Daring bakers: lasagne

The March 2009 challenge is hosted by Mary of Beans and Caviar, Melinda of Melbourne Larder and Enza of Io Da Grande. They have chosen Lasagne of Emilia-Romagna from The Splendid Table by Lynne Rossetto Kasper as the challenge.

Baked at the very last minute, here is my this month’s Daring Bakers challenge. See the recipe here. I think I made it in record time, just in less than 3 hours, and at the moment it is actually sitting downstaris on the kithcen table, waiting to be eaten. It is late, yes, but it is exam period and the being awake-eating-sleeping time is mixed anyway. So I will not stop for long – because I am hungry.

I used the recipe that was requested, but I had to half it because I only had a small loaf tin that I could use.  I used the same tin in which I did the French Yule Log a couple of months ago (something that did not work out very well for me – see here). So I was a bit scared that this tin might be cursed and that the lasagne would come out inedable. But there was no reason to be scared – and as I have now tasted a tiny bit of it already, I can say that it came out pretty tasty. Spinach makes the dish! The only problem is that making it is quite time consuming…but no great things come without downsides anyway, right?

Well, I’m off to my late night snack now. Until the next challenge!

Find-the-meatball soup

If you happen to have meatballs on hand and you are trying to figure out what to make out of them, then I suggest you try this delicious and hearty meatball soup. I made meatballs myself, using the same recipe as I did for meat patties – I mixed ground meat with minced onion and egg, seasoned it with salt, pepper, chili powder and Worcestershire sauce and formed small balls out of the mixture. I baked the balls at 180 degrees C for around 25-30 minutes and there they were, waiting for becoming an ingredient in my next dish. They tasted pretty good, so I could have just eaten them as a snack , but then I thought they can do better which is why I ended up making a meatball soup. Once I realized I can prepare a soup, I had alrady eaten about half of the meatballs, so…this is why I called it find-the-meatball soup. Still, believe it or not, the lack of meatballs was not an issue – the soup ended up being delicious even with little amount of meatballs. For two bowls of soup:

500 ml water

10-15 meatballs

1 can (250 ml) diced tomatoes

1 beef bouillon cube

1/2 tsp dried oregano

1/2 tsp dried basil

1/2 tsp dried thyme

salt and pepper to taste

1 stalk celery, sliced

1-2 carrots, sliced

1 clove garlic, minced

a handful of fusilli

# Slice carrots and celery stalk. In a large saucepan, bring water to a boil.

# Add tomato sauce, bouillon, oregano, basil, thyme, salt and pepper, celery, carrots, and crushed garlic. Simmer for 30 minutes.

# Add fusilli and meatballs, cook until pasta is done. Top with grated cheese to serve.

This soup demanded hardly any work which is why I was actually amazed how nice it came out.

It should be just as tasty the next day as well, but in that case make sure you don’t use too much pasta, because after a while, the pasta soaks up all the soup!

Ground meat patties

Years back Estonians used to call those meat patties “meat cakes” and served them only during holidays and special occasions because meat was something you couldn’t eat every day (people were poor and saved meat for special occasions). Today this simple dish is very common. So I decided to try it. Never done them before, but my mum prepared them often (still does), so I tried to remember, how did she prepare them. Finally I got some instructions from an  Estonian Cuisine cookbook.

500 g mixed ground meat (mix of ground pork and ground beef)

1 onion, minced

1 tsp salt

0.75 tsp pepper

1 egg

1 tsp Worcestershire sauce

0.5 tsp chili powder

oil or butter

 

# Mince onion and mix with minced meat.

# Add slightly beaten egg, salt, pepper, chili powder and Worcestershire sauce. Mix well to combine.

# Take palm sized portions of the mixture and shape them into flat, round or oblong patties.

# Cook in hot oil on frying pan until brown on both sides.

# Place patties in roasting pan lined with waxed paper. Bake at 175 degrees C for 10-15 minutes.

As a result, you’ll get nice meat patties, crispy on the outside and juicy on the inside. And hand-made!

You should serve them with boiled vegetables or warm salad (such as warm potato salad) and some sauce (I used bechamell). Leftovers can be stored in the fridge (covered) for a few days. They’ll reheat well, but you can also eat them cold with a slice of bread.