Why do lasagna sheets refuse to fit the mould?
15.12.2022
Translation: Jessica Johnson-Ferguson
Dried sheets of pasta need to be broken before they conform. Not that this bothers anyone when they’re eating the lasagna, but it certainly doesn’t give you a satisfying feeling if you’re the one doing the layering. Turns out it’s not supposed to.
When temperatures feel like minus 30 degrees, only three things should be on your menu: soups, stews and casseroles. I recently had a craving for lasagna. With a slathering of bechamel under the layer of tomato sauce and a thick crust on top, of course.
But laying out the industrially produced sheets of pasta is always a bit of an annoying task for me. They only fit into the baking dish if they’re broken and overlapping.
Why is that?
Manuela Reich, Head of Sales at Kuhn Rikon, explains: «Casserole dishes are not made to fit the dimensions of lasagna sheets; they serve a multifunctional purpose.» Their range roughly consists of two types of dishes – glass and aluminium.
While the former are produced by a glass manufacturer, the latter are made at the company’s own plant in Rikon. «The required tools or rather machines are incredibly expensive. It’s not worth investing in several of them to make moulds for individual needs,» Reich adds.
And then there’s another problem. Lasagna sheets are rectangular. Ninety-degree angles, however, are incredibly tedious to clean. With all that scrubbing you’d have to do, the coating would also suffer sooner or later, provided the mould is coated, of course. «But even the actual coating process itself is much more difficult if the corners are sharp.»
Source: Carolin Teufelberger
So how about Barilla and Co. making rounded lasagna sheets? Not a good idea. At least not in terms of food waste. Right angles can be seamlessly cut into shape; rounded ones can’t. Melanie Müller from Barilla’s customer service confirmed this.
She doesn’t view these differences – which I find irreconcilable – as a problem at all. «Especially if you’re using lasagna sheets that don’t need to be precooked, a generous amount of sauce is needed so that the pasta is completely covered and cooks through because of the moisture. In other words, an edge on all sides and corners is desirable.»
Let’s agree to disagree.
Why does the second hand of the Swiss railway clock pause before a new minute? Why is popcorn served at the movies? And why don’t beverage glasses go in the same bin as other glass? Everyday life is filled with intriguing questions, the answers to which I’m determined to find. If you have a burning question of your own but no time to research it, shoot me an e-mail. I like doing the dirty work.
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