Italian Baked Pasta from the Marche | Vincisgrassi Marchigiani
Vincisgrassi is the baked pasta of Macerata, and it is not a lasagna with a dialect name. The sheets are enriched with vino cotto or dry Marsala, which gives the dough a faint caramel warmth and a darker colour than plain egg pasta. The sauce is a coarse mixture of courtyard meats, chicken and rabbit, veal and beef with a little pork, plus the giblets and the sweetbreads that give the dish its unmistakable iron depth. Bechamel is present but restrained, and the cheese is aged, never mozzarella.
It is worth saying plainly that vincisgrassi is older than the modern Emilian lasagna it gets compared to. A recipe recognisably close to it, under the name princisgras, appears in Antonio Nebbia's Macerata cookbook of 1784, with sweetbreads, truffle and cream already in place. The Marche dish is the ancestor, not the provincial imitation, and it behaves differently on the plate: denser, drier at the edge, juicier at the centre, cut into a slice that stands on its own.
Yield: 10 servings from one baking dish of 9 by 13 inches (23 by 33 cm). Prep: 1 hour 45 minutes. Cook: 4 hours. Rest: 30 minutes. Total: about 6 hours 30 minutes. Difficulty: advanced. Course: primo piatto. Region: Marche, province of Macerata.
The Story
Macerata sits inland, on a ridge between the Chienti and the Potenza valleys, in a landscape of small farms where every household kept chickens and rabbits and killed one pig a year. The meats in the tray are the meats of that courtyard, and the hearts, gizzards, livers and sweetbreads are there because a farm kitchen wasted nothing and because those parts, cooked well, taste richer than muscle. It was food for Carnival, for the patronal feast, for a wedding.
The written record starts with Antonio Nebbia, whose Il Cuoco Maceratese of 1784 gives a princisgras of layered pasta, sweetbreads, truffle, cream and Parmigiano. The popular story that the name honours the Austrian general Alfred zu Windisch Graetz, who besieged Ancona in 1799, is legend, since Nebbia printed his version fifteen years earlier. Princisgras simply drifted into vincisgrassi through local speech, the way names do.
Every trattoria between Macerata, Tolentino and Camerino keeps its own rule. Some hold on to the truffle, some drop it; some insist on vino cotto, the cooked grape must farms in the Marche still make, while others accept dry Marsala. What nobody in the province accepts is mozzarella, a bechamel thick enough to turn the tray white, or a sheet count below seven.
Ingredients
For the pasta sheets
Italian tipo 00 flour, 3 3/4 cups (450 g), plus more for rolling
Eggs, large, 4, about 7 oz (200 g) without shells
Vino cotto di mosto or dry Marsala, 2 tbsp (30 ml)
Fine sea salt, 1/2 tsp (3 g)
For the ragu
Extra virgin olive oil, 3 tbsp (45 ml), divided
Unsmoked pancetta, finely diced, 2 oz (55 g)
Yellow onion, finely diced, 1 cup (150 g)
Carrot, finely diced, 1/2 cup (75 g)
Celery, finely diced, 1/2 cup (60 g)
Chicken thigh meat, boned and coarsely cut, 10 oz (285 g), bones reserved
Rabbit shoulder and leg meat, coarsely cut, 10 oz (285 g), bones reserved
Veal shoulder, coarsely cut, 6 oz (170 g)
Beef chuck, coarsely cut, 6 oz (170 g)
Pork shoulder, coarsely cut, 4 oz (115 g)
Split beef or veal marrow bone, 8 oz (225 g)
Dry white wine, 3/4 cup (180 ml)
Tomato paste, 2 tbsp (35 g)
Strained tomato passata, 3 cups (710 ml)
Unsalted meat stock, 2 cups (475 ml)
Bay leaf, 1, and whole clove, 1
Fine sea salt, 1 1/2 tsp (9 g)
Freshly ground black pepper, 3/4 tsp (2 g)
For the giblets and sweetbreads
Veal sweetbreads, 5 oz (140 g), soaked and peeled
Chicken gizzards and hearts, trimmed and finely chopped, 3 oz (85 g)
Chicken livers, trimmed and finely chopped, 3 oz (85 g)
Unsalted butter, 1 tbsp (14 g)
Dry white wine, 1/4 cup (60 ml)
Fine sea salt and black pepper, to taste
For the bechamel
Unsalted butter, 4 tbsp (55 g)
Italian tipo 00 flour, 1/3 cup (40 g)
Whole milk, warmed, 3 cups (710 ml)
Fine sea salt, 1/2 tsp (3 g)
Freshly grated nutmeg, 1/4 tsp (0.5 g)
For assembly
Parmigiano Reggiano, finely grated, 2 1/2 cups (250 g)
Unsalted butter for the dish, 1 tbsp (14 g)
Black truffle, shaved, 1/2 oz (15 g), optional and traditional
Coarse salt for the pasta water, about 1 tbsp (18 g) per 4 quarts (3.8 l)
Preparation
Step 1
Mix and rest the wine scented dough. Mound the flour, add the eggs, the vino cotto or dry Marsala and the salt, then knead 10 to 12 minutes until smooth and springy. The dough looks tan rather than yellow, which is correct. Wrap and rest 45 minutes so it rolls thin without tearing.
Step 2
Build the soffritto and brown the meats. Render the pancetta in 2 tbsp (30 ml) oil in a heavy pot of 6 quarts (5.7 l). Add onion, carrot and celery with a pinch of salt and cook 10 to 12 minutes until soft and golden, never dark. Lift them out, raise the heat and brown the chicken, rabbit, veal, beef and pork in separate batches so each colours instead of steaming. Return everything to the pot.
Step 3
Deglaze and set the long simmer. Add 1/2 cup (120 ml) white wine, scrape the base and reduce. Fry the tomato paste 2 minutes, then add the passata, stock, reserved bones, marrow bone, bay leaf, clove, remaining salt and pepper. Simmer barely, one bubble every few seconds, partially covered, for 2 1/2 to 3 hours, uncovered for the last 40 minutes.
Step 4
Cook the giblets and sweetbreads apart. Soak the sweetbreads 1 hour in cold water, blanch 3 minutes, cool and peel off the membrane, then cut small. Melt the butter with the last oil, sear gizzards and hearts 4 to 5 minutes, add sweetbreads for 2 minutes, then livers for 1 to 2 minutes only. Season, add the 1/4 cup (60 ml) wine and let it evaporate.
Step 5
Finish and cool the ragu. Fold the giblet mixture in for the final 15 minutes and no longer, and check that all poultry has reached 165°F (74°C). Remove bones, bay and clove, pushing the softened marrow into the sauce, where it dissolves into body you cannot get otherwise. The ragu should hold a clean spoon trail. Taste for salt, then cool 20 minutes.
Step 6
Make a bechamel that binds rather than floods. Melt the butter, whisk in the flour and cook it 2 full minutes over medium low heat until it smells of biscuit. Add the warm milk in three additions, whisking hard, then simmer 6 to 8 minutes and season. It should fall from the whisk in a ribbon. Press film onto the surface.
Step 7
Roll and blanch the sheets. Divide the dough into eight and roll each to about 1/32 inch (0.8 mm), thin enough to read a hand through, then cut to the footprint of the dish. Blanch 30 to 45 seconds in generously salted water, in small batches, chill, and blot both faces dry on towels.
Step 8
Layer the tray and bake. Butter the dish and film the base with ragu. Lay a sheet, then a thin spread of ragu, narrow ribbons of bechamel and a light handful of Parmigiano, reaching the corners every time. Repeat to seven filled layers, adding truffle to two of them if using. Cover with the eighth sheet, top generously with reserved ragu and cheese and no bechamel at all, and bake at 375°F (190°C) for 35 to 45 minutes, until the centre reads 165°F (74°C) and the surface is blistered and dark gold.
Plating
Rest the tray on a rack 25 to 30 minutes before a knife touches it. The starch in the sheets and the proteins in the bechamel are still setting, and a slice cut at ten minutes slides apart while a slice cut at thirty stands. Warm the plates during that rest, to about the temperature of a hand, since a cold plate pulls the fat out of suspension in half a minute.
Cut with a thin serrated blade in one steady pass, wiping between cuts so the layers stay legible. Ten portions from this dish means pieces of roughly 2 1/2 by 3 1/2 inches (6 by 9 cm). Lift each from below with a wide offset spatula, crust upward, slightly off centre on the plate.
Nothing is poured over the top. If an edge looks dry, spoon a little warmed ragu beside it rather than across it, because the contrast between crisp cheese surface and juicy interior is the point. Truffle, if used, goes on last. No parsley, no basil, no oil drizzle.
Professional Technique
The defining technique is the split cooking of the offal. Gizzards, hearts, livers and sweetbreads reach their best texture at very different times, and dropping them into a three hour ragu turns them to grit. Searing them separately, gizzards and hearts first, then sweetbreads, then livers, gives each the contact time it needs, and the deglazing wine recovers the fond. Folded in for the last quarter hour, they marry with the sauce but stay distinct enough to find with a fork.
The second is the vino cotto in the dough. Cooked grape must is acidic, sugary and aromatic, and 2 tbsp (30 ml) in a four egg dough lowers the pH slightly, which tightens the gluten and lets you roll thinner without tearing, browns the sheet edges faster, and sets a caramel note against the iron of the livers. Sweet Marsala will not do, because the extra sugar makes the pasta taste of dessert against the meat.
The third is the blanch and blot. A dry unblanched sheet drinks liquid out of the ragu and leaves the tray arid; a wet one carries water into the layers and makes them slide. Forty seconds in hard boiling salted water hydrates and seasons the sheet, cold water arrests it, and blotting removes free water without removing hydration. That is why a good vincisgrassi carries eight thin sheets and still cuts like one object.
Texture and Moisture Control
Moisture comes from four sources that must be balanced before assembly, not after. The ragu must be reduced far enough that a spoon drawn through it leaves a trail for two seconds. The bechamel must be pourable but not thin, since a stiff one will not spread between thin sheets and a loose one runs to the corners. The sheets must be blotted. The cheese must be aged Parmigiano, which melts without releasing whey, rather than any fresh cheese, which releases a great deal.
Layer thickness is the other lever. Eight thin sheets with restrained filling behave differently from four thick sheets at the same total weight, because thin pasta absorbs its share of liquid quickly and evenly while thick pasta stays gummy at the core and squeezes moisture outward. Spread each filling into the corners and resist pressing hard: compression closes the channels that let heat rise through the centre.
Read the finished tray by its bubbling. Thick slow bubbles at the edges mean the moisture is right; fast watery ones mean the ragu went in too loose, and the fix is a longer rest, up to 45 minutes. The centre should reach 165°F (74°C) and no more than about 180°F (82°C), beyond which the bechamel breaks and the surface fat separates.
Professional Mise en Place
This is a two day dish. The ragu is better on day two, the sheets can be blanched ahead, and assembly takes forty uninterrupted minutes at the bench.
Equipment and tools
Heavy pot of 6 quarts (5.7 l) or larger with a lid
Pasta machine or a long rolling pin and a clear bench
Wide shallow pan for blanching and a bowl of iced water
Four clean cotton towels for blotting sheets
Baking dish of 9 by 13 inches (23 by 33 cm), at least 2 1/2 inches (6 cm) deep
Instant read thermometer, thin serrated knife, wide offset spatula
Prepared ahead
Ragu, up to 2 days ahead, cooled shallow and refrigerated within 2 hours
Giblet and sweetbread mixture, folded in the day the ragu is finished
Pasta sheets, blanched, blotted and interleaved with towels, same day
Bechamel, up to 1 day ahead, surface covered and gently rewarmed
Parmigiano grated a few hours before assembly
Service setup
Oven fully preheated to 375°F (190°C), rack in the centre position
Ragu, bechamel and cheese lined up in that order along the bench
One fifth of the ragu and one fifth of the cheese held back for the top
Timer set for the rest, plates warming during it
Serrated knife, spatula and a damp cloth beside the dish at cutting time
Chef Tips
Buy the chicken and rabbit on the bone and cut them yourself. The bones go into the pot and give the ragu the gelatine that makes it cling to the sheets, and hand cutting keeps the pieces coarse, at about 1/2 inch (1.25 cm), which is the textural signature of this sauce.
If you cannot find vino cotto, use genuine dry Marsala and nothing else. A tablespoon of aged balsamic cut with a tablespoon of dry white wine is a closer emergency substitute than any sweet fortified bottle.
Make the ragu the day before and lift the set fat off in the morning. You will remove two or three tablespoons that would otherwise pool on the baked tray, and the sauce underneath is cleaner and more concentrated.
Count your sheets out loud as you build. Seven filled layers plus a top sheet is the target, and it is easy to lose track at layer four. Portion the ragu, bechamel and cheese into rough eighths before the first sheet goes down.
Common Mistakes
Simmering the giblets with the ragu. Three hours turns livers bitter and gizzards rubbery, and the sauce takes on a flat metallic edge. Cook them apart and fold them in for the last 15 minutes only.
Using mozzarella or any fresh cheese. It releases whey into the layers, makes the tray pale and stringy and prevents the compact slice that defines vincisgrassi. Only aged Parmigiano Reggiano or Grana Padano belongs here.
Building too few, too thick layers. Four heavy sheets bake into a gummy block with a wet core. Roll to about 1/32 inch (0.8 mm) and build seven filled layers under a top sheet.
Flooding the tray with bechamel. It is a binder here, not a main sauce. Narrow ribbons per layer and none at all on top, or the tray turns white and soft and reads as a northern lasagna.
Assembling with a loose ragu. Sauce that has not reduced separates during baking and the layers slide when cut. Uncover the pot for the final 40 minutes and check for the spoon trail.
Cutting before the rest is over. A slice taken at ten minutes releases a puddle and collapses. Thirty minutes on a rack sets the starch and the bechamel.
Wine Pairing
Conero DOCG: The home red, Montepulciano grown on the limestone of Monte Conero above the Adriatic, and the bottle a Macerata table would actually open. Its dark plum fruit and round tannin sit against the coarse mixed meats without scraping, and the bitter almond finish answers the iron of the livers and sweetbreads directly.
Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi Classico Riserva DOCG: Proof that a white can carry a baked meat dish when it has spine. Riserva Verdicchio rests on its lees and gains a broad, almost waxy texture that meets the bechamel on equal terms, while its saline acidity cuts the aged cheese and keeps the palate clear.
Offida Pecorino DOCG: From the southern Marche, sharper and more aromatic. Pecorino brings high acidity with a sage and yellow apple register that picks up the bay and clove in the ragu, something no Verdicchio does. Pour it at about 54°F (12°C) so the acidity stays taut against the richness.
Torgiano Rosso Riserva DOCG: An Umbrian neighbour for anyone wanting more structure than Conero offers. Sangiovese with bottle age gives dried cherry, leather and a firm acidic backbone that slices through a tray carrying both marrow and aged cheese, with tannin softened enough not to clash with the sweetbreads.
Storage & Reheating
Vincisgrassi is arguably better on the second day, because the sheets finish absorbing the sauce and the slice cuts even cleaner. Cool the tray within 2 hours, cut it into portions and refrigerate them in a shallow covered container for up to 3 days at 40°F (4°C) or below. Separate portions cool faster and reheat more evenly than one block.
Reheat covered at 325°F (165°C) for 20 to 25 minutes, with a tablespoon of water or thinned ragu around the base of each portion so steam protects the pasta, then uncover for the last 5 minutes to bring the crust back. The centre must reach 165°F (74°C). A microwave gets it hot but leaves the sheets leathery and the cheese oily.
The tray freezes well baked or assembled raw. Wrap portions airtight for up to 2 months and thaw overnight in the refrigerator. A raw tray baked from thawed needs 15 to 20 minutes longer, covered for the first two thirds. Never refreeze what has been reheated.
Nutrition
Per serving, based on 10 portions from one dish of 9 by 13 inches (23 by 33 cm):
Calories: 760 kcal
Total Fat: 38 g
Saturated Fat: 16 g
Trans Fat: 0 g
Unsaturated Fat: 20 g
Cholesterol: 290 mg
Sodium: 960 mg
Total Carbohydrates: 60 g
Fiber: 4 g
Total Sugars: 9 g
Added Sugars: 0 g
Protein: 45 g
Lactose: about 5 g, from the milk in the bechamel
Principal micronutrients: iron, vitamin A, vitamin B12, folate, zinc, selenium, calcium, phosphorus
These figures are estimates. Cholesterol, vitamin A and iron run high because of the livers and sweetbreads, and the sodium depends almost entirely on how salty your Parmigiano and pancetta are. Not medical advice.
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