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Luxe Lasagna: New flavors and fillings rev up this comfort food classic
• by Brenda Kimberlin · Photo by Josh Monken
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Sometimes you should mess with a good thing. Take classic, red sauce lasagna – it’s such a satisfying, familiar dish that we tend to forget it’s just a recipe. But these days it doesn’t seem fair to limit lasagna to meat, sauce, pasta and cheese when there are so many other flavorful ingredients just waiting to get together in that casserole dish.
Eddie Fitzgerald Bohn, executive chef at La Gra Italian Tapas and Wine Bar in Dogtown, makes grilled vegetable lasagna that pairs feta cheese, capers and olives with traditional pasta, red sauce and ricotta cheese. “[There are] a thousand ways to make lasagna,” Fitzgerald said. “That’s just our spin on it.”
Even chefs who specialize in Italian cooking recommend pairing nontraditional ingredients. “It doesn’t have to be Italian,” said Adam Gnau, executive chef at Acero in Maplewood. Acero’s winter Italian bistro menu doesn’t include traditional lasagna, but it features a “baked dish of the day” that layers earthy ingredients like polenta, mushroom ragù, wilted arugula and pecorino cheese in a single-serving casserole dish. Another version pairs celery root purée with braised oxtail and Parmesan. “Anywhere that you look, there’s ingredients,” Gnau said.
When chef Greg Tournillon went looking, he found potatoes. Tournillon, who owns Foodies Marketplace and Deli in Chesterfield, uses the tubers in place of noodles for his seasonal wild mushroom-potato lasagna. To prepare the potatoes, Tournillon boils whole potatoes (skin on) for an hour and a half over low heat. After they’ve had time to chill, he peels and then slices them using a mandoline. Next, Tournillon pan-fries the potatoes in a little clarified butter to make them “sturdier for layering.” After each layer, he adds a filling of caramelized mushrooms and a mixture of Grana Padano, Asiago, Parmesan, smoked mozzarella and ricotta cheeses. “On … top, we put the cheese mixture and top it with crispy leeks, fried in peanut oil and drained,” said Tournillon, who also offers a pasta-based lasagna made with grilled vegetables and smoked Gouda, a three-mushroom and spinach lasagna with Swiss cheese, and a traditional Bolognese lasagna.
Root vegetables also form the foundation for the winter squash, root vegetable and forest mushroom lasagna found on the seasonal spa menu at Harvest Seasonal Market Cuisine in Richmond Heights. Executive chef Nicholas Miller layers spinach, almond milk mozzarella, three kinds of squash, four kinds of mushrooms and a rich butternut squash purée among thin slices of celery root, rutabaga, turnips and parsnips.
During the last 10 minutes of cooking time, Miller adds another layer of almond milk mozzarella on top. When the dish is done, he plates it with a roasted chestnut sauce and a touch of balsamic syrup. “It’s fun to experiment,” he said. “You get to throw in all [these] different flavors together. It’s what chefs like to do.”
Andy Ayers of Riddle’s Penultimate Cafe & Wine Bar also is known to have a penchant for local flavors. In fact, his classic lasagna features Italian sausage made in-house from Missouri-raised pork and beef. The Loop restaurant’s menu includes a béchamel-based, creamed spinach lasagna, too, but Ayers said there’s no reason to limit protein fillings to cheese or meat. He once offered a seafood lasagna on his menu. “My favorite [fish filling] is halibut,” Ayers said. “[It has] a beautiful consistency.”
But perhaps the ultimate “luxury” lasagna ingredient is fresh pasta. Stellina Pasta Cafe in south St. Louis offers a rotating selection of fresh pasta lasagnas. During the winter months, chef and owner Jamey Tochtrop pairs handmade, whole-wheat lasagna noodles with roasted butternut squash. Other choices have included roasted vegetable lasagna, Italian sausage and artichoke lasagna, and roasted zucchini with prosciutto lasagna. “If you’re doing a meat type of thing, don’t rule out [meats] like prosciutto … or pancetta,” Tochtrop said.
Chef Chris Kramer, who owns Two Nice Guys Family Restaurant and Trattoria in Kirkwood and Oakville, also makes his own pasta. Doing so gives him the freedom to adjust the flavors of the noodles to the lasagna he’s preparing. “Sometimes for a vegetarian lasagna, we purée spinach and add it to the dough,” he said. But if tackling fresh pasta at home sounds too hard or intimidating, Kramer assured us it’s not. All you need are eggs, flour, olive oil, salt and an inexpensive pasta machine or rolling pin. (See his recipe for fresh lasagna noodles at www.saucemagazine.com.) After all, even the most luxurious lasagna dish is rooted in simple, rustic tradition. “Making homemade noodles didn’t start in the greatest gourmet kitchen,” Kramer said. “It started in home cooking.”
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Fresh Pasta for Lasagna Noodles
Courtesy of Two Nice Guys Family Restaurant and Trattoria’s Chris Kramer
4 servings
Equipment: basic pasta machine or rolling pin
2 cups flour
3 eggs
1 Tbsp. olive oil
Pinch of salt
• First, put the flour on a clean, smooth work table or cutting board. Make a well in the center and add the eggs, olive oil and salt.
• Using a fork, whip the eggs in the well and slowly pull in the flour. When it starts to become pretty thick, use a dough knife or your hands to work the dough into a ball. The dough should be pretty pliable and elastic.
• As soon as you have a nice dough ball, knead it a little bit and then wrap it in plastic. Next, put the wrapped dough ball in the refrigerator and let it rest for at least 30 minutes.
• When it’s finished resting, take the dough ball out, cut off a third of it and run it through the pasta machine starting with the biggest setting. Continue to run it through over and over until you get it as thin as you would like, going down in settings as it thins. It’s also OK to fold it over as you thin it out. (If using a rolling pin, simply roll and flatten it to the desired thickness.)
• After you get the pasta to desired thickness, you can begin cutting it into sheets. After the sheets are cut, dust them with flour and let them dry at room temperature for 30 minutes or so.
• When the pasta is done drying, you can either start cooking with it, or put it in the refrigerator, where the noodles will last for about a day. If you have pasta leftover, you can use it to make any other kind of pasta shape you prefer.
Winter Squash, Root Vegetable and Forest Mushroom Lasagna
Courtesy of Harvest Seasonal Market Cuisine’s Nicholas Miller
To save time, Miller recommended preparing the precooked vegetables a day ahead.
8 servings
2 large butternut squash
2 spaghetti squash
Olive oil*
Kosher salt and cracked black pepper
8 oz. portabella mushrooms, stems removed
8 oz. oyster mushrooms
3 acorn squash, peeled and seeded
6 parsnips, peeled
1 large celery root, peeled
1 medium rutabaga, peeled
1 lb. fresh spinach, blanched
1 lb. grated almond milk mozzarella, divided (available at Whole Foods Market)
Roasted chestnut sauce
• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
• Cut 1 butternut squash and both spaghetti squashes in half lengthwise, using a spoon to remove the seeds. Lightly coat with olive oil and roast in the oven for about an hour (squash is done when soft to the touch). Keep the oven at 350 for later use.
• Using a fork, remove the spaghetti squashes’ flesh and chill it. Remove the butternut’s flesh with a spoon and season it a bit with salt and pepper before puréeing it in a food processor, then chill it.
• While the squash chills, prepare the mushrooms. Season and grill the portabellas until softened. Cut into thin slices and set aside. Season the oyster mushrooms with olive oil, salt and pepper, then roast them in the oven for about 8 minutes. When the oyster mushrooms are done, allow them to chill. Keep the oven at 350.
• Lightly oil a 13-by-9-inch baking dish. Use a mandoline to thinly slice the second butternut squash, acorn squash, parsnips, celery root and rutabaga. The slices should be about 1∕8-inch thick.
• Begin layering the pan with your ingredients, including the blanched spinach and grated cheese, but reserve ½ cup of cheese for the top. There is no set order for the layers, though the raw butternut squash is firmest and should form the base. Use the butternut squash purée as your “sauce” and season each layer with salt and pepper as you build the lasagna.
• When you’re finished layering, cover the lasagna with aluminum foil and bake it for 1 hour.
• Remove the foil, sprinkle on the reserved mozzarella, and bake the lasagna, uncovered, for an additional 15 minutes. When it’s ready, remove and let sit for 5 to 10 minutes. Then slice and serve on roasted chestnut sauce.
*Miller doesn’t use oil in Harvest’s version, but he said home cooks might find it easier to use a little.
Roasted Chestnut Sauce
Courtesy of Harvest Seasonal Market Cuisine’s Nicholas Miller
1 lb. chestnuts
2 ribs celery
1 large shallot, peeled
1½ quarts apple juice
½ lemon, juiced
• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Score the chestnuts and blanch them in boiling, salted water for 10 minutes. Transfer the chestnuts to a roasting pan and roast them in the oven for 15 minutes, rotating the pan after 8 minutes to ensure even roasting.
• Remove the chestnuts and peel them while they’re still warm. Chop the chestnuts, celery and shallots and place them in a saucepan, along with the apple and lemon juices. Simmer the mixture for 30 minutes.
• Working in small batches (never fill the blender more than halfway), purée the mixture until smooth.
• Next, push the purée through a fine mesh strainer. Return the purée to the saucepan and season with salt and pepper. Keep the sauce warm until the lasagna is ready. If it becomes thick, simply thin it with a little water. To plate, spoon the sauce onto the plate and place the lasagna on top.
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