Full question
Nigella advises that noodles not be cooked for her Lasagne of Love. I have never had good luck with this method - the noodles often being a bit too "chewy" in the finished product. Could I adjust the recipe and used slightly boiled noodles and, if so, how?
Our answer
Nigella's Lasagne Of Love (from COOK, EAT, REPEAT) is made with the dried, no-need-to-precook, pasta sheets. The meat sauce for the lasagne is slightly more liquid than usual, so that the pasta sheets have some extra liquid to soak up and they will soften as the lasagne cooks in the oven. One of the risks of using pre-boiled pasta is that they won't absorb as much liquid and the lasagne will be runny. The cooking time of the lasagne is quite long, which helps the sheets to cook and the pasta will continue to cook as the lasagne stands after cooking. So make sure that the lasagne rests for at least 30 minutes after it comes out of the oven.
If you use fresh pasta or very slightly boiled lasagne sheets then it may help to uncover the pot holding the meat sauce during cooking so that some of the liquid can evaporate. We would suggest cooking for half an hour with the lid on and then a further half an hour with the lid off.
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