Italian Food Recipes

This summer my parents spent their holidays in Sicily, in particular in Trapani and during these days they tasted the delicious Italian recipe of “Lasagne alla Siciliana”. This recipe is prepared with traditional vegetables of Sicily, the eggplants, and with a tomato sauce of minced meat of veal and peas and the addition of ham and sweet Sicilian pecorino cheese. You can prepare it with lasagna bought or you can decide to make home-made lasgana, here I show the easy recipe to prepare the home-made lasagna with the help of a pasta machine but in the case you don’t have it you can also use a simply rolling pin, the result will be the same.

INGREDIENTS (for 8 people):
1 / 2 Onion
200 g of Minced meat of veal
200 g of Peas
1,5 L of Tomato sauce
4 Round Eggplants
200 g of Sweet Pecorino cheese
200 g of ham
150 g of Parmesan
4 Tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
Extra virgin olive oil for fry the eggplants

INGREDIENTS FOR LASAGNA PASTA
400 g of Flour
4 Eggs
Salt

PREPARATION TIME: 1 hour

COOKING TIME: 30 minutes

WINE: Santa Margherita di Belice bianco Doc (White Wine)

PREPARATION
Start with the preparation of the lasagna pasta: put in a bowl the flour, a pinch of salt and the eggs.


Mix all the ingredients and knead the dough until it becomes homogeneous. Let the dough stand for about 20 – 30 minutes so it becomes more soft. After this time start to roll out the dough, you can do this with the help of a rolling pin or more easily with the help of a pasta machine. Here I use the pasta machine.


Start roll out the dough from the biggest thickness of the machine then little by little reduce it until you obtain a pastry of about 2 – 3 mm of thickness.




Cut the pastry in rectangular pieces with about dimension of 15 cm x 10 cm.


Now start with the preparation of the sauce for lasagna: preheat the extra virgin olive oil in a pan, cut the onion in slices and let them cook for 3 – 5 minutes in the hot oil to make it tasteful.


When the onion becomes golden remove it from the oil and add the minced meat of veal. Let it cook for 5 - 8 minutes until it becomes slightly golden,


then add fresh peas and continue the cooking for other 5 – 8 minutes.


Now add the tomato sauce and let the all sauce cook for about 30 – 40 minutes.




In the meantime prepare the other ingredients: eggplants, ham and cheese.
Cut the eggplants in slices


and fry them in hot extra virgin olive oil until they become slightly golden.


When they are cooked put them in a dish covered with kitchen paper in order to remove the excess of oil.
Cut the ham in slices and the cheese in small cubes.
Now you can prepare the lasagna: cover the bottom of a rectangular baking pan with the sauce of meat and peas, put over it lasagna,


pour on it the sauce, make a layer with the fried eggplants, another with the slices of ham and the cubes of cheese


and sprinkle with some parmesan, re-put another layer of lasagna pasta and continue in this way until the pan in full.


Bake at 180°C and cook for about 30 minutes until the surface becomes golden.
Serve hot.
This is the result:

BUON APPETTITO!

This is a typical italian dish!
Very delicious!

INGREDIENTS (for 4 people)

Pasta (for Lasagne)
200 g of Minced meat of pork
1/2 of Onion
3 Tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
700 g of Tomato pulp or tomato puree (as you prefer)
50 g of Butter
500 ml of Milk
2 Tablespoon of flour
Some Nutmeg
Salt

PREPARATION TIME: 15 minutes

COOKING TIME: 45 minutes

DIFFICULTY: medium

WINE: Volpolicella DOC (Red wine)

PREPARATION
Wash, peel and chop the onion. In a pan heat the extra virgin olive oil, add chopped onion and let them brown. Now add the minced meat of pork and cook for about 5 minutes until the meat is golden. Then add the tomato pulp, some salt and simmer for about 10-15 minutes.

Now it's time to prepare some besciamella! In a pan melt the butter, then add the flour and mix. Add some milk, little by little, and continue to mix until you obtain a kind of cream. Pay attention not to make lumps. Then add the rest of the milk, a pinch of salt and some nutmeg. Let the mixture simmer while continuing to stir, until the mixture thickens.

When the besciamella and the tomato sauce are ready, spread the surface of a baking pan with 2-3 tablespoons of besciamella, and then make a layer with pasta, spread with 2-3 tablespoons of tomato sauce and with 2-3 tablespoons of besciamella. Continue in this way until the baking pan is full (make about 4-5 layers).

Bake for about 30 minutes until the surface golden.
This is the result:

BUON APPETITO!