Bon Appétit joins Taylor Falco, Chef de Cuisine at NYC’s Rolo’s, to make their wood-fired lasagna. Featured on the Bib Gourmand list from the Michelin Guide, Rolo’s puts their unique spin on traditional New York cuisine—including this Bologna-inspired lasagna. After all, there’s a reason Rolo’s is touted as one of Jeremy Allen White’s favorite spots in New York City.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00Hi, I'm Taylor Falco, Chef de Cuisine here at Rolo's here in New York City.
00:08Today we're going to make our version of the perfect lasagna.
00:15What makes Rolo's great is we cook a large portion of our menu in our wood fire oven.
00:20We are featured on the big gourmand list from the Michelin Guide.
00:23This is in no way what you're expecting a lasagna to kind of look like.
00:28It is based off of a version of a lasagna from Bologna, but with our spin on it.
00:33Our favorite part is the crispy edges all around the top.
00:37Although the inside of the lasagna has a ooey gooey bechamel and a bolognese sauce, the
00:44crispy top that is baked at a super high heat adds a little bit of texture.
00:50Making our lasagna starts with making bolognese, which means we need to grind beef.
00:57Bolognese is a meat sauce that has a lot of complexity, acid, sweetness, rich caramelization.
01:03Got our beef that I'm just going to cube up small enough to go into the grinder.
01:10You're likely going to be finding something at a grocery store in 80-20 or 85-15 percentage.
01:18What we're shooting for is a 75% lean meat with 25% fat.
01:24We want our bolognese to be much richer.
01:27The reason that we like to take the long way is control.
01:31We're going to grind our spices with the meat so that as we're in the cooking process, everything
01:37is kind of blooming together while we're grounding our meat.
01:40I've got black pepper, onion powder, garlic powder, and nutmeg.
01:47One of the benefits of having this grinder in house is producing a really evenly ground
01:53mirepoix.
01:54Mirepoix is going to be your onion, your carrot, your celery.
01:57We're actually going to use the mirepoix to almost clean out the grinder so that we're
02:03getting all of the pieces of beef that were kind of like in there and potentially stuck
02:08and kind of flushed out with the rest of the mirepoix.
02:11Although we could chop this by hand or you could put it into a food processor, our ability
02:16to have the grinder here ready to go actually makes for a really great consistent quality.
02:22Now we're going to head upstairs and cook bolognese.
02:28If you've already kind of measured out all of your ingredients, something you can do
02:32is actually just line them up in the order that the recipe states so that in the moment
02:37you can very quickly turn around and know exactly what needs to go next.
02:41First thing we're going to do is brown our beef.
02:44So I've got the pan getting nice and hot.
02:46I'm going to add in a little bit of oil.
02:48We're really waiting for the fond to build.
02:51So the fond is what happens at the bottom of your pan when things start to stick.
02:57Incredibly flavorful because it's caramelization coming from the beef and the spices.
03:02So we're intentionally trying to create lots of browning on the beef and also on the bottom
03:09of the pan.
03:10We've gotten to a point where all the fat has rendered and kind of started to rise to
03:15the top of the pot.
03:17So what I'm going to do now is remove the ground beef from the pan and then we're going
03:21to go in with our vegetables.
03:23And there is quite a lot of that beef fat in here.
03:26The water that is in the vegetables is naturally going to seep out in the cooking process,
03:32kind of stripping the bottom of the pan of that fond.
03:36Add in our tomato paste, which is going to encourage some more browning and fond building
03:43at the bottom of the pan.
03:45We've gotten the amount of color that I'm looking for, and so we're going to deglaze
03:49with our wine.
03:52We like to use white wine for this recipe.
03:54The jumpy acidity coming from the white wine is a little bit better for what we're looking
03:59for.
04:00We've got our ground beef, all the fat going in there.
04:05Heavy cream.
04:09Crushed tomatoes.
04:10We're going to add some sweetness and acidity.
04:13Once it comes up to a simmer, you're just going to want to turn that down to a very
04:17low temperature.
04:18This is going to sit here for about 90 minutes now.
04:22To finish our sauce, a little bit of a splash of red wine vinegar.
04:28That's going to add a little bit of acidity.
04:31Next we're going to take brandy.
04:32It's going to add some sweetness.
04:34And then we have raw garlic.
04:37Because we're microplaning this, it's going to kind of like puree and almost disappear
04:42into the sauce.
04:43Season to taste with salt.
04:45When you're tasting something and you're doing it over and over and over again, you can use
04:49your stirring implement and then kind of drop it over your tasting spoon, take a bite, and
04:55then if you need to go back in, you're not having to add your used spoon into the sauce.
05:04Nailed it.
05:10The two flours that we need for our spinach dough are 00 caputo flour, finely ground flour,
05:16usually common in pastas and pizzas, as well as semolina, which is going to add some toothsomeness
05:23to the bite of the pasta.
05:25Bring everything into our pastry room and then we'll start assembling.
05:29So let's talk about spinach pasta.
05:32We are going to blend spinach and eggs together.
05:35Ends up making a really beautiful bright green dough.
05:39We are kind of basing this recipe off of traditional lasagna from Bologna.
05:46All of the lasagna that is made in that region has a bright green spinach dough.
05:51I have to start blending it.
05:53You want to do this pretty quickly because we don't want the spinach to get hot and lose
05:59its color, and we don't want the eggs to get hot and potentially scramble off.
06:04Now we're going to mix our dough together.
06:05We're going to turn this on for a little bit before I actually add in the liquid ingredients
06:10because I want the semolina, the salt, and the caputo to evenly distribute.
06:18Turn this on for the next 18 to 20 minutes.
06:22We'll come back and check on the dough.
06:27Everything is very evenly green.
06:29We're looking for a strong dough.
06:30If it weren't strong, when I go to kind of like squeeze the dough, it might fall apart.
06:36It all feels like it's got some nice like spring to it.
06:39Knead these into one or two nice dough balls.
06:43You're trying to get all the air bubbles out, and so you're using your body weight to compress
06:48everything together.
06:49We're going to get it to a nice tight ball like this, and then up it well.
06:54Make sure it's nice and tight.
06:57We want it to fully hydrate, so there is a lot of liquid in this dough.
07:02By letting it sit all together, it will equalize and kind of become one well-rested and hydrated
07:10dough.
07:11We're going to let this rest overnight.
07:13I have a dough that I made yesterday, and now we're going to start working with it.
07:21Our pasta machine is like the Ferrari of pasta machines.
07:26So the amount of lasagna dough that we're actually kneading and sheeting each week is
07:31quite a bit, and it's able to kind of keep up with all that work.
07:36Sheeting pasta by hand is very fun.
07:39This machine makes it a lot easier.
07:41It's more consistent.
07:42I'm just going to start compressing the dough down as much as I can.
07:46There's absolutely no shortcuts to this part.
07:50Not for weak wrists.
07:54So we've got our dough.
07:55There we go.
07:57Turning the pasta machine on.
07:59Dough in.
08:01And this is the first time that we're going to do lamination.
08:06Fold the pasta into quarters so that now we have a nice flat edge, and then we're going
08:12to use our rolling pin to get this thin enough to be able to go through the pasta machine.
08:19The reason we want to do this a few times is just to make sure that it has the mouth
08:23feel that we want and the strength of the dough that we want.
08:28Take a little bit of flour.
08:29It's just going to help the pasta from sticking to the workbench.
08:35And then we're going to be cutting our lasagna sheets.
08:39Each one of these is going to be one half of the lasagna.
08:43So we want about six by nine inches.
08:47We bother using a ruler because we want to make sure that each portion is exactly the
08:52same.
08:53We're going to blanch the lasagna sheets.
08:56Basically what we're doing is quickly cooking them, just not all the way through.
08:59The lasagna takes about two minutes in our wood fire oven, sometimes less.
09:03Being able to blanch the lasagna sheets ahead of time is actually one of the reasons that
09:07we can speed up that process.
09:09To my side, I have ice water.
09:12The ice water is going to basically stop the cooking process so that we don't overcook
09:17the pasta.
09:18Thirty seconds or so and we're going to start taking it out.
09:23We want to make sure that we're moving it around, trying to make sure that the pasta
09:27isn't sticking to itself.
09:29Take the lasagna sheet, drain the excess water off of it, and then I'm going to put a little
09:37bit of olive oil on this half sheet tray just so that it's not sticking to the parchment
09:45and lay flat our lasagna sheet.
09:49Add a little bit of olive oil on top of them.
09:51Since we need both sides of this to be oiled up, we're just going to give this a press
09:56and then actually switch it and the residual olive oil that's stuck to the lasagna will
10:02keep it from sticking.
10:03Now we're going to make the bechamel.
10:07Equal parts flour and butter.
10:10I want to get that into the pot first because I want it to pretty slowly melt.
10:15The bechamel is really creamy, has a great texture to it.
10:19I don't want to get any caramelization or accidentally brown the butter.
10:23I have exactly the same amount of grams of butter in all-purpose flour.
10:28I'm going to pretty quickly add in.
10:32And then I just want to mix this until it starts to become one cohesive paste.
10:38As the pan and the butter start to heat up, it starts to become a little bit more slick
10:43and actually come away from the pan.
10:46Slowly start to stream in our milk, little by little, until we can get a really smooth
10:52paste at first and then add in the rest of the milk so that we have a really creamy,
10:57silky smooth sauce.
10:59We're going to bring this up to a boil.
11:01I'm just going to cut some onions.
11:04The thinner or the smaller that the slice or the cut is, the more prominent it will
11:08be in the sauce.
11:12Slowly poaching, the onions release a little bit of their mild, kind of sweet flavor into
11:18the sauce.
11:19While this is working, we're also going to add a little bit of nutmeg.
11:22It's to add some warm baking spice flavors or notes to the lasagna as a whole.
11:30Just going to add a little bit of salt.
11:32We're just going to quickly kind of pass that through a fine mesh sieve, strip out
11:38any of the onions, add some salt.
11:47We put the lasagna into our hotel pans.
11:51We're going to take bechamel and squeeze out a decent amount on each one.
12:00Using a piping bag is a little bit more efficient than using a spoon.
12:03We want to make sure that we're keeping a gap between the edge of the lasagna and the
12:08bechamel, because as the bolognese, the bechamel, and the parmesan start to melt, they're actually
12:15going to creep towards the edges.
12:18Two pretty generous scoops of parmesan.
12:21It's an 18-month-age parmesan.
12:24We find that it melts exactly the way that we want in the high heat, and we're going
12:28to just take our last sheet and put that right on top, just being careful not to rip
12:37them.
12:38And then just give it a little bit of a press so everything kind of comes together, and
12:43then peel this layer of our parchment.
12:47Rinse and repeat the same thing over and over and over until we have about eight lasagnas
12:53per tin.
12:58The size of our lasagna actually makes for a really quick cooking process.
13:02We have our preheated sizzle pan.
13:06Take some canola oil and just kind of lightly grease the pan all over so that when we add
13:12in our lasagna, it does not stick.
13:15We think that the best part of any lasagna is the top kind of crispy, crunchy, cheesy
13:20part.
13:21What we want to see is you want to kind of scrunch up the lasagna and kind of create
13:25these peaks and valleys.
13:28So by kind of folding everything in together, we feel like we get all the best parts of
13:32the lasagna.
13:33Pop it right into the oven.
13:36I'm just going to move it into our hot spot.
13:40In the meantime, we can take one of our plates and kind of start to preheat that.
13:44We want to make sure that all the food that's going out to our guests is served really nice
13:48and hot.
13:49At home, if you have one of those cast iron flat tops and you can pre-bake it in the oven
13:57so that by the time you actually dropped your homemade lasagna onto it, it is as close as
14:05to what you're going to get here.
14:07But if you don't have an oven that is burning at, you know, sometimes north of 750 degrees,
14:14it's going to be damn near impossible to recreate.
14:18We're going to pull our lasagna out.
14:22You can see that we've gotten all the kind of crispy edges to finish our lasagna.
14:28Some fresh Parmesan and layer that on top.
14:31Some Maldon salt, Sicilian olive oil, and then a decent dusting of nutmeg over the whole
14:40dish.
14:41And then we're just going to slide this on and then kind of come from the backside and
14:46just lightly take it off the tray.
14:50This is our lasagna.
14:53For me, I like to kind of cut into the center, save the edges for last, but you can also
14:59kind of see all the ooey gooeyness of the inside of the bechamel and the bolognese.
15:09I think that like the top has a really great crunchiness to it from the charred bits.
15:14The bechamel is really creamy.
15:16The bolognese has a lot of complexity to the sauce, acid, sweetness, you know, rich caramelization.
15:23So in one bite, it's really quite delicious.