Can't believe it took me this long to make a lasagna. I made beef ragu/bolognese a few times for regular pasta and never for lasagna.
The recipe that I followed came from The Food Lab with my usual modifications, of which I will only mention a few.
Kenjis' recipe calls for three sets of ingredients - ragu, ricotta mixture, and besciamella.
Kenji's recipe for the ragu is long and usual reader of my blog knows that I like to keep things to a minimal whenever possible. His audience is different from mine. I didn't use lamb (can't find ground lamb), chicken livers, celery (not a fan of celery), sage, red white (too expensive), fish sauce (don't feel like getting another bottle of condiment), and heavy cream.
I didn't make the ricotta mixture because ricotta cheese are expensive.
If I a chance, I would like to ask Kenji or any chef friends "what's the point of besciamella?" I am sure their answer is "flavor" but does it make a whole lot of difference?
I know the besciamella has a nutty flavor so I went ahead and made some but not with all the ingredients that Kenji used. Instead, mine consist of butter and flour, nothing more.
The pasta looks a bit rigid in this picture, doesn't it? Well, you would be right thinking so. I used this lasagna pasta brand and the instruction asked me to use the pasta straight out from the box into the lasagna pan (did I read it wrongly?). I was sceptical about the non-cook step so I cooked the pasta anyway but I didn't cook it long enough.
I do not have a cheese grater or a microplane so my cheese came out in chunks!
