your dough into a big sheet of pasta dough.
Make your meat sauce using:
- 2 garlic cloves
- 2 to 3 sage leaves (wrapped in muslin)
- 50g unsmoked pancetta, diced
- 1kg minced pork (Maria uses loin)
- 1 litre meat stock (Maria uses beef)
- 1 x 400g tin of tomato paste
- salt
To make the ragù, you will have to fry the pancetta, then add the meat and mix well. Pour in some more olive oil so the meat doesn’t stick to the pot. Wrap the chopped garlic cloves and sage leaves in muslin, and add them in the pot, so that you can easily remove them later on. Season the sauce and add the meat stock to cover the meat. Add the tomato paste and let the sauce simmer for at least an hour.
For the bechamel you will need:
- 100g butter
- 100g flour
- 1 litre whole milk
- 1/2 a nutmeg, grated
Warm the milk. In a saucepan, add the butter and flour to make the roux. Once combined, add the milk gradually making sure there are no lumps in the mixture, whisking all the time.
Cut the pasta dough into rectangular lasagna. Boil the pasta for two minutes in boiling salted water.
Assemble the dish. In a baking dish, place some tablespoons of the meat sauce and then top that with pasta. Add more meat sauce, bechamel and parmesan cheese. Repeat until you have seven layers, then add some diced butter on top. Bake in a moderate oven for twenty minutes.
Watch the video below to see grandma Maria in action.
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