Lasagne al forno is the prototypical way to prepare lasagne. It's surprisingly complicated: apart from the lasagne themselves, you need a meat filling (ragù bolognese), besciamella (which for some reason is usaually called by the French name sauce béchamel) and salsa di pomodori.

On this page I'll limit myself to the details of how to put the bits together. The first question is: what kind of pasta? Yes, it's lasagne, of course, but there are at least four different ways to get it:

• As pasta secca, dried pasta. Once this was the only kind you could get. It needs to be boiled for several minutes, during which it takes up a considerable quantity of water.
• As instant pasta. Like the previous one, this is dried pasta, but it has been processed to not require boiling. It still needs moisture, but it takes it from the sauce, so you need thinner sauces to make up for it.
• As pasta fresca, fresh pasta. This needs very little cooking, and it doesn't take up as much water in the process.
• As pre-packaged fresh pasta. Like “instant” pasta, it is not intended to be cooked in advance. It's not as moist as cooked pasta, and it takes up some moisture from the sauce, but not as much as the “instant” pasta.

Quantities

I make my lasagne in an oven dish 33x26 cm in size and about 8 cm deep. This is enough for a total of about 6 layers, and that's what I've accounted for here.

Ingredients

quantity		ingredient
0.5 square metres		lasagne
about 150 g		ragù bolognese (see note below)
1 litre		sauce béchamel
100 ml		salsa di pomodori
		grated parmesan cheese
		butter flakes

The quantity of pasta is approximately what comes in the 375 g pre-packaged “fresh” lasagne that we can get at our local supermarkets.

Method

Ragù bolognese is usually made with chicken livers; I prefer to keep them separate and chop them coarsely, then add them to the layers along with the ragú, rather than mixing them in with it. Exceptionally, I don't weigh the ragù, since it's difficult to spread it equally if it's weighed.

If using “instant” lasagne, add another 200 ml to the sauce béchamel to make up for the moisture that the pasta will absorb. If using “no-cook” fresh pasta, add 50 ml.

Use an oven dish about 30x30 cm. Spread a thin layer of béchamel on the bottom of the oven dish, then repeat the following six times:

• Place a layer of pasta across the entire surface.
• Spread a thin layer of béchamel over it.
• Spread a layer of ragù over the top.
• Add some coarsely chopped chicken liver.
• Spread another layer of béchamel. The béchamel must touch the pasta from both sides.

Next, place the dish in an oven pre-heated to 180° for 5 minutes. This dries the surface sufficiently to ensure that things don't get messy in the next step:

Spread the salsa di pomodori over the top, and spread parmesan to taste. Add butter flakes and return to the oven and cook for about 30 minutes. The dish is ready when the surface has the right colour.

Lasagne or lasagna?

For some reason, the US name for this pasta dish is lasagna (singular) and not lasagne (plural). That's not the case in Italian or other English usage, and even in the USA you don't hear of spaghetto or macarono.