Lagsana......richly beefy and creamy

Bolognese beef lagsana.......with green spinach lagsana

In this post I would like to share a simple recipe for Bolognese beef lagsana. Lagsana is another form of Italian dishes in the category of pasta. The composition of the pasta is almost similar to each other that are mainly the semolina wheat, water and salt, except the shape. Lagsana is pasta in a form of sheet or layer.

Now, what you need to prepare before hand? First, to cook the white sauce; second, to sauté the Bolognese beef sauce; third, pieces of lagsana and cheese mixture to construct the layered pasta. The amount of ingredients in this post will be able to produce 4 servings or sufficient for 4 persons.

Ingredients for white sauce: salt, nutmeg, flour, cracked pepper, milk and mixture of cheese (not in photo)

Cooked white sauce with grain of pepper and nutmeg

The ingredients for the white sauce include two tablespoons of all purpose flour, 50 grams of butter, a glass of milk, two - three tablespoons of cheese mixture (topping cheese), half-teaspoon of freshly grated nutmeg and salt to taste. Start the cooking by melting the butter. Then stir in the flour until lightly brown, lower the heat and pour in the milk, stir the mixture until creamy, add other ingredients, continue stirring the mixture until all the cheeses completely melting.



Ingredients for Bolognese beef sauce: garlic, onion, salt, sugar, canned plum tomatoes, tomato puree, lagsana sheets, mince meat, cracked pepper, dry Italian spice and mix vegetables (not in photo)

The ingredients for the Bolognese beef sauce include 200 grams of mince meat, a can of plum tomatoes, medium size can of tomato puree, one diced yellow onion (Holland onion), three cloves of garlic diced, four tablespoons of sugar, one tea spoon of dried Italian spice, a pinch of freshly cracked black pepper, salt to taste, three tablespoons of cooking oil and three tablespoons of mix vegetables (this is just to add colour to the sauce). Start heating the oil and stir in the diced onion and garlic until the onion becoming clear. Add in the mince meat and stir about 1 minute. Then add in the plum tomatoes, tomato puree and the mix vegetables. Add the Italian spice, black pepper, sugar and salt. Let the sauce simmer for 5 minutes. Depending on the type of lagsana pasta that you used, you might want to drain the excessive water from the canned plum tomatoes if you used the pre-cooked lagsana sheets. On the other hand, it is important to put in the whole content of the canned tomatoes for easy-to-cook pasta which did not required pre-cooking. The watery sauce will help the pasta to soften. To know which lagsana sheet that you are using.....just read the label! In my photo, I used the easy-to-cook spinach lagsana....this has significantly cut my preparation time and the lagsana look better with the present of spinach.

Bolognese beef sauce

Layering the lagsana: First layer of beef sauce and lagsana sheet, layer of white sauce, top layer of the beef sauce, the cheesy topping and browning of the cheesy topping 

Now, let assemble the lagsana. Preheat the oven at 150̊C. Preferably, the lagsana will be cooked in a 20 cm x 20 cm x 6 cm (depth) glass or ceramic bakeware. Start by scooping 1/3 of the beef sauce into the bakeware and spread them through as the bottom layer. Then arrange one layer of the lagsana sheet to cover the beef sauce, then cover the lagsana sheets with half amount of the white sauce, again cover with the one layer of lagsana sheets. Scoop in another 1/3 of the beef sauce onto the lagsana sheets, then follow by lagsana sheets and the rest of the white sauce. Cover the white sauce with another layer of lagsana sheets. Layer the top lagsana sheets with the rest of the beef sauce. Sprinkle the top layer of the beef sauce with cheese topping mixture.

The nicely golden brown lagsana

Put the lagsana layers into the preheated oven, reduce the heat to 120̊C. Cook the lagsana for 30 minutes. Then increase the heat to 180̊C and continue cook the lagsana for another 15 minutes or until the cheesy topping becoming golden brown. Serve the lagsana while warm. Enjoy!