TUSCAN COOKING

Typical Recipes, First courses:

Lasagne

In the manner of "Auntie Liliana", the lasagne in Tuscany is among the best in the world! Every year we wait in anticipation for Christmas and Easter just because of Auntie Liliana's Lasagne. Don't be surprised if you find yourself eating 3 helpings of this delicious creation. Let us know how this exceptional creation turns out. Buon appetito!!

This is a photo of Auntie Liliana with her children in 1968. She still lives on a beautiful farm in the beautiful hilly, Tuscan countryside.

PREPARATION:

Ingredients for the sauce:

• 2 onions: 1 brown, 1 white
• 1 glove of garlic
• 1 leek
• 2 celery sticks
• 300 gr. boiled lean
• 300 gr. lean pork
• 100 gr. of chicken
• 4 chicken hearts
• some parsley
• 1/2 litre of milk
• extravirgin olive oil
• a bit of cinnamon
• 1 nutmeg
• pulp of 4 tomatoes
• a sage leaf
• rosemary
• a bay leaf

Ingredients for the Béchamel Sauce:

• 1.5 litre of milk
• 1 nutmeg
• salt and pepper
• 50 gr. butter
• 200 gm. plain flour

PREPARATION of the sauce:
1. Finely chop the onion, garlic, leek, celery and parsley. Lightly fry them in the oil with the sage, bay leaf and rosemary. Once the vegetables are browned remove the herbs.
2. Finely mince the meat. Add the meat to the vegetables and cook the combined ingredients for a further 20 minutes.
3. Add the tomato pulp, milk and a bay leaf and continue cooking the sauce over a medium heat for approximately 2 hours.

PREPARATION of the béchamel sauce:
4. Bring 1 litre of milk to the boil. Put 1/2 litre of cold milk into a separate saucepan and slowly add the flour (stirring continuously to avoid lumps), grated nutmeg and salt.
5. Put the saucepan containing the cold milk mixture over a medium heat and stir constantly until it begins to thicken. Add the boiling milk and butter and allow the sauce to thicken for a further 5 mins reducing the heat to low.

FINAL PREPARATION:
6. Cook the lasagne in a saucepan of salted boiling water.
7. Cover the base of a greased baking dish with a thin layer of meat sauce, then add a layer of bechamel sauce, and a layer of lasagne. (You can also add some parmesan cheese.) Repeat this process until all the ingredients have been used, finishing off with dobbs of butter on the top.
8. Cook the lasagne in a preheated oven for 1/2 hour at 180°.