It’s Laura’s birthday today, so I offered her the dinner of her choice last night. After much hemming and hawing, she settled on lasagna. I found an intriguing recipe for mushroom lasagna with pancetta and sage on Cook’s Illustrated (subscription required). It’s a little more involved than the dishes this busy cook usually attempts, but what are birthdays (and sisters) for? And, for the record, the extra effort was totally worth it. This is the best lasagna I’ve had in ages. The recipe has several things going for it: a mushroom triple threat, flavorful cheeses and pancetta. I can’t wait to dig into my leftovers!
We start the recipe by roasting thickly sliced portabella mushrooms until the liquid inside has released and evaporated. This extra step is genius–mushrooms are tasty, but in a lasagna (or even on a pizza), they have a tendency to release their liquid and make a soupy mess. This initial steps eliminates that effect. Pre-roasting the portabellas intensified their flavors, too.
As you can see from the photo, this lasagna is made with a white (bechamel) sauce, which is fancy talk for milk thickened with flour cooked in butter. (We used rendered fat from pancetta instead.) This recipe calls for “fortifying” the bechamel with sauteed white mushrooms, dried porcini mushrooms and the soaking liquid from the porcinis. It is also flavored with dry vermouth. We used 2% milk–plenty rich for us. The end result was a creamy sauce with an intense mushroom flavor. Yum!
As if the mushroomy goodness of this recipe wasn’t enough, it is elevated by salty, delicious pancetta, which is mixed with the roasted portabella and sauteed red onions as one of the layers in the lasagna. The pork added a depth of flavor and richness to the lasagna. For vegetarians out there, I don’t think it’s vital to the recipe, but for carnivores, it’s a fantastic addition.
Also revelatory were the cheeses used in the recipe: Italian fontina and parmesan. I’m used to having lasagna with mozzarella cheese, which is great. But the fontina and parmesan together were so much more interesting–together, they had a buttery, nutty flavor that was perfectly matched with the mushrooms and pancetta.
Cook’s Illustrated recipes are generally fantastic, and this recipe is no exception. The birthday girl was well-pleased , so I deem this recipe an enormous success!
Clacked by Molly B.
on Feb 02, 2009 @ 08:26 EST5EDT
