Italian Artichoke Lasagne | Lasagne ai Carciofi
Updated: 20 hours ago
This is a white lasagne, with no tomato and no meat, in which artichokes carry the entire dish and besciamella holds it together. It sounds gentle and it is not: the artichoke is one of the wettest vegetables an Italian kitchen puts inside a baked pasta, and a lasagne built on it fails more often from flooding than from dryness. Everything below is arranged around that single problem.
Yield: 6 servings. Prep: 50 minutes. Cook: 45 minutes. Rest: 20 minutes. Total: about 2 hours. Difficulty: intermediate. Course: primo piatto. Season: late winter through spring.
The Story
Lasagne is the oldest recorded pasta shape in Italy, descended from the Roman laganum, a sheet of dough that was fried or boiled long before anyone thought to bake it in layers. The layered baked version we recognise was codified in Emilia, where the green sheet coloured with spinach, the ragu and the besciamella became the Bolognese standard in the nineteenth century. What is often forgotten is that the meatless lasagne is just as old and far more widespread, because the Church calendar demanded it. Lent, Fridays and the vigils of feast days pushed Italian cooks to build layered pasta out of whatever vegetable was in the ground, and in late winter and early spring that vegetable was the artichoke.
Italy grows more artichokes than any other country in Europe, and the varieties are regional in a way that shapes the cooking. The carciofo romanesco of Ladispoli, Sezze and the coast north of Rome is round, tender and almost without a choke, which is why Lazio eats it whole and stuffed. The violet spinoso of Sardinia and the purple Catanese of Sicily are smaller, more aggressive and more fragrant, better suited to being cut down and cooked into something. Liguria and Provence turn them into tortas, Naples grills them under ash, and the Roman Jewish quarter fries them flat.
An artichoke lasagne sits inside that meatless tradition rather than outside it, and it is the kind of dish that appears on family tables in Lazio and Campania in March without anyone writing it down. The besciamella is the one element that arrived from elsewhere, carried into southern Italy by the monzu, the French trained cooks of the Bourbon aristocracy in Naples, whose habit of binding baked pasta with a white sauce spread far beyond the palaces and into ordinary kitchens. Put the two together and you get a primo that tastes entirely Italian while being built on a French technique, which is more or less the history of Neapolitan cooking in one dish.
Nothing about the dish is fixed. Where a Bolognese lasagne has a written recipe defended by a chamber of commerce, the artichoke version changes street by street: some cooks add peas or fava beans in the manner of the Roman vignarola, some slip in prosciutto cotto, some swap half the Parmigiano for a young Pecorino. What stays constant is the order of the layers and the fact that the vegetable is cooked before it is buried.
Ingredients
For the artichokes
Globe artichokes, medium, 8, about 3 1/2 lb (1.6 kg) whole
Lemon, 1, halved, for the acidulated water
Extra virgin olive oil, 3 tbsp (45 ml)
Garlic cloves, thinly sliced, 3
Dry white wine, 1/3 cup (80 ml)
Flat leaf parsley, chopped, 3 tbsp (10 g)
Fine sea salt, 1 tsp (6 g)
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
For the besciamella
Whole milk, 3 1/2 cups (830 ml)
Unsalted butter, 5 tbsp (70 g)
All purpose flour, 1/2 cup plus 1 tbsp (70 g)
Bay leaf, 1
Whole nutmeg, freshly grated, 1/4 tsp
Fine sea salt, 1 tsp (6 g)
White pepper, to taste
For the layers
Dried egg lasagne sheets, 12 oz (340 g), or fresh sheets, 1 lb (450 g)
Parmigiano Reggiano, finely grated, 5 oz (140 g)
Pecorino Romano, finely grated, 1 1/2 oz (40 g)
For finishing
Unsalted butter, 1 tbsp (14 g), for the dish and the top
Parmigiano Reggiano, 1 oz (30 g), reserved from the quantity above
Finely grated lemon zest, from 1/2 lemon
Preparation
Step 1
Clean and cut the artichokes. Snap off the tough outer leaves until you reach the pale tender ones, cut the top third away, peel the stem to its pale core and trim the base flat. Halve each artichoke and scrape out the fuzzy choke and purple inner leaves with a teaspoon. Cut each half into wedges about 1/4 inch (6 mm) thick, dropping them into water acidulated with the lemon halves as you go so the cut surfaces do not brown.
Step 2
Braise them, then dry them. Drain the wedges and pat them on a towel. Heat the olive oil in a wide pan over medium heat, add the garlic for 30 seconds, then the artichokes, salt and pepper, and cook 3 minutes. Pour in the wine, let it evaporate, cover and cook over low heat for 12 to 15 minutes until a wedge yields easily to a knife. Take the lid off, raise the heat and let every trace of liquid cook away. Stir in the parsley and spread them out to cool.
Step 3
Make a thicker besciamella. Warm the milk with the bay leaf to just below a simmer. Melt the butter in a heavy saucepan, add the flour and cook the roux over medium low heat for 2 minutes, stirring constantly, until it smells faintly of biscuit but has taken no colour. Remove the bay leaf and pour in the hot milk in three additions, whisking each smooth before the next. Simmer 6 to 8 minutes, until the sauce leaves a clear channel behind a finger. Season with salt, white pepper and nutmeg.
Step 4
Prepare the pasta sheets. Boil dried egg sheets in batches in well salted water for two thirds of the stated time, then slide them into cold water and lay them flat on damp towels. Fresh sheets need 30 seconds only. Do not skip the cooling: sheets left in a pile weld together and tear. Trim them to fit the dish rather than overlapping heavily, since every doubled edge becomes a thick pale seam.
Step 5
Assemble the layers. Butter a 9 by 13 inch (23 by 33 cm) dish and spread 3 tablespoons of besciamella across the bottom. Lay down pasta, then a thin layer of besciamella, then a single even layer of artichokes, then Parmigiano and a little Pecorino. Repeat for five layers, finishing with pasta. Doubled vegetable means doubled liquid in that spot, and that is where a lasagne collapses.
Step 6
Bake it. Heat the oven to 350°F (175°C). Cover the top with the remaining besciamella, right to the corners, then the reserved Parmigiano, the lemon zest and the last butter in small pieces. Bake covered with foil for 25 minutes, then uncovered for 15 to 20 minutes more, until the surface is blistered and golden and the sauce bubbles slowly at the edges rather than rolling. If it browns early, drop the oven to 325°F (165°C).
Step 7
Rest it properly. Leave the dish on a rack for 20 minutes before cutting. This is not a courtesy to the cook. The besciamella is still fluid as it leaves the oven and the artichokes are still steaming; over those 20 minutes the starch in the sauce and the pasta sets and draws that moisture back in. Cut at 5 minutes and it slumps. Cut at 20 and it stands in clean layers.
Plating
Cut with a thin sharp knife rather than a spatula, wiping the blade between portions, and lift each square out with a wide offset spatula slid down to the base of the dish. A portion is a square of about 4 inches (10 cm), which gives six generous servings. Serve on warm plates, not hot ones: a plate out of the warmer keeps the besciamella loose and undoes the rest.
Nothing more is needed than a little grated Parmigiano at the table and a thread of good olive oil. For a garnish, one raw artichoke heart sliced paper thin on a mandoline and dressed with lemon and salt sits alongside and gives a raw bitter note against the baked one. Resist herbs across the top: parsley browned in the oven tastes of nothing.
Professional Technique
The technical problem specific to this lasagne is besciamella meeting a wet vegetable. An artichoke is roughly eighty five percent water and it does not hold that water tightly. Layered in raw or half cooked, it goes on releasing liquid for the whole time the dish is in the oven, and that liquid has nowhere to go except into the sauce. Besciamella made to the usual strength cannot absorb it: the starch network thins, the emulsion loosens, and what comes out is not a lasagne with a sauce but a lasagne in a puddle of dilute milk.
There are three corrections and they work together. The first is to drive the water out before the artichokes ever reach the dish: braise them covered until tender, then uncover and cook hard until the pan is dry, so the liquid is lost to the air rather than to the sauce. The second is to build the besciamella deliberately thicker than a classic one, at roughly 70 grams of flour to 830 millilitres of milk instead of the usual 50, so that it starts out too heavy and arrives at the right consistency only after it has taken up the water the vegetable still carries.
The third is the rest. A thickened starch sauce continues to set as it cools, and while it sets it pulls free moisture back into the gel rather than letting it run. Twenty minutes out of the oven is the difference between a clean cut and a spreading one. Read the three together and the logic is simple: remove the water you can, plan for the water you cannot, then give the dish time to reabsorb it.
Texture and Moisture Control
The finished dish has to give three textures at once: pasta tender but still distinct sheet by sheet, artichoke soft without turning to fibre, and a sauce creamy rather than set. The pasta is the easiest to lose, which is why dried sheets are boiled to two thirds only. They finish cooking in the oven by drawing liquid out of the besciamella, which is useful rather than accidental: it is a second mechanism taking up the artichoke water, and another reason the sauce must start thick.
The artichoke has a bitter fibrous outer structure and a tender core, and the cleaning is what decides the texture. Leave one row of tough leaves on and those fibres stay tough through 45 minutes of baking. Cut the wedges thicker than 1/4 inch (6 mm) and the centres stay firm while the edges overcook. Even thickness matters here because every wedge gets the same braise and the same bake.
Surface moisture is a separate question from internal moisture. The top wants to dry just enough to blister and brown, so it is covered for the first 25 minutes and open for the last 20. Covered throughout, it steams and stays pale. Open throughout, the top sheet dries into leather before the middle is hot.
Professional Mise en Place
Artichoke cleaning is the slow part and the besciamella cannot wait once made, so the order matters. Clean and braise first, sauce second, assemble third.
Equipment and tools
Wide saute pan with a lid, for the braise
Heavy saucepan and a balloon whisk for the besciamella
Baking dish, 9 by 13 inch (23 by 33 cm), and foil to cover it
Large pot for the sheets, a bowl of cold water and two damp towels
Wide offset spatula and a thin sharp knife
Prepared ahead
Artichokes cleaned, braised and dried, up to 1 day ahead, refrigerated
Besciamella, up to 1 day ahead, with a film pressed on the surface
Cheeses grated and mixed, on the day
The whole lasagne assembled unbaked, up to 12 hours ahead, refrigerated
Service setup
Besciamella warm and pourable, loosened with hot milk if it has set
Assembled dish taken out of the refrigerator 40 minutes before it goes in
Oven fully up to 350°F (175°C) before the dish goes in, never rising with it
Plates warm, not hot, and a rack cleared for the 20 minute rest
Chef Tips
Buy artichokes that squeak. A fresh globe is heavy for its size and its leaves rub together with a faint squeal; one that feels light, with splayed dry outer leaves, has been out of the ground a week and will be mostly fibre.
Taste the braised artichokes before they go into the dish and season them properly at that point. Once they are between pasta and besciamella nothing more can reach them, and undersalted artichokes make the whole lasagne taste flat no matter how well the sauce is seasoned.
Grate the nutmeg yourself, straight into the finished sauce, and use less than you think. Nutmeg is the traditional partner to besciamella and it is also the fastest way to bury the artichoke, which has a delicate green bitterness that disappears under spice.
If your artichokes are out of season or disappointing, stiffen the dish with chopped toasted almonds between the middle layers rather than cream or more cheese. It adds savour and body without adding liquid.
Common Mistakes
Layering the artichokes raw or half cooked. They release their water into the sauce over 45 minutes of baking and you cannot recover from it. Braise them covered until tender, then finish uncovered until the pan is dry.
Making a standard besciamella. A classic 50 grams of flour per litre of milk is correct for a meat lasagne and too thin for this one. Go to roughly 85 grams per litre and let the vegetable water do the rest.
Boiling the pasta sheets fully. Sheets cooked through before assembly turn soft and indistinct in the oven and stop drawing liquid out of the sauce. Two thirds of the stated time, then straight into cold water.
Piling the vegetable into thick layers. One even layer per level is the rule. A double layer of artichoke is a double dose of moisture in one place, and that is where the lasagne will slump when you cut it.
Cutting it straight out of the oven. The sauce is still fluid and the pasta has not finished reabsorbing. Twenty minutes on a rack is the clearest difference between a clean square and a spoonful.
Wine Pairing
Frascati Superiore DOCG: The wine of the hills above the fields where the carciofo romanesco grows. Artichoke contains cynarin, which makes many wines taste oddly sweet and metallic, and Frascati survives it because its acidity is brisk and its fruit plainly savoury. Unoaked and medium bodied, it has the weight to sit under the besciamella.
Soave Superiore DOCG: Garganega on volcanic soil gives almond bitterness and a saline mineral edge, and both meet the artichoke directly instead of arguing with it. The acidity cuts the butter and milk fat in the sauce. Choose a lees aged Superiore rather than an oaked one, since new wood on this dish tastes of resin.
Offida Pecorino DOCG: Pecorino from the Marche is one of the few Italian whites with real herbal and anise character, which against a green vegetable is an advantage. Its high acidity and firm structure handle the richness of five layers, and there is body enough to stay present through a baked pasta.
Vermentino di Gallura DOCG: The Sardinian option, and the right one if your artichokes are the small violet spinoso rather than Roman globes. Grown on decomposed granite, it carries a saline bite and a citrus acidity sharp enough to reset the palate between mouthfuls of besciamella. Its bitter almond finish repeats the artichoke.
Franciacorta DOCG: For a metodo classico answer to the fat in the dish. The bead scrubs butter and cheese off the palate, and the bread and hazelnut notes from the lees sit beside a browned besciamella top. Serve a Brut rather than a Satin: residual sugar and cynarin together turn cloying.
Storage & Reheating
Baked lasagne keeps covered and refrigerated for 3 days and is arguably better on the second day, once the layers have set completely and the artichoke flavour has spread through the sauce. Cut it into portions before it goes into the refrigerator rather than after, since a cold lasagne cuts cleanly and a reheated one does not. Press a sheet of parchment onto the cut surfaces so they do not dry out.
Reheat portions covered with foil in a 325°F (165°C) oven for 20 to 25 minutes, then uncovered for the last 5 to restore the top. A microwave reheats unevenly and makes the pasta rubbery. Freeze it unbaked rather than baked: assemble in a freezer safe dish, wrap it well, keep up to 2 months, then bake from frozen at 325°F (165°C) for about 75 minutes, covered for the first hour.
Nutrition
Per serving, based on 6 portions:
Calories: 520 kcal
Total Fat: 25 g
Saturated Fat: 13 g
Trans Fat: 0.5 g
Unsaturated Fat: 11 g
Cholesterol: 90 mg
Sodium: 890 mg
Total Carbohydrates: 51 g
Fiber: 7 g
Total Sugars: 9 g
Added Sugars: 0 g
Protein: 24 g
Lactose: 5 g
Principal micronutrients: calcium, folate, vitamin K, vitamin C, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium
These figures are estimates and vary with the cheese and the trimming loss.
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