Who has the best true Tuscan lasagna recipe?
 

My wife, family and friends just returned from a 3 week stay at a Tuscan villa. We had a wonderful time eating, drinking wine and visiting all the hilltop towns. As y'all know, food in Tuscany is just wonderful.

We ate lasagna several times and there is a distinct difference between American and Italian ingredients. For example, their texture is more creamy ~ almost as if they started with a white sauce.

Would you share your receipe with us?

When you say there's a difference between "American and Italian" ingredients, I assume you mean between the American lasagne you have tasted and the particular style of lasagne that you had in Tuscany. Neither American nor Italian cooking is uniform. Italian food is very regional. It sounds like the recipe you liked included some bechamel sauce, which is used a lot in the north (and which I dislike). You should be able to find some recipes online if you include "bechamel" in your search.

Here is a wonderful recipe that does indeed use a white sauce.

Here's a link to Saveur Magazine's recipe for lasagna - within the recipe it calls for other recipes (i.e. the ragu and bechamel sauce) - they're all available free on the site - just use the key word search.

http://www.saveur.com/article.jsp?ID...amp;typeID=120

I have made this recipe countless times and people rave about it - I crave it regularly! A couple of tips:

- I do make my own pasta - it's better if you do but if not try to buy fresh pasta as thin as possible
- the ragu is absolutely delicious - I follow the recipe exactly (rare for me) except I do add a couple of garlic cloves. Even if you don't like chicken livers don't omit them - they add a wonderful texture and round flavour but it's not liver-y
- I make a bit more bechamel than is called for

Mmmmmmm - even though it's about 35 degrees here I think I'll make it tonight!

Good luck!

Thanks cmt!

We have vacationed from Lake Como to Amalfi Coast and agree the food is quite different. We prefer Tuscan cuisine.

We have had bechamel sauces and they are also not our favorite. It is our perception that there is certainly a regional Tuscan lasagne recipe ~ unlike other parts of Italy.

Thanks ~ Philip

A true Tuscan lasagna like the one you describe does have a bechamel (white sauce with cheese) sauce in it and unlike most lasagna made in North America does not hit you over the head with a strong tomato flavor.

The best recipe I know is in Marcella Hazan's first cookbook, The Classic Italian Cook Book. I have the hardbound, but at one point it was also out in paper. A more recent book of hers is a compilation from Classic Italian Cook Book and her second, More Classic Italian Cooking. As I understand from reviews, the new compilation has "lightened" some of the recipes. Personally, I'm sticking with the old ones.

If you do make Marcella's lasagna, make sure you have a couple of hours to do so...

In our home, lasagna is rarely made the same way twice, and often made in variant ways within the same pan. Spinach at one end, or mushrooms, for example. But always, with an abundance of ricotta, nd never that reduced fat stuff! The chicken livers idea sounds interesting!

Best wishes,

Rex

Interesting ~ live and learn. Just pulled our copy of A Treasury of Great Recipes by Mary and Vincent Price. My wife and I ~ mistakenly ~ thought bechamel sauce had a undertaste. This recipe is just butter, salt, flour, white pepper and hot milk cooked in double boiler.

Thanks for information ~ will find those recipes and enjoy with nice cooking wine ~ Brunello that is.

Hi Philip - I think you'll enjoy the recipe on the link I posted - it's like gossamer!

Rex - if you only make one part of that recipe - make the ragu! It's addictive! And the chicken livers are an integral part of the recipe - plus the proscuitto!

I could be wrong, but I didn't think lasagna was a Tuscan dish at all, though of course you might run into it in any restaurant anywhere in Italy.

At any rate, it's definitely béchamel sauce that makes it different from a typical American lasagna. I love making lasagna with béchamel sauce -love the way it blends in with the tomato sauce and makes it all creamy. Be sure to grate a bit of fresh nutmeg into the sauce - I believe that lends an authentic Italian touch to it.

those of you who mentioned bechamel sauce are more than likely extremly wrong unless it was a italian / french fusion as bechamel is a classical french sauce used in the likes of lobster thermador and many other classical french dish's what your likely seeing is the use of fresh chees along with the use of oil fused ingredients. most american dont understand what we consider italian dish's is mearly our bastardized opinion of a dish to fit most peoples taste. no offense just giving you a educated culinary opinion and those who mentioned lasagna is not a traditiopnal tuscan dish are wrong is some ways as a tuscan way would have more vegatables kinda like a greek lasagna but with the local and seasonal availability vegatables

Take a look at the lasagna in a cookbook by the wonderful Biba Caggiano, owner of the famous Biba Restaurant in Sacramento, California. Her lasagna, like her other pastas, is fabulous.

There is definitely béchamel in the classic lasagne alla bolognese (from Emilia-Romagna rather than Tuscany):

http://giulianohazan.com/blog/bolognese-lasagne/

http://nymag.com/restaurants/article...abolognese.htm

OMG

I think that trying any of the suggested recipes might give you the result you're looking for.

Aaron_Brown--you're so funny in your saying "educated culinary opinion." I don't make bechamel sauce for my lasagna MUCH to the horror of my Italian friend! It's really difficult to generalize about any cuisine, but especially Italian.

And I realize that this is an old thread.

My mind can't get around how Aaron_Brown found this to top??

Did he wake up yesterday morning thinking he'd google bechamel sauce or lasagna and find this thread from 6 years ago? Then was soooo engrossed he up and registered to add his 2¢?

Weird. Or weird-ish at least :-?

(Yes, isn't Biba terrific - and keeps up her standards year after year)

Yikes, I didn't realize it was an old thread, but I was so captivated by Aaron that I did check his registration and posts. He must really care about bechamel.

Why is it I think Lydia is laughing her head off?

mark

I love that he points to Lobster Thermidor as the most obvious use of Bechamel sauce and skips over Macaroni and Cheese. Also, based on the grammar and spelling, there I think it's more of an 'opinion' than 'educated'.

On the internet, no one knows who or what is real. To prove this, my head techie sent me a whole bunch of emails from "Bill Clinton", all with the appropriate "whitehouse.gov" address.

Anyone can use any screen name. I could post, if not as Barack_Obama, then almost certainly as michellebachmann without getting caught in most forums.

Was this the real Aaron Brown posting? If so, he is a lousy typist and remarkably ignorant of Northern Italian cooking to boot.