The Curried Cook: Green Lasagne with a tofu filling

We got a KitchenAid pasta attachment set and I was dying to try and make some fresh pasta sheets. The insipration for this recipe was David Tanis's Platter of Figs and Other Recipes. I saw his recipe and thought I would give it a try. His recipe calls for a pound of ricotta, which I replaced with tofu. A pound of ricotta sounds fat, and two, I hate ricotta cheese! The tofu is much healthier, and I think tastier than the ricotta. (I had tried out a tofu lasagne before, and I really liked it) I was curious what the addition of fresh lasagne noodles would be like to this dish, and I really got to say it makes a difference. Rolling out fresh lasagne noodles though is a big chore (unless you have a pasta roller, like the one I have from KitchenAid), so I think store bought noodles would work fine.

A grand success! It was delicious! Like the tofu lasagne I made before, I didn't boil the fresh noodles before assembling, the sauce was enough to cook them through.

Ingredients
For the Pasta Dough:
2 cups shredded raw greens (I used the leafy part of beet greens, sans stems)
2 small eggs
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 cups all purpose flour

For the Veggie Filling:
3 tablespoons olive oil
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 teaspoon pepper flakes
2 lbs chopped washed greens (chard & spinach)
Salt and pepper

For the Tofu Filling:
Tofu
Shredded Mozzarella cheese
grated zest of 1/2 lemon
Fresh herbs (optional)

Homemade tomato sauce

Making the pasta dough

Slice the leafy greens from the stems. Reserve the stems for vegetable stock or compost them. I used beet greens. Cut in half and add to a food processor.

Add the eggs, salt and olive oil to the food processor. Puree until smooth.

Transfer the puree to a bowl add the flour. Kneed the flour with your hands into a soft dough. You can also use the Kitchenaid Dough Hook for this. If the dough seems sticky, add flour. The dough should have a nice deep green color with specks of leafy green in them. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap or cover with a cloth and set aside.

Make the Veggie Filling

Add olive oil to the wok. Heat and add the garlic. Stir fry for few seconds and let it sizzle, but don't let it brown or burn. Add the pepper flakes. Add the leafy greens. Continue to stir fry the leafy greens until they begin to wilt. Season with salt and pepper and give them one last good stir. With a spatula, bring the greens to the side of the wok and give them a good squeeze to remove any excess juices. Set aside.

Make the Tofu Filling

Cut up the tofu into chucks and add to the food processor. Add shredded mozzarella cheese and lemon zest.

Add any fresh herbs you want to (I used fresh oregano and basil). Puree in the food processor till very smooth.

Rolling the pasta dough
Take out the pasta roller from the box. Loosen the thumb screw and remove the cover on the stand mixer.

Attach the pasta roller to the socket where the cover was. Tighten the thumb screw to lock the pasta roller in place. Set the roller setting to 1.

Roll the pasta dough into a log.

Divide the log into even pieces. To do this, I usually will make a mark with a knife in the center of the log. I make another mark in the center of the left hand side of the log, and the right hand side of the log. You should get an even number of similar size dough pieces. Cut through all the way and you should have 4 or 6 rounds of dough, depending on how long your roll was.

Take one of the rounds of dough and give it a good dunk in flour. Dust off any excess flour and flatten with the palms of your hands.

Place the pasta roller on setting 1. Feed the pasta dough through the roller. Increase the setting to 2 and repeat. Continue to roll the dough through the pasta roller, increasing the setting by 1 unit each time until the dough reaches the width of the pasta roller.

You will start getting these long beautiful sheet of pasta that looks somewhat oblique. If the sheet is getting to long to handle, cut the sheet in half and continue rolling it out until the width of the pasta reaches the width of the pasta roller. If you need to cut a sheet in half, be sure to give it a good dusting of flour so it wont stick.

Assembly

Preheat the oven to 375 F.

Take a large baking dish, around 8 x 12 inches. Pour a thin layer of olive oil on the pan and smear around with your fingers. Pour a thin layer of the tomato sauce in the pan and spread it around the whole pan with a spatula.

Gently place the lasagne noodles ontop of the tomato sauce. Arrange them so there is a minimal amount of gaps.

Next, take the spatula and smear a thin layer of the tofu mixture on the lasagne noodles. Take the shredded mozzarella cheese and sprinkle a layer over the tofu.