When I was in Indiana last weekend my friend Sarah brought me a handful of issues of Cook’s Illustrated that hadn’t sold at the kitchen store where she works. One of them was a special request, but the other three were unsolicited and an exciting surprise. I had a couple of hours to kill in the Indy airport on my way home, so I flipped through each issue and made mental notes of all the recipes that I wanted to try. This spinach lasagna might not have jumped out at me, but Sarah had given it her endorsement when she handed over the magazines, and to stick with my meat-free detox I went ahead and made it for dinner last week. Good thing I gave it a shot, because it was delicious.
This particular recipe is from was the 2010 Light and Healthy issue, although a cheesy pasta dish with a creamy sauce is not what I would typically label “healthy.” Healthier than other versions, yes, but I don’t know about being healthy in its own right. One of the things that they did to lighten the recipe was to use cottage cheese in place of ricotta, which first made me think of the Matilda Cuomo/Sandra Lee lasagna debate (Team Cuomo!) and then made me wonder whether whole-milk cottage cheese is really that much healthier than ricotta. I guess I don’t know how cottage cheese is made, but it can’t be too different from making ricotta and I’ve always used whole milk for that. I’m not into counting calories and won’t lose any sleep over the issue, but it seems to me that using ricotta would leave you any worse off. Having said that, I decided to stick to the recipe and used cottage cheese. Sorry Mrs. Cuomo, but it turned out really well, and at least I didn’t use any cans of tomato soup.
A few minor changes I made to the original recipe: scaling it down to fit in an 8″ square pan instead of a 9″X13″ pan, and using pecorino romano instead of parmesan.
Spinach Lasagna
Slightly adapted from America’s Test Kitchen Light & Healthy 2010
1/2 onion, minced (2/3 of a cup or so)
1 tsp canola oil
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 cups 1% milk
2 small bay leaves
1/4 tsp nutmeg
2 tsp cornstarch
1-16 ounce bag frozen chopped spinach, defrosted and squeezed dry*
2 ounces grated parmesan or pecorino romano (about a cup)
2/3 cup whole-milk cottage cheese
1 large egg
1/4 tsp salt
8 no-boil lasagna noodles
4 ounces fontina cheese (about a cup), or mozzarella if you can’t find fontina
*If you can only find 10-ounce boxes you’d probably be fine using two of them. Once you squeeze the spinach dry it doesn’t seem like there’s much there, and I doubt four additional ounces would make a huge difference.
In a medium saucepan, cook the onion in the canola oil with 1/8 tsp. of salt for 10-12 minutes, until the onion softens. Add the garlic and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds.
Add 1 3/4 cups of the milk, the nutmeg, and the bay leaves. Bring to a simmer over medium-low.
While that’s coming to a simmer, combine the remaining 1/4 cup of milk with the cornstarch. Once the other milk/nutmeg/onion mixture is simmering, add the milk/cornstarch mixture to it, and whisk constantly until it thickens, 5-7 minutes. If nothing seems to be happening by then, turn the heat up a tiny bit.
Combine the cottage cheese, egg, and 1/4 tsp salt in a food processor or blender.
Blend until smooth.
Once the milk mixture has thickened, remove it from the heat and discard the bay leaves. Stir in the spinach and 1/2 cup of the pecorino until all of the clumps of spinach break up. Season with salt and pepper, cover with a lid, and set aside.
For the noodles, fill a broiler-safe baking dish with 1-inch of boiling water, slip the noodles into the water one by one, and let them soak for about five minutes. Carefully remove them to a kitchen towel, using a sharp knife to separate them if necessary. Empty the water from the baking dish, wipe it dry, and you’re ready to assemble.
Spread about 1/3 cup of sauce in the bottom of the baking dish, and top it with two noodles.
Cover the noodles with about 1/2 cup of sauce, and then sprinkle with the remaining pecorino romano or parmesan.
Top with another layer of two noodles, 1/2 cup of sauce, and 1/3 cup of fontina.
Then make another layer of two noodles, 1/2 cup of sauce, 1/3 cup of fontina, and half of the cottage cheese mixture.
Top with the final two noodles, the remaining sauce, the remaining cottage cheese mixture, and the rest of the fontina.
Cover with foil, and bake in the middle of a 425-degree oven for 20 minutes or until bubbly. Remove the foil, heat the broiler, and place the pan on the upper rack of the oven until the cheese is spotty brown, about five minutes.
Let the lasagna cool for 15 minutes before slicing and serving.
