Lasagna with Tomato and White Sauce + Very Malaysian Risotto.

Lasagna with Tomato and White Sauce

On new year's eve, I had these instant lasagna sheets left in my fridge so I've got to make him his last homemade lasagna of the year.

Anyways, my faith in making my own tomato sauce had reduced until I decided to take up kitchenknifegang's advice. I used to cook the blended tomatoes at one go which resulted in a greater time taken to boil, this time I reduced the juices in batches.

Tomato sauce:
500g ripe tomatoes, peeled and blended (I reckon it's better to use cherry tomatoes, my sibling did once and the taste was fantastic)
1 small red onion, chopped
200g pork, minced
Italian mixed herbs
Pepper

1. Heat oil in pan. Cook onion, then sauté minced pork until thoroughly cooked.
2. Pour in quarter of the blended tomatoes, let it simmer cooking over medium heat, stirring constantly.
3. When the juices have reduced to one-third, add in the next batch of blended tomatoes. Repeat until all used up.
4. Flavour with herbs and pepper.

Improvise?

Yes definitely. Decent tomato paste SHOULD be used. The flavour of this sauce was still too bland as a pasta sauce, eventhough it was dry enough.

White sauce:
1 cup milk
1 tbsp butter
1 tbsp flour

1. Melt butter in pan. Add in flour and stir to incorporate.
2. Pour in milk and stir over medium heat until thickens to your preferred consistency. This could take a while.

Also added were mixed herbs.

We also cooked the instant lasagna sheets for a moment in water, so that they would not take too much time to turn tender when in the oven, like before. When assembling with a good 200g of shredded mozzarella:

After 20 minutes at 180°C.

Very Malaysian Risotto

To be honest, I've been reminiscing about risotto that's been transformed by my ex, and even more after the post I've mentioned: Simple Parmesan Baked Risotto.

The reason this risotto is very Malaysian is that instead of the typical risotto rice like Arborio, I used locally produced rice. I was going to try the dish with Japanese rice but he couldn't find it in his kitchen, and it would be such a waste for me to buy a 500g packet for the 10g of rice I was gonna use.

Besides, I'd also used Chinese rice wine. I originally went for Shao Xing but it again, could not be found.

What I did:

500ml vegetable stock (cooked with these seasoning granules)

1/3 cup rice, uncooked

150g pork, minced

2 Shiitake mushrooms, soaked and sliced

1 tsp rice wine

Formaggio (I mistaken this as canned Parmesan)

1. Melt butter in pan. Sauté pork until cooked.

2. Pour in two ladles of stock and all the rice. Stirring constantly, simmer until stock reduces by two-third.

3. Stir in the wine along with another two ladles of stock, again, reduce until one-third is left.

4. Repeat by adding two ladles of stock at a time, simmering until rice is tender enough.

5. Then, add in Shiitake mushrooms while cooking the last batch of stock.

6. When the rice is moist enough (don't dry it up too much), turn the heat off. Pour cheese enough to cover the rice, and mix thoroughly. Serve.

Improvise?

The pork should not be cooked before the rice and stock are in the pan, as it loses flavour and becomes plain and dry after the dish is done like it does in soup. I was cooking only for myself, so the pork was still alright.