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My wife found something labeled "chicken stew" at No Frills, so I duly stewed it up with tomato, peppers, and some sausages from Vince Gasparro's. Absolutely delicious with some brown rice. Would have been nice with some fresh basil, parsley or other herbs, but I was out.


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Northern Light said:
Lunch today. Fresh Spaghetti Carbonara.

No guanciale in the house, so bacon instead. I also added some parsley for colour, which isn't authentic, but i think makes the dish look better.

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Where do you usually get your guanciale from? Seems like every time I try to find a butcher that has it, they're either sold out or never heard of it. I end up just using pancetta.
 
JJTheJetPln said:
Where do you usually get your guanciale from? Seems like every time I try to find a butcher that has it, they're either sold out or never heard of it. I end up just using pancetta.
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In east Toronto, Royal Beef near Woodbine/Danforth often has it.

Sanagan's in Kensington Market usually does as well.

Those would probably be my go-to spots, but I'd always phone ahead.

I know Scheffler's at St. Lawrence Market used to carry it; and I've seen it at Fiesta Farms before as well.

Also...just remembered Eataly carries it.
 
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As readers will know, I tend towards more elaborate plating, more often than not............... but not all the time.

I was experimenting the other day w/a small portion of Lasagna, styled in a pizza'ish vein.

So typical pasta, but the tomato-based sauce was infused by Hot. Italian Sausage, the Bechamel was tweaked into a Mornay (w/parm), and blended w/finely sliced and sauteed mushroom, and fresh basil was also added. The main cheese was repeated layers of Mozzarella, and the whole thing was topped by Pepperoni two-ways, shredded and sliced.

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Interior after portioning:

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Overall, I was pleased.

But I determined that I think I would like a bit more sauce relative to cheese in the ratio.........the fresh basil was overwhelmed and might not be worthwhile, I think the mushroom layer would be better as roasted portabello slices and I liked the pepperoni here, but want it more dense, and a bit crispier...........so I think....all shredded and heavier, and another 90s under the broiler.
 
My parents are visiting this weekend, and I was thinking of making a lasagna. I don't normally put in mushroom, but might try that. Pepperoni on lasagna is a big NO for me, though!
 
evandyk said:
My parents are visiting this weekend, and I was thinking of making a lasagna. I don't normally put in mushroom, but might try that. Pepperoni on lasagna is a big NO for me, though!
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First time for me doing it.......... was an experiment, given that I've seen lots of 'pizza lasagna' online lately.

There are times when I feel 'authenticity' is important, and others when............ if it tastes good......who cares. LOL

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For me, I was fairly lactose intolerant for awhile. Now I'm back to making use of cheese somewhat regularly in various applications, but I still tend to dislike what I would call a 'dairy' taste in most things.

I can appreciate the tang of a sharp Pecorino or the richness of butter, or the gooeyness of Mozza, but I like to balance those things w/other strong flavours, rather than being dairy-forward.

That's interested me about trying this is that I find the heavy use of Ricotta in a typical lasagna leave a taste oddly bland, yet dairy.

It fails to add value while bringing a taste I find not terribly unpleasant but just a bit meh.

In this case, you get lots of cheese, but as with pizza, you let the tomato-meat sauce do the loudest talking.
 
I usually put at least one ricotta layer, but I season it pretty heavily, usually with parm and fish sauce. So not exactly authentic, though they did use garum in ancient Rome...

I usually don't put mozza in the internal layers, I find it gets too heavy and gooey.
 
afransen said:
I find lasagna benefits from using sausage instead of beef/veal, which is rather bland.
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It should be good, but most commercial ground beef will come from cows fed a diet of Cow Chow made from corn and soy, and it makes for bland beef and beef fat.
You can get some tasty beef ground on request at a fancy butcher shop, but then you're putting $25 of beef into a lasagna, which is a lot of money for something not really worth it.

One alternative is to add some ground lamb into the mix, still expensive, but even the grocery store ground lamb has a lot of flavour and is cheaper than fancy butcher shop beef. If you're feeling adventurous, some chopped up chicken livers add great flavour too, and those are always cheap, though it's hard to get them in a small quantity.
 
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Jonny5 said:
It should be good, but most commercial ground beef will come from cows fed a diet of Cow Chow made from corn and soy, and it makes for bland beef and beef fat.
You can get some tasty beef ground on request at a fancy butcher shop, but then you're putting $25 of beef into a lasagna, which is a lot of money for something not really worth it.
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Vince Gasparro's has absolutely divine ground beef. They grind it fresh for you every time, and will throw in precisely the amount of fat you want. I don't get it often because of the $$$, but I did get it to make sliders for my super bowl party. Nobody said a word while they wolfed those things down!
 
Northern Light said:
Add a description............I think we all get there's bacon on the plate, LOL........but some additional information would be good.

Also, what else is on your dining table?
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Styrian scrambled eggs, with a subtle personal twist. Before mixing, I add eggs into a bowl along with salt, freshly ground pepper, a dash of Maggi, freshly cut green onions, and the best part of all - Styrian pumpkin seed oil. Cooked in a non-stick pan on medium heat without any added oil or butter. Utterly delicious.

And the bacon was air fried, so no work! 😂
 
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