Mama-mia!

Hot on the heels of my last post, I bring you my next creation. There are many things I miss about Canada, and not least among these is food. While the Americanization of Japan continues apace, luxuries such as Pizza Hut and Burger King remain the purview of the mandarins in Tokyo.

Among the food I really miss though is Mom's cooking. When people ask me here what kind of food I ate at home, while I usually tell them things like katsudon or yudo-fu, I also explain that my mother's repertoire necessarily included a healthy dose of western food. Meatloaf and lasagna were probably my favourite.

This post, unlike my last, demands a certain amount of verbosity, not only because this is the first time I've made lasagna from "scratch" (that is, not kit-bashed), it is also is a sense an homage to my mother's cooking.

So here I will walk you through the lasagna-making process. Unlike my mother's, which is highly nutritious, filled with vegetables and all such manner of goodness, mine is much simpler fare, made with for the most part pre-prepared ingredients.

1 Large pack of minced beef/pork mix.
2 packs of tomato sauce
1 pack of cottage cheese
14 pieces of lasagna pasta
1 pack of shredded Mozzarella
Parmesan cheese
salt
pepper
oregano
garlic paste
tomato paste



First, brown the meat, adding salt and pepper about 1/2 way through the cooking process. Drain fat, and transfer to a bowl. Put the tomato sauce into the pan used to cook the meat, add tomato paste, oregano, garlic paste. Add meat, mix on low heat until even.



Boil lasagna pasta. I did mine in 2 batches. In a Pyrex baking dish, put down a layer of sauce and cottage cheese, then lay down a layer of pasta. Continue in this manner until you've used up the pasta, cutting some into smaller strips to fill out the layers.



Each layer should be perpendicular to the last layer, so as to reinforce the structure of the lasagna. Each layer in mine had both sauce and cottage cheese. Top the lasagna off with the remainder of the sauce, sprinkle Mozzarella and Parmesan.



Bake in an oven at 180 degrees Celcius for 30 minutes. For the last 10 minutes, cover the lasagna in aluminum foil.





And done. I've modified the recipe instructions above after reflection on my meal. First, I left the lasagna uncovered the entire time in the oven, leading the mozzarella cheese to harden into a crust. In future, the aluminum foil should help with that. Also, though the lasagna is solid in the last picture, it collapsed as the pasta slid away. For this, I might try to reduce the pasta sauce a bit (as in let the water content evaporate a little more), and try to spread the cottage cheese a little more evenly.

Also, in a effort to save time, I would do both the sauce and boil the water for the pasta noodles at the same time. I did this today in the order listed, and as a result it ended up taking about an hour to prepare, and a further 30 minutes to bake. Eating was a 20 minute affair (x2 nights, so 40 total). Ideally, I'd like to get something closer to a 1:1 ratio.

Manic.