Miles’s Calabrese-style lasagne (sagne chine al pomodoro)

Posted bysuseturbiePosted inRecipesTags:, , ,

I first had this delicious, vegetable-packed variant of lasagne whilst on holiday in Calabria with Luca five years ago; it’s traditionally an Easter dish there.
What I love about it is the mixture of flavours and textures (and the lack of bechamel sauce, which is replaced here by layers of cheese).
The original, authentic recipe requires making meatballs out of the mince and capocollo but I find this too fiddly and it’s easier and just as tasty with the loose mince. Luca thinks I could rouse the ire of ‘Ndrangheta by messing with a traditional Calabrian recipe, but I’ll take the risk.

Serves 8

Ingredients

  • 10-12 lasagne sheets
  • 600g tomato sauce (home-made sauce or shop-bought passata)
  • 300g peas (frozen is fine)
  • 250g mushrooms, sliced
  • 100g capocollo di Calabria (if you can’t find the authentic, DOP-labelled capocollo in your local deli or supermarket, ordinary coppa is fine, it’s basically the same thing, i.e. dry-cured pork shoulder)
  • 200g minced beef
  • 200g mozzarella, sliced
  • 150g grated pecorino or parmesan
  • 3 cooked artichoke hearts
  • 3 hardboiled eggs, sliced
  • 1 onion, chopped
  • About 20cl beef stock
  • Extra virgin olive oil  

Method

  • Heat the oven to 200°.
  • Fry the mince in a little olive oil for 2 minutes; remove and set aside. Fry the onions until transparent then add the mushrooms, artichokes and peas and cook for about 5 minutes with a little beef stock.
  • Now all the ingredients are ready, you can start assembling the lasagne. Put a ladleful of tomato sauce in the bottom of a large baking dish and place a layer of pasta sheets on top. Add more tomato sauce then a layer of mince, slices of hardboiled egg, vegetables, slices of mozzarella and grated cheese. Continue to alternate layers of pasta with layers of tomato sauce and stuffing, finishing with pasta topped with tomato sauce and finally sliced mozzarella and more grated cheese.
  • Cook in the oven for 45-50 minutes if you’re using dried lasagne sheets, 20 minutes if pre-boiled.

Suggested wine pairing

Enjoy with a robust, fruity Calabrian red such as Cirò Rosso Classico.

Buon appetito!

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