Learning new tricks: Broccoli rabb lasagna

Annalena, as her army knows, is a big fan of lasagna. She is also a big fan of the chef David Tanis, who cooks at Chez Panisse, and used to have a private supper club in Paris.  The table sat, she thinks, 12, and it was open 3-4 nights a week.  One meal, one sitting, with or without wine. Annalena's dream.

Chef Tanis has been writing a column for the NY Times for a while now, and Annalena always takes time to check his contribution.  This week, she HAD to try it.  You see the result above.

Chef Tanis was discussing how this was a dish that is reminiscent of early Spring.  Yes, and no, ragazzi.  Perhaps in California,  although Annalena doubts it.  In New  York, yes, but that is NOT because broccoli rabb is a spring crop. Far from it.

Rabb, as Annalena will call it to save her fingers from hereonin,  is a vegetable that winters over very, very well.  Hence, farmers leave it in the ground, which then freezes.  When the thaw comes, they harvest the rabb,  The cold sweetens what is an inherent bitterness to the vegetable, which Annalena loves.

It is still too early here in NY to get that wintered over stuff, but this recipe was too good to not try.  Annalena made it last night.  It challenged her mode of making lasagna, in a lot of ways but it is really, really good.

Should you be thinking of making this, let Annalena tell you a few things:  you need to keep a thorough sense of organization about you, and you also need a lot of space.  You will be doing a lot of different things,  and putting many things aside, before you assemble everything.  It's worth it.

So, let's get started.

This lasagna has, at its base, a bechamel:  a white sauce.  Now, Annalena has used bechamels in lasagnas.  She uses them when the lasagna is a lighter one:  say a pure vegetable one, or one that has, at its base, fish, and she's not using cheese in it.  She would never use it in a "red" or "meat" lasagna, and her bechamels are always based on milk.  Not so this one. And it works.

For your bechamel,  you need two cups of half and half, a half stick of unsalted butter, and 1/4 cup of flour:

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Put the butter in a sauce pan, and melt it over low heat.  Don't let it brown.  When you've got it melted, add the flour and whisk it  for about a minute, no more.  You'll see it bubble up.  Next, start adding your half and half,  in half cup intervals (so you'll add four of them).  Keep whisking.

You'll need to keep whisking and heating this gently, for about five minutes.   Then, you'll add salt, pepper, nutmeg (ALWAYS put nutmeg in a bechamel, and always grate it fresh).  Finally, you'll want "something spicy."  Mr. Tanis calls for cayenne pepper.  Annalena could not find hers, so she used hot paprika.  Use what you got.  She hopes you can tell the difference between the bechamel when you start and finish, as per:

It's hard to tell, but there's a creaminess and thicknes at this point, that you'll see.  And by learning this, you have many sauces opened to you that all depend on this stuff.

Remember how Annalena said we were going to have to put things aside?  Well, here we go.  Take this pot of bechamel, cover it, and put it in a pot of hot water, bigger than the one you used.  We'll come back to it. 

Let's now turn to the noodles.  Annalena prefers fresh ones, but this recipe called for dry, and that's what she used.  A pound of them.  

Now, you will get TONS of different instruction, on what to do with lasagna noodles.  Some say you don't need to cook the noodles at all. Annalena has no patience for this.  Nor does she have patience for the disgusting "no boil" noodles you can buy.  She finds them gross.  Buy a good quality noodle (for this, Annalena used DeCecco), and before you cook them, count them.  You need this number for your layering.  Annalena counted 22 noodles in the box.  She changed this to 20 because "stuff happens" when you cook pasta, and it did here, too.   Anyway, get a large pot of water boiling, and add your noodles:

Cook these for five minutes.  Get them out, as best as you can, as individual noodles. This may not always be possible.  Have a BIG bowl of cold water ready and dump them in as you go.  You're doing this because they, too, are going to be put aside for a while, and you want them to not overcook.

You will see that Annalen has put hers out on a paper towel, and that some of them have broken.  Not a problem, as we will see.

We now turn to the broccoli rabb:

You will need about two pounds of this, more or less.  Take a look at it, and toss any yellow or gross looking stems. Then, cut about a quarter of an inch of the bottom stem off, and if you think that the stems look too tough to eat, peel the nasty stuff off.  Annalena had her doubts, but the baking process is going to solve all issues.  

You now put these greens directly into the water you used for the pasta, and steam them for 3-5 minutes (Mr. Tanis suggested one minute. Clearly, his rabb was younger and more tender than Annalena's):

You put this into some cold water and move it around.  Then, in small batches, pull it out, and chop it coarsely.  Then - guess what - put it aside. 

Now, we take a digression.  You are going to make a very quick pesto.  You need either a cup of those rabb greens or, if you have extra cooked greens in your fridge, those.  Annalena had some left over kale, and used that.  You put that in a blender or food processor with four chopped cloves of garlic, and a half cup of olive oil.  You get pesto. Guess what?  You put it aside. 

We're ALMOST there, ragazzi.  Now, we make our cheese filling:  1 -1.5 pounds of GOOD  quality ricotta (remember:  no ricotta who's brand ends in an "o" is good ricotta).  Annalena used coach farm goat ricotta, and Bellwether Farms sheep ricotta,  for a total of 1.25 pounds of the stuff.  Grate the rind of a lemon into this, and add salt and pepper. 

Done yet?  Nope.  Now, we grate our cheese.  Annalena loves pecorino, and had a really good piece of it, but in the interest of complexity, mixed it with parmesan.  Three cups is good. Two cups, as called for originally, really is not.  

Guess what?  Now, we have everything we need, to make our lasagna.  So, let's turn up the oven to 375, and let's get our ingredients together:

Looks like total chaos, doesn't it? It is.  You have the noodles, the ricotta, the bechamel, the grated cheese, the pesto and the rabb, going in basically counter clockwise direction.  

Get a 9x13 inch pan (not metal.  Note that Chef Tanis suggests 8x10, which Annalena thinks is too small).  Grease the pan with two tablespoons of butter, and use it all.

Remember how she told you to count your noodles?  Well, you're going to make 4 layers, so... take a quarter of them, and lay them down in the pan.  Don't worry about coverage: this is going to bake up beautifully.  Now add 1/4 of the bechamel, and guestimate as best as you can,  by putting down 1/3 each of the ricotta, the greens, the pesto and  14 of the grated cheese:

Repeat this, until you've made three layers and then cover with the last noodles, the last bechamel, and the last cheese.  Take another two tablespoons of butter, and dot the thing:

Cover this all with tin foil, and bake it for twenty minutes.  After 20 minutes, you get this:

Don't be discouraged. This is, truly, a "work in progress."  Now, take the foil off, and bake for another twenty minutes, and:

You should let this sit for 20-30 minutes before you eat it.  You will love it.  There is a wonderful complexity about this dish.  The lemon is there, as is the softness of the rabb, with just a bit of the residual bitterness. The bechamel lets you forget there's no mozzarella or other cheese here, and good ricotta:  well, you can't go wrong.

Yes, it took some time, but you know what?  If you are planning to serve lasagna at Easter, you have your dish!

Thank you Chef Tanis.  Here is a case where, being an enabler, is a good thing.