Main course
Lasagne (with minced meat)
Lasagne as it is made in a Macedonian kitchen in Ontario — kashkaval instead of béchamel, and a test for when the sauce is thick enough.
Recipe from Дијана Веселиновска · Etobicoke, ON
- Prep
- 40 min
- Cook
- 30 min
- Total
- 1 hr 10 min
- Fasting
- Not suitable
Ingredients 11 ingredients
Method
- Put the oil into a deep pot and brown the minced meat, breaking up the lumps.
- Add all the remaining sauce ingredients — the ketchup, pasta sauce, finely chopped garlic, salt, sugar, oregano and pepper — and stir well so nothing catches.
- The sauce needs to be thick. The sign that it is ready is this: drag a spoon across the bottom of the pot and the trail it leaves should not close over at once.
- Meanwhile boil the lasagne sheets in water with a little oil and salt for 10–15 minutes until softened, then cool them in cold water so they do not stick together.
- In a 22×33 cm dish lay first the sheets, then a layer of sauce, then grated kashkaval. Repeat: sheets, sauce, kashkaval.
- The last layer must be a sheet covered with sauce and kashkaval — bare pasta on top dries out and shatters.
- Cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes at 180 °C. For a browner top, take the foil off for the last 10 minutes.
If you cannot find it
Substitutions that work outside Macedonia.
- Ketchup
- 700 ml passata with a spoonful of sugar and a spoonful of vinegar — closer to an Italian sauce.
- Kashkaval
- Mozzarella with a little parmesan mixed through.
- Lasagne sheets
- No-boil sheets; skip the boiling step and add a cup of water to the sauce.
