Vote for Yaara’s Lasagne!

Ya’ara’s Mushroom and Pea Lasagne

Hey, remember my friend Yaara?  She’s launched Rasta Pasta, her own cottage industry (literally) and has entered a recipe contest. If what you see in the picture is something you’d like to try, read on and get the recipe.

Come on, people, help a friend help a friend out!

In Yaara’s own words:

Dear Friends,

I am taking part in a pasta recipe competition and would like to ask for your help!   The competition is for the 100^th birthday of La Molisana pasta and it is organized by an Israeli foodie community. Top two prizes are a trip to Italy and visit to the La Molisana facilities and a cooking course. I am hoping for the second prize as I have been dreaming to do some professional training for a while.

The competition is on Facebook and the page is in Hebrew, but it is not too hard to find the vote button – it is directly above the picture of the lasagne, in a red rectangle with white lettering. You may need to “like” the competition page before voting, but you can always unlike it later. The link won’t work on mobile versions of Facebook (on phones, iPad, etc.). They only count actual votes of people who clicked the “vote” button, clicking like is not counted.

This is the link:

https://apps.nxp.co.il/la_molisana/photo/136

The recipe I submitted is for mushroom and peas lasagne.

Ingredients:

Pasta:

200 g pasta flour

2 eggs or 5 yolks

a pinch of salt

Béchamel:

70 g butter

100 g white flour

800 ml milk

salt to taste

Sauce:

200 g fresh mushrooms

100 g green peas

2 garlic cloves

½ onion

olive oil

white wine

salt, freshly grated black pepper, paprika

fresh basil

olive oil

vegetable broth

Place the flour in a bowl, make a well in the middle, add the eggs one by one and the sale and start incorporating with the flour using a fork, knead to a smooth dough. The dough should be quite firm, if too soft, add up to 50 grams flour. Let rest for 20 minutes. Use a pasta machine to create the pasta leaves.

You can also buy fresh pasta or use good quality dried pasta.  Remember that fresh egg pasta requires 1-2 minutes of cooking before layering with other ingredients, dried pasta is precooked and can be used as is (but fresh tastes better and has nicer texture).

Melt butter on low heat (make sure it does no brown), add flour and let is absorb all the butter.  Gradually add milk on low heat, while mixing continuously, bring to a boil, blend to remove any remaining lumps, curse under your breath and go to buy a Thermomix.

Sauté garlic in olive oil, add mushrooms, white wine and season to taste, cook uncovered until liquids are almost all gone.

In a separate pan sauté onion in olive oil, add peas, season to taste and add some broth, cook uncovered until liquids are almost all gone.  Artichokes (fresh or frozen) can be used instead of peas, it’s an excellent variation

Mix the mushroom and peas and leave on low fire for another few minutes.

Layer lasagne leaves, béchamel, and sauce. Add some parmesan and mozzarella halfway through and on the top layer. Bake until golden.

Thanks for the support!!

Yaara

Ya’ara and her yummy Paul, daughter Sivan and son Ziv