I’m still with the sniffles and quite ill-tempered. I’m only supposed to tell you about the parsley pesto from two posts back. It went well with pasta and pizza, and the dishes even looked cookbook-good. That’s all you really need to know. But this cold leaves me needier than usual and with chunks of time to plumb the detritus lodged in the grease trap of my fevered mind. It’s not a good combination.
Listen: I’m sure your mother has warned you not to trust everything you see, hear, or read. Especially on the Internet. Even on Facebook. More so on Facebook, since we tend to take the word of people we know and/or look up to at face value. Realize: Paolo Bediones is very much alive, and that teary-eyed pandesal boy may yet turn out to be the pathological liar police claim he is. There is no definitive cure for cancer, diabetes, or stupidity (save dying). And be wary of any recipe with “the best, ever!” appended to its name. Food bloggers are people too, and are generally no better or worse than the average human. Pictures lie, as well.
If that sounds too solipsistic, so be it. I share as much of my failures in the kitchen as my little victories, but you have not heard the worst (or best) of them. You only know me from what I claim to be. If I told you I suck at making lasagna, I could be one of many things: incompetent, self-deprecating, or maybe just too goddamn impossible to please. If I said it was “merely good, not great,” I could be hedging my bets. And if I made the claim of my version being the best (“ever!”), I could well be conceited or delusional — or maybe I think my readers too dumb or lazy to call me out on it. Or maybe I’m just telling it like it is. You reckon? On what basis? Lord, were you listening at all?
I strive to be as exact in my recipes as I could, but the fact is that I’m inept at other things as well. Like measurements. If I can’t trust myself to be correct about how much salt to use, could you? “To taste” plays it safe. I pass the burden on to you. You trust your taste buds, don’t you? You should. They’re the only ones you’ve got.
Do you feel empowered yet? I’ve been accused of many things, but never of inspiring anything. Or of making particularly good lasagna. See what I’m doing? Didn’t I say earlier that the pesto went well with pasta? Read again. Carefully. Didn’t I say I was sick, as well?
Lasagna is one of those pasta dishes I have trouble getting a firm grip on, along with carbonara and ravioli. Serves me right, actually. I refer to lasagna as “layered spaghetti.” It seems like too much trouble to go to for much of a muchness.
But I flatter myself. What I’m really saying is that I’m not up to the task. It eats at me how others have an easy time of it — and they don’t have a blog! I’m down to soliciting Google for tips and tricks, “no-fail lasagna,” even “lasagna for idiots.” That’s after I had run though the superlatives. Obscure food writers have standards too.
It starts with the pasta. Cook or no-cook? Makes no difference; my dish always ends up a little dry on top. I can see why some suggest thinning the sauce. Others claim that way lies perdition. Well, screw them. If my pasta’s dry, more liquid is what it needs.
Is cheese a liquid? It melts, right? Good question. Melted cheese will not cook your pasta — that’s cheese sauce you’re thinking of. Cheese acts as a binder; it keeps the lasagna from falling apart (and you with it). Also, it is imperative to let the dish sit for at least 15 minutes after it comes out of the oven. How does a binder bind? It sets. This is not negotiable.
Then there’s layering/assembly. Which goes where on top of how much? Save yourself the trouble and try this: spoon a generous amount of sauce over a strip of pasta, sprinkle with cheese, and roll it up! That’s a lot of layers in one fell swoop. I had thought lasagna involved enough to bother with such a trick. It actually made things easier.
I rely too much on the Internet. Out here, there’s always someone who knows about something — even something as preposterous as deep-fried lasagna made with 8 cups of cheese (fact). Others aren’t so obviously nutty, like the guy who dots his lasagna with specks of pesto, which are almost enough to pull your attention away from the insufficiently cooked pasta at the edges.
Listen: that was a conscious aesthetic decision. I knew it would happen, and yet I left it at that because the dish photographed better that way. Afterwards I smothered the exposed sections with more sauce and let it sit overnight in the refrigerator. It did not look as good, but it was the best lasagna that I ever made. Now that’s a qualified claim. I like what I like. Your mother has nothing to do with it.
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