Sagne a lu' fuorn' - My family Southern lasagne for your Christmas holidays
Not for the faint of heart, with a Neapolitan meat sauce and tiny meatballs, hard-boiled eggs, sausages, mozzarella and scamorza.
Good morning everyone. I come to your inbox in one of the busiest weeks of the year, a jumble of festive atmosphere, twinkling lights, races against time, late hours spent in the kitchen simmering a pot of meat sauce for Christmas, strategic planning and secret Santa stories told in a hushed voice to a three-year-old girl who for the first time breaths the magic of the holidays.
I come with a Christmas gift, a festive family recipe for your cooking repertoire, free for all, wrapped with care and tradition, the lingering aroma of a slow simmered meat sauce still entangled in the velvet ribbon.
Whenever I start writing a new letter for you, choosing the perfect soundtrack to match my mood and that of the story I want to tell, I feel a heartwarming sense of intimacy and family. So, Merry Christmas to you, my beloved Italian food lover extended family!
Last month I shared the photos of our renovated studio with a brand new red Bertazzoni range. It has been a cornerstone of our cooking studio for seven years. It has been part of the family and a witnessed joyful moments, laughter, struggles, and gatherings with family and friends. Now we got an updated, flaming red range, and I could not wait to put it to the test with a beloved family recipe.
I asked you what you would have been eager to cook or bake with such a kitchen setup—six burners and an extra large oven. Maybe a complex dish that's been on your "to-try" list, or maybe a family recipe that demands time and many, many pots.
I knew immediately what I wanted to cook: the festive Southern lasagna from Basilicata, a family recipe that requires many steps, pots, and hands, something I couldn’t wait to share with you.
For my family's Southern lasagne, I used my Bertazzoni to simmer for hours a Neapolitan style ragù, fry a large batch of tiny meatballs, and bake the richest lasagna you will ever encounter.
When I make this lasagne, I am never alone.
I can see nonna Marcella and my aunt Teresa sitting in a corner of the room, bent over a bowl of ground beef flavoured with parsley, garlic and sharp, grated cheese, shaping hazelnut-sized meatballs, rhythmically dipping their hands in warm water to prevent the meat from sticking.
I hear the chats and laughter of a large, Southern family, a different dialect I cannot speak, except for the names of recipes that make my heart and stomach sing: sàgn’ a lu’ fuòrn’, cauzuncìdd, ciàmbott’.
As in a dream, the table extends and stretches to welcome members of the family who are not here with us anymore, each of them with their unique feature: Nonno Biagio, always dressed in a grey suit and a tie, even at the beach, Maria, jovial and a great home cook, whose Artusi’s cookbook is now in my bookshelves along with other four copies of this cornerstone of the Italian cuisine, Zia Valeria, tiny and witty, who fed with familiar flavours a family of five kids in a new to them region.
In the early decades of the twentieth century, my family had a small restaurant—Trattoria Giardino—in Melfi, Basilicata.
The owner was Felice Scarpaleggia, the grandfather—and namesake—of my father. It was in the market square, just below the Bank of Naples, and often in my uncles’ stories, you can find traces of memories of those times. The only tangible sign that remains today is a precious—for us—set of plates that still bear designed the logo of the restaurant. The plates are now carefully kept at my parents’ house in the display case with my great-grandparents’ Chinese cups.
You can see those plates in the photos today!
Want to know more about our Southern roots?
You can start reading this archive post:
Then here you can find some recipes from Basilicata.
Onion Strudel. My aunt makes a focaccia with these onions, but I like to make a strudel with this sweet, sticky filling.
Plus, if you've bought Cucina Povera or are planning to order it, here are some of the recipes with a southern flavour from Basilicata: bread-and-anchovy-stuffed sweet green peppers (p. 48), summer vegetable stew (p. 54), baked salted cod with potatoes (p. 137).
So, what makes a Southern lasagna different from a classic lasagna?
Known as sagn ‘a lu fuorn, this superbly rich Southern pasta bake features layers of eggless semolina pasta sheets, mozzarella, scamorza, hard-boiled eggs, grated Pecorino, and a spicy lucanica sausage. The most striking characteristic, though, is the ingredient that binds everything together: a punchy Neapolitan style ragù dotted with tiny, spongy meatballs, the size of a hazelnut.
The meatballs
Grandma would make them on special occasions. Grandma Marcella, who was born and bred in Tuscany and with Etruscan roots—according to her beliefs—learnt this recipe from Aunt Valeria, her sister-in-law, a very good home cook from Basilicata. The meatballs in this case are tiny, as big as hazelnuts. Grandma would often go to Siena to help Aunt Valeria in the kitchen: she had five children who soon began to show up at home on Sundays with boyfriends and girlfriends.
The table doubled, the chairs grew in number and the amount of meatballs in the tomato sauce gradually increased. The meatballs, even according to their Southern traditions, had to be small, so that everyone could get some. They would wet their hands and start rolling these tiny meatballs with quick and expert gestures. They would spend the morning chatting over the ground meat, while in the meantime the tomato sauce simmered away on the stove with a beef braciola in it, to gain an even deeper flavour.
On special occasions, the tomato sauce with meatballs would be layered between pasta sheets to make sagn ‘a lu fuorn. On a normal Sunday, though, they would just toss it into a bowl of short pasta, like penne or fusilli, and this would be enough to turn a family gathering into a feast.
RECIPE - Sagne a lu' fuorn' - Southern lasagne for your Christmas holidays
It might seem quite a daunting recipe, but once you tackle it in stages, you realize it is just a matter of organization. Make the meat sauce and the polpettine the day before so that you’ll have them ready when you want to make your lasagne.
RECIPE - Southern Meat Sauce with braciole
How many meat sauces exist in Italy? The varieties range from a rich and self-indulgent Bolognese ragù, where the ground beef and the ground pork are cooked with white wine, milk and tomato paste, to the Neapolitan style ragù, where tradition has it that there is no ground meat, but whole pieces of meat that must be cooked slowly in a rich tomato sauce. The latter is the sauce we will be making today.
The discarded meat—beef braciole and pork ribs—will become a tasty meal on their own.
Notes.
If you do not feel like making lasagne, you can use 20 ounces/560 grams of store-bought fresh pasta sheets, or fresh lasagna noodles.
The meat sauce could also be easily frozen in an airtight container for up to 6 months. When you want to make lasagne, remove the ragù from the freezer the night before, and thaw overnight in the fridge. Gently reheat it before using.
For the braciole
a large, 1cm/⅜ inch thick beef steak, about 1 pound/450 grams
1 tablespoon finely chopped parsley
1 tablespoon Pecorino Romano, grated
1 tablespoon Parmigiano Reggiano, grated
½ clove garlic, minced
Fine sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
For the meat sauce
2 pounds/900 g country-style pork ribs, cut into 2-inch/5 cm pieces
1 red onion, finely chopped
⅓ cup/80 ml extra virgin olive oil
6 cups/1.4 litres tomato passata
1 cup/240 ml warm water
Fine sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Prepare the braciole
Lay the beef steak on a cutting board, and season with salt and pepper. Sprinkle the steak with the chopped parsley and garlic, and the grated Parmigiano and Pecorino. Roll the braciole onto itself and secure it with a few pieces of butcher’s twine.
Prepare the meat sauce
Season the pork all over with salt and pepper.
Heat the olive oil in a 12-inch heavy-bottomed skillet or Dutch oven over medium-high heat. When the oil is hot, add the rolled braciola and the pork ribs in a single layer—in batches if necessary—and cook, turning occasionally with tongs, until browned on all sides, about 10 minutes.
As it is browned, remove the meat from the pan and move it into a large platter.
Add the finely chopped onion to the pot and cook on medium-low leat for about 5 to 8 minutes, until translucent. Return the meat to the pot now, and pour in the tomato passata. Use one cup of warm water to clean the passata bottles and pour that into the pot.
Bring to a simmer, then reduce the heat to the minimum and simmer, covered for about 2.5 hours, checking it occasionally to make sure the sauce is not sticking to the bottom. Taste and adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper. The sauce is ready when you can spot puddles of ruby-red oil on the surface.
Remove the braciole and the pork ribs from the tomato sauce, you won’t need them now, but you’ll have lunch ready.
The sauce is now ready for the meatballs. You can prepare the sauce the day before and keep it in the fridge.
RECIPE - Polpettine, tiny meatballs
Now it's time to make the tiny meatballs that will stud the rich tomato sauce. An extra pair of hands will be helpful now.
3.5 oz/100 grams day-old bread
1 cup/240 ml warm milk
7 oz/ 200 grams ground beef
2 tablespoons finely chopped parsley
1 clove garlic, minced
4 tablespoons/30 grams Pecorino Romano, grated
4 tablespoons/30 grams Parmigiano Reggiano, grated
1 teaspoon fine sea salt
1 egg, slightly beaten
Freshly ground black pepper
½ cup/60 grams all-purpose flour
4 cups/1 litre grapeseed or other neutral frying oil, for frying
The prepared tomato sauce
Soak the bread in milk for about 10 minutes, until it becomes soft and spongy. Squeeze out the excess milk and crumble the bread in a bowl.
Add also the minced meat, chopped parsley, minced garlic, the grated Pecorino and Parmigiano, fine sea salt and the beaten egg. Season a few grinds of black pepper. Thoroughly mix the ingredients with your hands until smooth.
Arrange on the table a tray generously dusted with flour. Prepare also a bowl of water: you will have to wet your hands from time to time, as this will help you to shape smooth tiny meatballs.
Make the meatballs with a teaspoon and roll them on the palms of your hand until as round and big as a hazelnut. Roll in flour and leave them in the tray.
When all the meatballs are ready, heat the frying oil in a medium-sized frying pan. Fry the meatballs in 4 or 5 batches, for about five minutes, turning them often, until golden. As they are ready, move them into a large dish lined with kitchen paper to absorb the frying oil.
If you taste a couple of meatballs you’ll notice they might seem a bit too dry. Don’t worry, as they will now recook in the tomato sauce, becoming soft and juicy.
When you have fried all the meatballs, it's time to add them to the pot with the hot tomato sauce. Cook the meatballs in the tomato sauce for about 30 minutes, then turn off the heat and set the sauce aside. You can use it immediately for the lasagna or leave it for the next day.
RECIPE - Southern Lasagna
Now that the rich tomato sauce and the polpettine are ready, it’s time to prepare the fresh lasagna sheets and assemble the lasagna. We won’t be cooking the lasagna sheets, so make sure to roll them out as thin as possible, as they will be cooking directly in the oven with the moisture of the mozzarella and the tomato sauce.
For the lasagna sheets
2 cups plus 1 tablespoon/400 grams semolina flour
7 oz/200 ml water
To assemble
4 hard-boiled eggs, sliced
8 oz/225 grams scamorza, sliced
3 mozzarella balls, 4.5 oz/125 grams each, sliced
7 oz/ 200 grams dry sausages, sliced
4 oz/120 grams Pecorino Romano, grated
3½ tablespoons/50 grams butter, plus more for greasing the pan
Make the lasagna sheets
Pour the flour on a work surface and shape it into a mound with a large well in the centre, then add the water. Using a fork, stir slowly, starting from the centre and gradually picking up more flour from the edges. When the dough turns crumbly, switch to kneading with your hands.
Continue kneading the ball of dough until the gluten starts to develop, as this will render the sheets of pasta more elastic. The dough is ready when you have clean hands and a clean board, and when the ball of dough is smooth, silky, and no longer sticky.
Alternatively, consider kneading the dough in a mixer with the dough hook for about 5 minutes on low speed, then finish kneading by hand for 5 minutes.
When the ball of dough is smooth, silky, and no longer sticky, cover with a bowl and rest for 30 minutes at room temperature before using it.
Now roll out the dough.
Divide the pasta dough into 6 equal portions. Lightly flour a work surface with semolina flour and, with a rolling pin, roll out one piece of dough into a ½-inch/1 cm-thick rectangle. Keep the remaining pieces covered with a clean kitchen towel.
Turn the dial on your pasta machine to the widest setting. Feed the dough through the rollers, then fold the sheet of pasta in three, as if you were folding a letter. Starting with one of the open sides, feed the pasta dough through the machine again. Repeat three times.
Now roll the pasta sheet thinner by turning the dial to the next narrower setting. Roll the pasta through the machine, gently pulling it towards you: holding the pasta sheet with the palm of your hand, while you are cranking the machine with the other hand.
Every time you reduce the settings, pass the lasagne sheets into semolina flour: it will prevent it from sticking and tearing. Keep reducing the settings until the dough is rolled as thinly as you'd like. I usually stop at the 7th one (Marcato or Kitchen Aid). Transfer to a rimmed baking sheet dusted with semolina, then dust each pasta sheet generously with more semolina so they don’t stick together as you stack them.
Assemble the lasagna
Heat the oven to 400°F/200°C.
Have all the other ingredients ready nearby. If the meat sauce is cold, reheat it until warm. Butter a 9- by 13-inch/23x33cm baking dish.
Line the baking dish with enough sheets of pasta to cover it. Spoon some of the meat sauce with the meatballs over the pasta sheets and spread it into a thin, even layer. Then scatter with the sliced mozzarella, scamorza, hard-boiled eggs and dry sausage. Sprinkle with some of the grated Pecorino. Repeat the layering until you have used all of the pasta, meat sauce, sliced mozzarella and scamorza, eggs, sausage, and Pecorino. You should have five layers, ending with a layer with just tomato sauce and meatballs, and grated Pecorino.
Dot the lasagna top with slivers of butter, then transfer to the hot oven and bake for about 45 minutes or until golden brown and bubbling.
Remove the lasagna from the oven, and let it cool. Let them rest for a few hours, rehear gently in the oven, then cut into squares and serve. Lasagna improves with time; if you’d like, let it cool completely, then refrigerate overnight. Reheat, covered, in a hot oven.
Hi Giulia, I’m cooking your pork loin with pears in a few days. Can I wrap it with prosciutto and cheese the day before? Hoping to prep as much as I can in advance. Thank you! 🙏🏾
I loved reading this article. It brought back so many memories. When my aunts made the braciole, they made a paste with “lard” and the parsley, garlic, salt and pepper and spread it on the thin beef and rolled it and cooked it in the sauce like you mentioned. Their mother, my grandmother, was from Bari and my grandfather was from Basilicata. I’m not sure where the “lard” idea came from. Any ideas?