Ingredients Pasta + Noodles Lasagna Woven Lasagna with Prosciutto and Fresh Spinach Sauce 4 Reviews Weaving the pasta sheets in this lasagna allows the outer pieces to bubble and crisp in the oven around the creamy, rustic prosciutto-ricotta filling. Don’t skip the fresh pasta sheets; their length and texture are key to weaving together this show-stopping dish.To ensure that the pasta dough yields two long, even sheets, this recipe makes a bit of extra dough to allow for generous trimming. Reroll the scraps and cut into enough fresh noodles for a light meal for two. The lasagna needs to set up in the refrigerator for at least six hours and up to a day; the assembled lasagna may be frozen and thawed in the fridge before slicing and roasting. The spinach may be blanched in the pasta water and the spinach sauce may be made up to a day ahead. Once the lasagna has chilled, it takes mere minutes to heat and serve this stunning, cover-worthy recipe, making it ideal for a dinner party. For a version without prosciutto, see Note. By Lachlan Mackinnon-Patterson Lachlan Mackinnon-Patterson F&W Star Chef » See All F&W Chef Superstars Restaurants: Frasca Food & Wine (Boulder, CO); Pizzeria Locale (Denver and Boulder) Education: Ferrandi (Paris) What dish are you most famous for?Frico caldo. It’s a kind of hash browns with potatoes, onions and cheese, whose roots lie in northeastern Italy and Friuli. It celebrates Friuli’s king of cheeses, Montasio. Frico means “fried” or “crispy”; caldo means “hot.” We started serving it years ago, and now it’s become synonymous with Frasca. What is your secret-weapon ingredient? Horseradish. We serve it lots of ways: Raw on crudo, or with prosciutto on crostini, or mixed with grated apples and crème fraîche; pickled with grilled or roasted meats. Ours is quite strong, because we use nice horseradish from the farmers and grate it ourselves. People have never had anything quite like it. That’s part of its allure: You’re taking something that people are familiar with, then doing a rendition that’s abundantly more fresh and flavorful, not mass-produced. People tend to be enamored by that fresh, hot and spicy taste. What will we always find in your fridge at home? I’m into cold-pressed juices like Suja. You can’t get that incredible flavor in something pasteurized. I like green juices seasoned with pineapple juice or mint or celery or apple. You’ll also find lots of coconut water and Pellegrino Limonata. What do you eat straight out of the fridge, standing up? My daughter’s Mini Babybel cheeses. What is your favorite cookbook of all time? At Frasca we love Fred Plotkin’s cookbook La Terra Fortunata. It’s currently out of print, but it’s an important inspiration. We recently held a culinary competition with all of our chefs: Everyone had to choose a dish from that book, then make it in their own way with a touch of creativity or modernism. We created this elaborate scoring table, and judged all of the dishes on appearance and taste and plating and originality. The winners all got prizes. Who is your food mentor, and what is the most important thing you learned? When I was in Paris, I got to work with Benoît Guichard, the longtime chef de cuisine for Joël Robuchon. He taught me about practicing to get something right, as opposed to creativity for the sake of being creative. A lot of people talk about repetition. But rather than just saying that you have to embrace mincing an onion every day, what you have to understand is that customers pay for the food. So it has to be executed right. It doesn’t have to be complicated or different from the day before. It has to be well executed and delicious. The only way you get to that point is by practicing a dish over and over again. Some cooks are always trying to change things for the sake of innovation. One element may taste interesting on its own or look interesting on the plate, but altogether the dish may not work. The way a dish is practiced and built at its core is what works best. My other mentor was Thomas Keller at the French Laundry. Thomas instilled the importance of organization and cleanliness. Being particular about how things should look, how they’re placed, how things are washed. It changed the way I think about a restaurant. It’s simply the most organized and efficient and clean kitchen organization that exists anywhere. What is the most important skill you need to be a great chef? We teach our chefs to forget about the romance of running a restaurant. We stress the economic model. We want people to know that there’s a consequence to a bad decision or disorganization. They’re going to have their own restaurants some day, so I want them to understand that the economic challenge and the people challenge are the two hardest parts. Once you have great training, the food part is the simplest part of running a restaurant. What is your hidden talent? I cycle a lot. I did the Mount Evans Hill Climb last year, along the highest paved road in the US, from Idaho Springs to the top of Mount Evans. It was 11 miles or so, climbing from 8,000 feet up to 14,000. It took me 2 hours and 33 minutes. The race starts early and you get up to the top, and then they kick everyone off as fast as they can. Everyone’s suffering, of course, and wanting to lie down in the parking lot at the top. But the race organizers try to get everybody off the mountain because the storms come in the early afternoon.2005 Best New Chef Bio Why Because he applies his technical mastery to a casual kind of cooking, featuring the bold flavors of Italy's Friuli region. He even does amazing things with a simple breadstick. Born Kingston, Ontario; 1975. Education École Supérieure de Cuisine Française Ferrandi, Paris. Experience Jamin in Paris; La Taupinière in Brittany, France; The French Laundry in Yountville, CA. Why he went to cooking school in France "My parents are academics—they are both professors of surgery. When I told them I wanted to be a chef, they said, 'Don't you need to go to school for that?' Then I read about Ferrandi, which gives foreign students the opportunity to work full-time in French kitchens if they pass the exam." Ingredient obsession Citric acid from a local health food store. "We use it to make our own ricotta, our own yogurt. Lemon juice tastes too much like lemon juice; citric acid is neutral." Most memorable meal Lunch at Les Maisons de Bricourt, a Michelin two-star restaurant on Mont-Saint-Michel Bay in Brittany. "It was the first time I ate a meal that so epitomized one place. The menu was all Brittany—the butter, the cheeses, the scallops. Out in the bay, tractors were harvesting the oysters when the tide was out." Won Best New Chef at: Frasca Food and Wine; Boulder, CO Food & Wine's Editorial Guidelines Updated on May 1, 2020 Print Rate It Share Share Tweet Pin Email Photo: Photo by Victor Protasio / Food Styling by Torie Cox / Prop Styling by Thom Driver Active Time: 1 hrs Total Time: 8 hrs 40 mins Yield: 6 Ingredients Pasta Sheets 2 1/2 cups 00 flour (such as Antimo Caputo Chef’s Flour Soft Wheat Flour Tipo “00”) or all-purpose flour (about 11 1/2 ounces), plus more for dusting 2 large eggs 3 large egg yolks 1 to 2 tablespoons water 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for greasing pans Fine sea salt, for salting water Lasagna Filling 6 ounces Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, broken into large chunks (about 1 1/2 cups) 1 pound high-quality whole-milk ricotta cheese (such as Galbani) (about 2 cups) 6 ounces thinly sliced prosciutto, finely chopped (about 1 1/4 cups) 2 tablespoons heavy cream 2 teaspoons finely chopped fresh rosemary Fine sea salt, to taste Spinach Sauce 5 ounces fresh baby spinach (about 5 cups) 1/2 cup water, plus more 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt, plus more for salting water Additional Ingredients 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil Directions Make the pasta sheets Process flour, eggs, egg yolks, 1 tablespoon water, and oil in a food processor until mixture is evenly moistened, resembles couscous, and sticks together when pinched, adding remaining 1 tablespoon of water if needed to moisten dough, about 20 seconds. Turn dough out onto a clean work surface. Shape into a ball, and knead until smooth, about 3 minutes. Wrap dough tightly in plastic wrap. Let stand at room temperature at least 1 hours and 30 minutes or up to 4 hours. Set rollers of a pasta machine on widest setting. Unwrap dough, and cut in half. Rewrap one dough half. Use a rolling pin or your hands, flatten unwrapped dough portion to 1/3-inch thickness. Roll dough through pasta machine, flouring dough as needed to prevent sticking. Fold dough in half crosswise; reroll through pasta machine. Continue folding dough in half crosswise and rerolling until it is as wide as the pasta rollers (5 to 6 inches), 1 or 2 times. Trim dough as needed to create straight sides. Once width is reached, run dough sheet through widest setting once more to ensure even thickness of dough. Reduce width of rollers one setting, and roll dough through rollers. Measure dough length, and trim to 32 inches, reserving scraps. Continue rerolling dough (do not refold) through pasta machine, reducing width of rollers one setting at a time and trimming to 32 inches between settings, until dough is the thickness of 3 pieces of paper and dough sheet weighs approximately 6 ounces. Trim pasta sheet into a 32- x 5-inch rectangle. Cover pasta sheet and scraps with plastic wrap or a towel. Repeat process with remaining dough half to form 2 (32- x 5-inch) sheets of pasta and about 6 ounces of dough scraps. Bring a large pot of water to boil, and salt it. Add 1 pasta sheet to boiling water; cook 1 minute. Using a spider and tongs, gently transfer pasta to a baking sheet generously coated with oil. Coat pasta generously all over with oil to prevent sticking; fold in half crosswise. Repeat process using remaining pasta sheet. Set aside. Make the lasagna filling Process Parmigiano-Reggiano chunks in a food processor until finely ground into small crumbles, about 30 seconds. Transfer half of the cheese (about 3/4 cup) to a bowl, and reserve for finishing lasagna. Add ricotta, prosciutto, cream, and rosemary to food processor; pulse until well combined and prosciutto is very finely chopped, about 10 pulses. Season with salt to taste. Transfer filling to a large piping bag with a 3/4-inch hole snipped in the tip. Assemble the lasagna Coat a 9- x 5-inch loaf pan with oil. Unfold pasta sheets, and arrange them parallel, overlapping them to create a 9-inch-wide layer of pasta. Line the bottom and two long sides of the loaf pan with the pasta, allowing a 5-inch overhang on one side and the remaining long ends on the other. Pipe a 1 1/4-inch-thick line of filling along the long pan side with the long ends of the pasta. Pipe a second line of filling parallel to the first, leaving 1/2 inch space on each side of the second line. Carefully fold the long overhanging pasta sheets up and over filling; press the pasta down to hug sides of filling. (This creates 2 long pockets of filling.) Pipe 2 lines of filling in the “trenches” of the pasta. Fold the longer pasta sheets back up and over the filling; gently press down to smooth. Repeat Step 7 once for a total of 4 layers of filling. Fold the 5-inch pasta overhang up and over to seal the lasagna. Trim pasta sheets along upper lip of loaf pan. Wrap loaf pan in plastic wrap, pressing plastic wrap directly onto lasagna surface. Chill until set, at least 6 hours or up to 24 hours. Make the spinach sauce Bring a medium saucepan of water to a boil, and salt it. Add spinach; cook, stirring occasionally, until very tender, about 2 minutes. Using a spider, transfer spinach to a large bowl of ice water. Let cool 2 minutes. Drain and squeeze excess moisture from spinach. Transfer spinach to a blender; add 1/2 cup water. Process until smooth, about 30 seconds, adding up to an additional 1/3 cup water, 1 tablespoon at a time, as needed to thin sauce to consistency of heavy cream. Transfer mixture to a small saucepan. Stir in oil and salt. Keep warm over low, stirring often, until ready to use. Bake the lasagna Preheat oven to 500°F. Run a small offset spatula around edges of lasagna to loosen from pan. Unmold lasagna, and invert onto a cutting board; cut crosswise into 6 (1 1/2-inch-wide) slices. Arrange lasagna slices, cut sides up, on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, leaving at least 1 inch between slices. Brush tops and sides of slices evenly with oil. Sprinkle slices with reserved Parmigiano-Reggiano crumbles (about 2 tablespoons per slice). Bake in preheated oven until slices are heated through and edges are puffy and golden brown, 6 to 10 minutes. Spoon 2 tablespoons spinach sauce onto each of 6 plates; tilt each plate in a circular motion to spread sauce in a thin, even layer. (Reserve remaining sauce for another use.) Place 1 lasagna slice on each plate. Serve immediately. Make Ahead Dough can be chilled overnight before rolling. Let stand at room temperature 1 hour before rolling. Lasagna can be assembled up to 24 hours in advance. The spinach sauce can be made up to 1 day in advance and reheated, adding a splash of water to thin if needed. To freeze, follow steps 1 through 8 as directed. Run a small offset spatula around edges of the lasagna to loosen from pan. Unmold lasagna, wrap tightly in plastic wrap, and cover with aluminum foil. Freeze lasagna up to 3 weeks. To thaw, transfer lasagna to the fridge for 24 hours. Unwrap and proceed with step 9, disregarding unmolding instructions. Notes Prosciutto may be substituted with 1 cup of mushroom duxelles. To make duxelles, finely chop 1 lb. fresh mushrooms and saute in ¼ cup butter, stirring often, until mushrooms are cooked and all their liquid has evaporated, about 10 minutes. Season generously with salt and pepper, and let cool before adding to filling. Suggested Pairing Cool-climate Friulian red. Rate it Print