I finally got kicked off my POA for this month. I should have spaced out the items for the month, but looks like it’s going to be a marathon of a sort. I still haven’t begun my Daring Baker Challenge for the month and each passing day is only making me more nervous.Last week I made Lasagna. I referred the recipe from Allrecipes – this recipe received excellent ratings. I learned a lot about how I could improve the dish by going through the review (that’s what I love about Allrecipes; you can expect how a dish is going to turn out). I made a couple of modifications to it, or actually a lot of modifications to it to suit my taste.
Mutton Lasagna
* 8 big tomatoes
* 2 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
* 1 cup finely chopped onion
* 2 cloves garlic, crushed
* 4 green chillies, chopped
* 350 pound mutton mince
* 2 tablespoons white sugar
* 1/2 tablespoon salt (or to taste)
* 1/2 cup fresh basil leaves
* 1 teaspoon fennel seeds
* 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
* 1 teaspoon ground black pepper (or to taste)
* 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
* 12 lasagna noodles
* 400g cottage cheese (paneer)
* 1/2 tsp nutmeg
* 1/2 cup sliced black olives.
* 200 grams mozzarella cheese, sliced
* Parmesan cheese, to sprinkle
- Peel,deseed and coarsely chop the tomatoes. Set half of it aside. Make a paste using the rest.
- Heat the oil in a pan. Add to it onion, garlic, green chillies, Italian seasoning and the mutton. Saute till it has browned slightly. Add the tomato paste as well as the chopped tomatoes, salt and sugar. Season with basil, Italian seasoning, fennel seeds, pepper and parsley. Let it simmer covered for 45 minutes.
- Prepare the lasagna according to package instructions. Rinse with cold water after it is ready. To prevent them from sticking to each other and to retain moisture, brush them with olive oil.
- Grate the paneer and add to it the nutmeg powder.
- To assemble, spread 4 sheet of at the bottom of a 9×12 inch baking dish. Spread with one half of the paneer. Spoon over it half the meat sauce. Top with half the olives. Lay the next 4 lasagna sheets and repeat the procedure. Finally top with the mozzarella and Parmesan cheese. Cover with foil to prevent the cheese last 4 lasagna sheets, lay the mozzarella slices, sprinkle with Parmesan cheese and cover with foil to prevent it from browning too soon. Bake at 200 degrees Celsius for 20 minutes and then remove the foil and bake for another 10-15 minutes.
While it was baking, the fragrance of the mutton and basil enveloped the apartment and I knew my experiment was a success!
Just a while ago, I took a trivia quiz about lasagna, and got 9 out 10 answers correct! You can take this quiz at Sploofus- It’s a lot of fun!