I am not a big fan of meat substitutes such as veggie-'mince.' As a meat eater, I just don't think you can replicate meat, nor do I think you should!
This lentil lasagne, in my opinion, is BETTER than a meaty version! The textures are perfect, there is lots of lovely fresh veg, and the flavours are so vibrant that it makes for a brilliant sharing dish in the centre of the table. At just £1 a portion its a brilliant way to impress family and friends!
Give it a go and let me know what you think of this veggie alternative to an Italian classic!
The idea of adding Vodka to a tomato and bacon based pasta sauce did not seem strange to me today when I decided to give it a try, but after searching into the history of the dish, I struggled to find where the idea originated from.
Even Wikipedia was no help, giving numerous possibilities of how the dish developed:
According to Pasquale Bruno, Jr., author of The Ultimate Pasta Cookbook, penne alla vodka was invented at Dante, a restaurant in Italy. Other historians of the culinary arts recognize James Doty, a graduate of Columbia University, as the inventor of penne a la vodka. Paula Franzese, an American law professor, has asserted that her father Luigi Franzese, born in Naples, Italy in 1931, devised the first version of penne alla vodka, which he called penne alla Russia because of the addition of the vodka to his tomato and cream sauce base. He first prepared the dish table side for patrons at the New York City restaurant Orsini in the early 1970s. (This seems the more recognised version of events with other websites I stumbled across stating the same!) The Williams Sonoma Essentials of Italian cookbook says that it was invented in the 1980s by a Roman chef for a vodka company that wanted to popularize its product in Italy.
Wherever the dish originated from, this is my version! Do give it a try and let me know what you think!
