Butternut Squash Lasagna

Page: www.sweethappylife.com/2011/easy-family-recipes/butternut-squash-lasagna/

| Course Type: Main Courses

(1 review)

Tags: vegetarian pasta pumpkin lasagna bechamel sage gratins and casseroles thyme pumpkin with sage pasta with pumpkin oven baked pasta

Recipe Review

I really like the idea, but the execution wasn't really good, and I had several problems with the recipe.

First of all, cups. I know that it's just down to what you're used to, and I don't happen to be used to measuring food in volume while a lot people are, but sometimes I just don't get it. I mean, 1 cup flour is 1 cup flour, but how on earth should I know how many balls of mozzarella you need for 4.5 cup shredded mozzarella? Doesn't that depend too much on how finely you shred it? Isn't it easier and just as (im)precise to just say '3 large onions' instead of '3 cups chopped onions'?

Then, quantities. Quantity of dairy products, specifically. My estimate is that this recipe contains about 2 kg dairy products (anything from full fat milk to half a kilo of Mozzarella) in relation to 1 kg butternut squash. I never use skimmed products because I believe that natural is best, and I don't count calories either, but I thought that was a bit much. I reduced that by half, mainly by using only half of the ricotta and less than half of the mozzarella and Parmesan (though I did add a little grated Gouda on top). Next time, I would skip the ricotta entirely, the bechamel sauce plus cheese is all you need. That's the other thing: mozzarella and all the other dairy products are comparatively sweet, as is butternut squash. Either you need to add lots of salt to compensate, or you choose a cheese that is naturally salty by itself.

Then, texture. Unfortunately, everything was just a bit mushy, you nearly could have fed it to a baby (where it not for the fat and the salt). Next time I wouldn't cook the butternut squash as long so that it retains some bite, and I wouldn't puree it in the food processor either - half cm/quarter inch slices are just fine.

Last, I chose this recipe specifically because I wanted to use our balcony grown sage. Unfortunately, you didn't taste it at all, and it just had a tiny hint of thyme. Use more of both.

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Comments

bunyip - 6th May 2013
I'm afraid that's the big problem with American recipes. They don't use metric or imperial measurements, they use a cup measure system invented by Fanny Farmer in 1896.

You are wrong about 1 cup flour being 1 cup flour. In Australia 1 cup is 250 ml; in the UK it is often 284 ml (half a British pint); in Canada it is 227 ml (equal to 8 imperial fluid ounces). And in America it is half a US pint, which is 236.59 ml.

Just thought you'd like to know. Is it any wonder that I'm leery of American cookbooks unless I have a metric edition?

friederike - 7th May 2013
I totally forgot about that! How do you handle that, do you check where the book is from every time you bake something? After our discussion of flour types a few months back I had resolved to check all baking recipes that had failed and mark my books with how the flour type would influence quantities - I guess cup types would fall into the same category.

I've thought quite a bit about this, and my conclusion is that cooks in countries using the cup system probably are a lot better trained at estimating volumes - I'm really bad at it, which might explain my frustration! :)

bunyip - 7th May 2013
I handle it by not using non-metric cookbooks. With the exception of Rose Levy Berenbaum (who gives conversions with quantities) my cookbooks are all Australian or British. I avoid American websites - apart from the measurements a lot of the ingredients are strange.

It doesn't matter so much with meat and vegetable type recipes. Writers like Nigel Slater are always telling you to use a medium onion or a handful of parsley and you have to use your own judgement. But with baking you have to use exact measurements of weights and liquid quantities.

Americans of course are used to their system, but I don't think they appreciate how peculiar it seems to the rest of us.

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