Eggplant Lasagna (i.e. Noodle-less Lasagna)

There are a lot of recipes for low-carb lasagna out there. Most of them involve doing something labor-intensive to slices of eggplant or zucchini. Sure, a breaded and fried eggplant parm can be a wonderful thing, but I’m just looking for a low-carb alternative to lasagna noodles. Armed with a new mandolin slicer, I decided to make a direct substitution of eggplant slices for noodles.

Building from my regular lasagna recipe, I endeavored to make a low carb alternative. Because I was also making meatballs to accompany this dish, I did not put meat in the lasagna. Adding meat to this dish would be as easy as browning a pound of ground meat and mixing it in with the sauce before layering. Also, I didn’t have ricotta on hand, so I substituted goat cheese.

DSC01814SARAH’S EGGPLANT LASAGNA

1 tablespoon butter
1 small onion, chopped
1 teaspoon minced garlic
3-4 plum tomatoes, chopped
1 (6oz) can of tomato paste
6 oz of beer or red wine
salt and pepper, to taste
cayenne pepper, to taste
fresh basil and parsley, to taste
4 oz. goat cheese or ricotta cheese
1 egg
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 cup sour cream
one medium to large eggplant
1-2 cups shredded mozzerella or Italian cheese blend

Preheat oven to 300. Saute the onions and garlic in the melted butter in a medium saucepan until onions are softened. Add chopped tomatoes, paste, booze, salt, pepper. Cook until tomatoes break down. Add fresh herbs and cook until wilted in the sauce. Process with an immersion blender or in a food processor. Cook the sauce down so it’s thicker than an ordinary pasta sauce. A thicker sauce (i.e. less liquid) is necessary in this recipe to offset the liquid that the eggplant will release as it bakes.

If you want to add one pound ground meat, do so now. I recommend browning the meat first in a separate skillet before adding to the red sauce.

Meanwhile, combine the goat cheese (or ricotta), the egg, the parmesan and the sour cream in a separate bowl. If using goat cheese, a fork or whisk will help break up the cheese. Beat or whisk until as smooth as possible.

Quarter the eggplant lengthwise. Slice thin with a mandolin slicer. Spread a thin layer of sauce on the bottom of a 9×9 square pan. Put down the first layer of eggplant slices. Spread with a layer of cheese mixture and then another layer of sauce. Repeat layering: eggplant (I like to alternate each layer crosswise), cheese, sauce. Finish with a layer of eggplant and sauce.

Bake at 300 for one hour. Add shredded cheese and bake for another 45 minutes. The long and slow baking time helps to get rid of excess liquid without burning the contents of your casserole. If your oven runs hot, you may even want to try 250.

This recipe turned out quite tasty, indeed. The eggplant was soft, but sturdy, like a noodle, and the layers held together quite well. The goat cheese as ricotta substitute worked out quite well and makes me think I’d like to try it in a regular lasagna as well. This recipe also makes me curious to try other vegetables as noodle substitutes, perhaps zucchini or some kind of squash or sweet potato.

Lasagna

Amid my recent searches for recipes involving ground meat, I perhaps inevitably stumbled upon recipes for lasagna. In general, I have mixed feelings about lasagna. On the one hand, it seems like a sort of meal that’s ripe for variation, and in classic form, lasagna contains all the great flavors of Italian cuisine that beg for candlelight, checkered tablecloths and hearty red wine. On the other hand, lasagna can turn out very boring very easily. There aren’t a lot of good recipe variations to be found. It can also get dried out and rubbery, especially upon subsequent reheating (and, really, who eats an entire casserole in one sitting).

The last lasagna I remember truly loving was the creation of my friend Lisa Di, who made lasagna with paper-thin homemade noodles. The delicacy and freshness of the noodles made all the difference, as I recalled, though it had been many years since I’d eaten it. Having tried a successful noodle recipe a few weeks ago, and finding myself with a lazy Sunday, I felt ambitious enough to try out a recipe.

SARAH’S LASAGNA

Lasagna1 tablespoon butter
1 onion, chopped
1 teaspoon minced garlic
3 (8oz) cans of tomato sauce
1 (6oz) can of tomato paste
2-3 plum tomatoes, chopped
4 oz of beer
1/2 teaspoon salt
cayenne pepper, to taste
fresh basil and parsley, to taste
1 lb. ground meat
water, as needed
15 oz. ricotta cheese
1 egg
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 cup sour cream
lasagna noodles, cooked and drained, or straight out of the pasta maker
1-2 cups shredded mozzerella

Saute the onions and garlic in the melted butter in a medium saucepan until onions are softened. Add tomato sauce, paste, chopped tomatoes, beer, salt, pepper and herbs. Cook until heated through; fresh herbs should be wilted in the sauce. Process with an immersion blender (this was my lazy step so that I wouldn’t have to chop the herbs, but it can be skipped by cutting them up ahead of time). Add the meat and continue to cook (I like to cut up the ground meat first so it’s easier to break up as it cooks).

Meanwhile, combine the ricotta, the egg, the parmesan and the sour cream in a separate bowl. When the meat is cooked in the sauce, and the lasagna noodles are ready (i.e. either cooked, or made fresh through the pasta maker), spread a thin layer of sauce on the bottom of a 9 X 13 square glass baking pan.

Put down the first layer of lasagna noodles. Spread with a layer of ricotta mixture and then another layer of sauce. Repeat layering: noodles, cheese, sauce. Finish with a layer of noodles, sauce and mozzarella on top.

Bake at 350 for 45 to 60 minutes, until mozzarella is golden and crisp.

LasagnaIf you have extra mozzarella, that can be included as its own layer, but I had a limited amount that I wanted to save for the top, and I’m not a huge fan of having too much cheese stringiness amongst the lasagna slices.

If you’re tempted to make your own lasagna noodles, the the above referenced noddle recipe makes just the right amount at the thinnest setting (number 9 on my pasta maker), and I definitely recommend using the thinnest setting. I was afraid, at first, that the noodles might be too thin, that they might dissolve in the sauce, but they held up wonderfully and the entire recipe turned out swimmingly!

Pastitso

When I search for recipes online, sometimes I find things that I didn’t even know to look for. I’m often looking for intriguing twists on ordinary dishes, and while searching last week for some new revelations on the concept of lasagna, I stumbled upon a few recipes for something called Pastitso, billed by recipe posters as “Greek Lasagna.”

I was a little surprised never to have heard of this dish before. I spent many a semester in college studying Greek Orthodoxy, my main point of research in grad school was food customs in Eastern Europe, and failing all of that, from the age of twelve, I lived next door to a second generation Greek family who kept us well supplied with baklava every Christmas. How did this Pastitso come out of thin air?

Whatever confluence of circumstance led to my heretofore Pastitso-free existence, I was determined to end the trend and so tried my hand at a Pastitso recipe this weekend. Just a few words of warning… make sure you’re well stocked on butter and eggs before attempting this recipe; I cut down on the amount of both used in this recipe, but there’s still a lot. Also, I’ve broken this recipe up into stages because, while I’ve tried to simplify it as much as possible, as I am apt to do, this one requires some time, organization, and a fair number of bowls and pans.

PastitsoSARAH’S PASTITSO

Stage One

4 tablespoons butter
1 medium onion, chopped
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1 1/4 lbs. ground meat
1 (16oz) can of diced tomatoes
1 (8oz) can of tomato sauce
1 teaspoon salt (optional)
water, as needed

Stage Two
1 (13oz) box of penne pasta, or other tube pasta
3 tablespoons butter
4 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup grated parmesan
1/2 cup shredded white cheese, such as mozzarella or an Italian mix

Stage Three
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
1/2 teaspoon salt (optional)
dash of white pepper
4 tablespoons butter
4 tablespoons flour
2 cups milk
2 tablespoons dry sherry

STAGE ONE: Melt the butter in a skillet. Saute onions and garlic. Add the spices and saute until onions soften. Add the meat and cook until browned. Add the canned tomatoes. If the mixture is too thick, add water, otherwise if it is too liquid, simmer over a low fire until most of the liquid is evaporated. Luckily, you’ll have plenty of time to let the sauce thicken while you work on the rest of this recipe.

STAGE TWO: Prepare the pasta according to package directions (shave a few minutes off cooking time to keep it al dente, if desired). Melt the butter in a saucepan, allow to cool and meanwhile beat eggs in a large bowl. Beat the cheeses into the eggs and add drained pasta to egg mixture when done. Add melted butter. Stir together and set aside.

Top Layer of PastitsoSTAGE THREE: Beat eggs in a small bowl. Beat in cheese and spices. Melt butter in a small saucepan (such as the one used and emptied in Stage Two). Whisk flour into butter until combined; add milk slowly over medium low heat. Beat some of the warm milk mixture into the eggs, and then add the egg/cheese/milk mixture to the saucepan and heat until thickened.

Preheat oven to 350. In a large glass or ceramic casserole (9 x 13), spread half of the pasta and egg mixture over the bottom. Some pastitso recipes call for arranging the noodle tubes in rows, but this is too ambitious for me. Spread the meat mixture over the first layer of noodles, and then layer the remaining noodles over the meat. pour the white sauce over the top layer. Bake for about 25 to 40 minutes, until the top is lightly golden brown.

The end result was quite tasty, though not altogether different tasting than normal lasagna. Certainly the cinnamon and nutmeg gave it a different essence than typical Italian lasagna, and the white sauce as topping added an interesting dichotomy of color and flavor. I would recommend using the salt called for in this recipe, if you can. I made this recipe for my dad, so I omitted the salt in the actual ingredients, but ended up having to season my own portions. Unless you have to eliminate salt for health reasons, I would definitely say it’s essential.