So tasty! I followed the recipe pretty much exactly except I multiplied the bolognese recipe by 1.5x (to make extra sauce for pasta later), reduced the wine+meat+veggies mixture before adding other liquids, omitted the livers, browned my 3 lbs of meat by putting it in the broiler, and took 2.5 hours longer to reduce my bolognese.
In case this is helpful for anyone making the dish in the future:
**Timing for Bolognese**
* 1.5 hrs: cut everything (yes, I am unskilled at cutting veggies into tiny cubes)
* 0.25-0.5 hrs: Browned 3-lb meat patty in broiler
* 0.25 hrs: Mashed meat into small pieces with a fork and squished canned tomatoes into small pieces with fingers
* 0.25-0.5 hrs: Added wine to meat and veggies; reduced this quite a bit before adding the other liquids. Not sure if this change improves anything, but I did it because I’ve read that sometimes it makes sense to reduce the wine first before adding other liquids
* 3 hrs: Reduced sauce in oven at 275F in a dutch oven
* 2-3 hrs: Separated out the liquid and reduced it on medium-high heat until it became saucey (I was worried about overcooking the meat, which is why I separated out the liquid)
* 0.25 hrs: Ended up with 1-2 cups of grease floating on top of the liquid which I emulsified into the rest of the sauce by stirring in at low heat. Without emulsifying the grease, my sauce was really sad (just a bunch of wet meat and veggies in a watery soup), and adding the grease back in helped it become a creamy sauce
**Timing for Ricotta mixture and Besciamella**
* 1.75 hrs: Made ricotta mixture and besciamella (admittedly, I always have trouble making besciamella at a normal speed since my cheeses never seem to melt that well)
* 0.5 hrs: boiled lasagna sheets in salted water for 4 min per my lasagna noodles’ instructions, rinsed them in ice water, and assembled lasagna
* 1 hr: bake lasagna in two 9″ x 6.5″ pans at 375F until the edges were browned
All in all, it was about 11.25 hours of cooking with 6.75 inactive hours and 4.5 active hours. I’m probably around the average for cooking skills if you compare me to other 30-year-olds in the US, so you could cut down on those 4.5 hours with better skills or a second person helping.
I’ve seen some reviews state that the bolognese and/or the lasagna was way too creamy or meaty, but I personally loved it! I love mac and cheese, and I love typical American lasagnas, and this was about halfway between the two. In the future, I might add 2-3 tbsp of tomato paste to my bolognese, but it was already great as is, and I don’t know if I really care too much about adding extra tomato. I also followed Kenji’s Youtube video for lasagna to know how much sauce to put between each layer – one change I would make to this is to add maybe 1.5x as much bolognese. He seems to cover [around 60% of each layer](https://youtu.be/uCHKFwTYwjY?t=1147) with sauce, and I think I would ideally cover around 90-95% of each layer in the future. I found that I was eating each slice of lasagna with an extra spoonful of bolognese on the side.
The bolognese itself was also super tasty! So much flavor going on there. Acidic, creamy, full of umami, all with a velvety mouthfeel. My friend’s cat died a few days ago, and I’m happy I can give them such tasty food to comfort them during a rough week. <3
The only thing I didn’t quite understand about this recipe was adding the fish sauce at the end – does adding it at the beginning not work the same way? If anyone has any insight, please let know!
3 Comments
Looks good but a bit light on the sauce.
So what do you think? Worth all the work?
So tasty! I followed the recipe pretty much exactly except I multiplied the bolognese recipe by 1.5x (to make extra sauce for pasta later), reduced the wine+meat+veggies mixture before adding other liquids, omitted the livers, browned my 3 lbs of meat by putting it in the broiler, and took 2.5 hours longer to reduce my bolognese.
In case this is helpful for anyone making the dish in the future:
**Timing for Bolognese**
* 1.5 hrs: cut everything (yes, I am unskilled at cutting veggies into tiny cubes)
* 0.25-0.5 hrs: Browned 3-lb meat patty in broiler
* 0.25 hrs: Mashed meat into small pieces with a fork and squished canned tomatoes into small pieces with fingers
* 0.25-0.5 hrs: Added wine to meat and veggies; reduced this quite a bit before adding the other liquids. Not sure if this change improves anything, but I did it because I’ve read that sometimes it makes sense to reduce the wine first before adding other liquids
* 3 hrs: Reduced sauce in oven at 275F in a dutch oven
* 2-3 hrs: Separated out the liquid and reduced it on medium-high heat until it became saucey (I was worried about overcooking the meat, which is why I separated out the liquid)
* 0.25 hrs: Ended up with 1-2 cups of grease floating on top of the liquid which I emulsified into the rest of the sauce by stirring in at low heat. Without emulsifying the grease, my sauce was really sad (just a bunch of wet meat and veggies in a watery soup), and adding the grease back in helped it become a creamy sauce
**Timing for Ricotta mixture and Besciamella**
* 1.75 hrs: Made ricotta mixture and besciamella (admittedly, I always have trouble making besciamella at a normal speed since my cheeses never seem to melt that well)
* 0.5 hrs: boiled lasagna sheets in salted water for 4 min per my lasagna noodles’ instructions, rinsed them in ice water, and assembled lasagna
* 1 hr: bake lasagna in two 9″ x 6.5″ pans at 375F until the edges were browned
All in all, it was about 11.25 hours of cooking with 6.75 inactive hours and 4.5 active hours. I’m probably around the average for cooking skills if you compare me to other 30-year-olds in the US, so you could cut down on those 4.5 hours with better skills or a second person helping.
I’ve seen some reviews state that the bolognese and/or the lasagna was way too creamy or meaty, but I personally loved it! I love mac and cheese, and I love typical American lasagnas, and this was about halfway between the two. In the future, I might add 2-3 tbsp of tomato paste to my bolognese, but it was already great as is, and I don’t know if I really care too much about adding extra tomato. I also followed Kenji’s Youtube video for lasagna to know how much sauce to put between each layer – one change I would make to this is to add maybe 1.5x as much bolognese. He seems to cover [around 60% of each layer](https://youtu.be/uCHKFwTYwjY?t=1147) with sauce, and I think I would ideally cover around 90-95% of each layer in the future. I found that I was eating each slice of lasagna with an extra spoonful of bolognese on the side.
The bolognese itself was also super tasty! So much flavor going on there. Acidic, creamy, full of umami, all with a velvety mouthfeel. My friend’s cat died a few days ago, and I’m happy I can give them such tasty food to comfort them during a rough week. <3
The only thing I didn’t quite understand about this recipe was adding the fish sauce at the end – does adding it at the beginning not work the same way? If anyone has any insight, please let know!