Recipe of Brasilian Lasagna

REGION: Sao Paulo

Throughout the years our website has been running, one of the most requested recipes was lasagna.

At first, we did not include this recipe in the website neither in the first edition of our cookbook. We thought this recipe did not classify as a traditional Brazilian food because it is more associated as being from Italy.

But here is the explanation we found for such success lasagna makes in Brazil.

First, is the white sauce. The Brazilian lasagna has a creamy white sauce made with cheese and nutmeg as one of its layers and topping.

The meat sauce is used in the lasagna not only as a topping, but as a layer too. For that, the meat sauce needs to have plenty of ground beef and less water.

Brazilian lasagna is served hot accompanied by white rice and red wine. The recipe you see below is the most traditional using the white sauce (also known as Béchamel or balsamella).

Then, We thought, the white sauce plays a major role in the success of the Brazilian lasagna, but It is not the major ingredient.

Many of our visitors who requested this recipe came from a pleasant trip to the city of São Paulo. São Paulo and the southern of Brazil are the regions most of the Italian immigrants are concentrated. We started to realize that they went through the same phenomenon that happen when you go to a live concert and have so much fun that you start to like the singer and buy his or her CD’s right after the concert.

With the lasagna, We concluded it is the same; although not a traditional food that comes to our mind when thinking about Brazil, it is the most frequent food present in the tables of São Paulo when people is having fun during a pleasant dinner in a trip to Brazil! Therefore, people want to replicate the lasagna back home as a way to remember the fun they had down in our country.

The lasagna should be pretty easy to replicate, just follow our recipe below. But the fun you had…. Well We’re not quite sure.

INGREDIENTS:

White sauce:

The traditional Béchamel as created by Louis de Béchamel in France is prepared with melt butter, wheat flour and hot milk seasoned with basil, nutmeg and onions.

INGREDIENTS:

2 tbs (30 g) butter

3 tbs (30g) all purpose flour

1 cup (250ml) milk

1 pinch ground nutmeg

1 tsp (5g) salt

1 pinch ground pepper

PREPARE:

Place a sauce pan in medium heat. Melt the butter with the flour stirring well. Add the nutmeg, salt and ground pepper. Add the milk slowly while stirring the mixture with a wood spoon. Bring the sauce to boil and cook for about 10 minutes or until creamy.

Do not overcook as it can break the starch and thinner your sauce.

Set the white sauce aside to assemble the lasagna.

Meat Sauce:

INGREDIENTS:

2 tbs (30ml) vegetable oil

1 small onion, chopped

1 clove garlic, crushed

1/2 lb (250 g) ground beef

1 lb ripe tomatoes

PREPARE:

Peel tomatoes, remove seeds and chop.

Brown ground beef in a large sauce pan over high heat with the vegetable oil, onion, garlic. Add the prepared tomatoes and water just enough to cook a thick meat sauce.

Set meat sauce aside to assemble lasagna.

INGREDIENTS TO ASSEMBLE LASAGNA:

1lb (500g) uncooked lasagna noodles

1/2 lb (250g) sliced mozzarella

1/2 lb (250 g) sliced ham

2 oz (60g) grated parmesan

Oregano to sprinkle.

PREPARE:

ASSEMBLE:

Bring 4 qt (2L) of water to boil. Add 2 teaspoon of salt. Add four noodles at a time, cook uncovered until tender, but firm. Use a large fork or slotted spoon to remove cooked noodles directly to the baking pan. Spoon meat sauce on baking pan and put the first layer of noodles. Make four layers of noodles as you go cooking them. In between each layer, put meat sauce, mozzarella and ham. In one of the layers, put only white sauce with ham. Cover the lasagna with white sauce, grated parmesan and sprinkle oregano.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (180 Celcius).

Bake lasagna until heated through or about 20 minutes.

Cover lasagna with aluminum foil during baking to avoid cheese over burn.

Hint:

Meat sauce is better if the beef is ground twice.

Do not overcook the noodles. You can use pre-cooked noodles. Follow packaging instructions.

You can buy Béchamel sauce ready to use in Italian stores. The sauce comes in little aseptic boxes made by Parmalat.

As this recipe makes two lasagnas, you can bake one immediately and freeze the second lasagna assembled for up to 3 months.

SERVE:

Serve it warm.

SERVING SIZE: 6 portions.

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