Binging with Babish: Lasagna from Garfield (feat. It's Alive with Brad)

Many people have a lot of mixed feelings about

lasagna

. I... know how Garfield feels about

lasagna

. - Garfield? - Yes. - New Jersey? - No, the... the cat! (mutual laughter) Hey, what's up guys? Welcome back to Binging with Babish, where we just made ricotta with Brad and Vinnie in the Bon Appetit test kitchens. But now we are making Bolognese ragout, for which we will need half a kilo of ground pork, beef and veal, the classic meatball mix. We will put it in the pot over medium-high heat and we will not try to brown it, but simply remove all the fat.

It's less we'll have to deal with later when we make our sauce. In the pot goes a little of the reserved fat: a chopped onion, a large chopped carrot and a couple of chopped celery stalks. a few optional shakes of red pepper flakes, if you want a little heat, and a good pinch of oregano. Go ahead and let those flavors meet, blend, let the onion soften and then crush four cloves of garlic, sautéing for just another minute until they're fragrant because we're getting a beautiful layer of honey forming on the bottom. of this pot. Now, if you're a dum-dum, you'll add the meat back to this pot and then deglaze with the wine.

What you want to do is deglaze with the wine and then you'll add the meat back to the pot. Scrape up all that delicious stuff and add 2 cups of homemade chicken stock (or chicken stock) in which you've dissolved a packet of gelatin. Now it's tomato time. We're sticking pretty close to the J. Kenji Lopez-Alt version of this recipe, so add enough tomatoes so that there is a one-third ratio of tomatoes to the rest of the product. We will also add a few sprigs of basil and we will not add a few sprigs of fresh sage: cut them into pieces, do not put them whole like I did; along with a cup and a half of milk, stir them a little. little by little add two bay leaves.

Make sure everything is evenly dispersed and submerged, and it's time to simmer this guy for four hours straight. Alternatively, you can bake it with the lid partially open in a 325 degree Fahrenheit oven for about four hours. Once it's gotten nice and thick and rich and relatively cohesive, let's take out the sage and basil leaves, add a solid half cup of freshly chopped basil, and half a cup of heavy cream. We'll also add a solid three ounces of grated Parmesan or half a slice, whichever comes first. Mix everything together, make sure everything is nice and melty and cohesive and rich and delicious and...

Oh gosh, this is good. But as always we wait until the end to season with salt and freshly ground pepper. I'm probably getting tired of hearing this, but wait until the end to season your sauces, soups, and things like that. Before you eat it all by the spoonful, we'll put this guy on the back burner because now it's time to make fresh pasta. This isn't the first time we've made pasta on the show; If you want to see how to make pasta from scratch, watch the Basics episode on that. I'm just doing grandma's thing here, not measuring a bunch of flour, a bunch of eggs, a little salt, mixing them all together.

Now usually the problem I run into is that I've over-hydrated the dough and this time I've under-hydrated it, making it very, very difficult to knead. If only I had big, strong hands to help me with this... Big, strong hands, you say, Babish? Step aside! Oh look, it's a really tall guy named Brad! (metallic noises as Brad fails to avoid the hanging trays) Geez, we'll do it again. But it seems like even Brad Leone from It's Alive with Brad is having a hard time with this dough, it's very under-hydrated, but don't worry, we have a solution for that.

For now, we cut the dough into four equal pieces and wrap it in transparent film, letting it rest at room temperature for 30 minutes and begin to roll it out with a pasta roller. Now if your dough is not very hydrated you will see that this begins to happen: the edges, when you put them through the pasta machine, will come out all broken and tattered. The solution: knead the dough again with a little water. I mean, yeah, we could use water, but, you know, we have all this leftover whey from making ricotta. The ricotta byproduct, we could also add it to the dough, let it add a little spice a little bit of cheese flavor, I mean, we're making lasagna, Babby.

Is it weird that I like it when Brad calls me Babby? Anyway, it's almost time to ride. Now I propose we start with a lubricating layer of sauce... Yes, lubricating layer sounds great! And, you know, we put a little sauce on the bottom and then we throw in, what, some noodles? We made them a little wide, do you mind if they overlap a little? No, you know, a little overlap, that's life, but it's 2018. Guys, Brad is right. It's 2018, let's accept the overlap. Anyway, we start with sauce, then mozzarella, then ricotta between each sheet of pasta. Yeah, well, let's put some cheese on it.

Do you remember what we did? Between the Sheets with Babish and Brad, coming soon... I'm decidedly in the anti-ricotta-in-lasagna camp now, but I'm going to trust that this will work. So Brad, how about we go ahead and bake this? Oh yeah, we have the oven at 375F, we'll get some parmesan dressing. I see you're seasoning it with a little freshly ground pepper. And uh, throw this bad boy right in a little tray of sheets, okay, make it smart, Babby, so in case something overflows, we're not going to smoke and burn your house down, you know. And 45 minutes later, it's time to dig deeper.

Whoa, whoa, you have to wait a bit! Everyone knows that lasagna should sit, I would say about 30 minutes, if not overnight. And, after the longest 30 minutes of our lives, it's time to dig deeper. And as you may have guessed, it has a tremendous spread of cheese. Fill it with a torn basil leaf and you know, we have to get Vinnie here for this. Get a plate, okay? You are part of the team. Because lasagna must be enjoyed with the family. Now I must say for the first time that I didn't hate the inclusion of ricotta in this.

Yeah, I mean, it's got cheese, you know, the mozzarella is nice, it's got a good spread, I bet. I'll tell you what, that little silent sleeper over there, is the ricotta. Alright, thank you all for coming and showing me my mistakes. Alright Babby, thanks for having us, man. I wouldn't want to make lasagna with anyone else.