Those lasagna noodles that you don't need to boil.

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

I don't trust them at all! Am I missing out?

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Wednesday, 23 October 2002 15:55 (twenty-three years ago)

They are perfectly fine, and a bit of a labor saver. Just use a nice moist sauce and you will find them just as satisfactory as the pre-boilers.

― Paul Eater (eater), Wednesday, 23 October 2002 15:58 (twenty-three years ago)

They are fine, but how are they noodles? Is this a US thing (and the spelling of lasagne)?

― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 23 October 2002 16:03 (twenty-three years ago)

what are they if not noodles?

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Wednesday, 23 October 2002 16:09 (twenty-three years ago)

A better question would be 'what if they are noodles?'.

― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 23 October 2002 16:12 (twenty-three years ago)

I doubt the veracity of your understanding of noodles. I think you are suffering from a misreading of the meaning of noodle.

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Wednesday, 23 October 2002 16:16 (twenty-three years ago)

I think I'm just European.

(Over here:

Pasta = the Italian durum wheat-based food
Noodles = the Asian equivalent)

― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 23 October 2002 16:19 (twenty-three years ago)

interesting. asian noodles would not be referred to as pasta here, but pasta is referred to as "noodles" fairly often.

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Wednesday, 23 October 2002 16:24 (twenty-three years ago)

what would Mr noddles say?

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Wednesday, 23 October 2002 16:25 (twenty-three years ago)

So N., you don't have a count noun for the Italian stuff?

Fill in the blank:

"Arthur, hand me one of those _____. I just need one more _____ to finish this lasagne!"

― Paul Eater (eater), Wednesday, 23 October 2002 16:33 (twenty-three years ago)

Fritz, how are your indian-style panang garlic mashed lasagna sandwiches coming along?

― Paul Eater (eater), Wednesday, 23 October 2002 16:35 (twenty-three years ago)

Sheets, Paul.

― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 23 October 2002 16:37 (twenty-three years ago)

I was actually aware that Americans sometimes say 'noodles' for pasta.
I just thought 'noodles' was an odd word for lasagne in particular - 'noodles' suggests long noodly shapes to me, not sheets of stuff.

― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 23 October 2002 16:39 (twenty-three years ago)

god that sounds good

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Wednesday, 23 October 2002 16:39 (twenty-three years ago)

indian-style panang garlic mashed lasagna sandwiches, i mean, not sheets

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Wednesday, 23 October 2002 16:41 (twenty-three years ago)

As an American, I share your connotation of "noodle": long and noodly. If you woke me from a deep sleep and shouted "noodle" at me, I would definitely picture a long skinny noodle.

However, "lasagna noodle" sounds okay to me.

― Paul Eater (eater), Wednesday, 23 October 2002 16:48 (twenty-three years ago)

all this talk of food is making me hungry.

I'll go to burger king and eat a cow's ground up ass!

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Wednesday, 23 October 2002 16:49 (twenty-three years ago)

They just seem really suspect, another one of those "time saving" food ideas that is probably loaded with all kinds of weird chemicals and just doesn't seem like it could work! It's like those "bakes" meals that come in a box for people who don't really have time to cook but want a home cooked meal.

― Nicole (Nicole), Wednesday, 23 October 2002 16:52 (twenty-three years ago)

i agree with nicole.

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Wednesday, 23 October 2002 16:53 (twenty-three years ago)

but they seem to have pushed trad "sheets" off the supermarket shelves! at least at my ghetto-ish (for toronto) supermarket

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Wednesday, 23 October 2002 16:54 (twenty-three years ago)

They so do work, and I don't even think they taste different. There are no weird chemicals. They've been around for decades - I would have thought in home of food technology America they would be unworthy of debate.

― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 23 October 2002 16:54 (twenty-three years ago)

They've only just started to sneak in here and there -- first saw odd equivalents in Trader Joe's.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 23 October 2002 16:55 (twenty-three years ago)

N. don't you weigh about 10 pounds? That's proof enough that they cause some strange mutation in the human body.

― Nicole (Nicole), Wednesday, 23 October 2002 16:56 (twenty-three years ago)

Those pasta sheets have been around for yonks here in the UK. I use them all the time (because despite the fact I have a swanky pasta-making machine, I have no time to make fresh pasta) and the no-pre-cook sheets are fine - ordinary or spinach version. In fact, by a weird coincidence, I'm making lasagne RIGHT NOW for tonight's supper. With garlic bread. And green salad. And red wine. Yum.

― C J (C J), Wednesday, 23 October 2002 17:00 (twenty-three years ago)

lasagna is good, oh so good, would someone please feed me some?

I've always called them Lasagna noodles myself for lack of a better word, and tend to call asian noodles rice noodles, except for the king of all cheap foods that was my diet for a year or so, Mr Noodles which gets no other description.
The precooked ones are fine tasting as their traditional counterparts but they take something away from the joy of cooking pain in the ass dishes. I probably wouldn't be saying that if there was Shepards pie premix meat, veggie and gravy sauce though.

― Mr Noodles (Mr Noodles), Wednesday, 23 October 2002 17:01 (twenty-three years ago)

I think this is all very odd - why would the USA lag on such a thing? Next you'll be telling me about this crazy new 'cheese in a tube'.

Yes Nicole, perhaps I will market a 'no pre-cook lasagne' diet, make my fortune, then lose it all when a class action suit accuses me of making everyone look like a fucking freak.

― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 23 October 2002 17:02 (twenty-three years ago)

Sorry, I guess I am a food rockist.

― Nicole (Nicole), Wednesday, 23 October 2002 17:25 (twenty-three years ago)

The funniest thing Jay Leno ever said was when he referred to Pasta Bake sauce (lasagna sauce where you don't have to pre-cook the noodles) as "Mom-Just-Doesn't-Give-A-Damn-Anymore Sauce".

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 23 October 2002 17:34 (twenty-three years ago)

Cooking fresh food for her husband's just a drag.

― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 23 October 2002 17:37 (twenty-three years ago)

I'm making lasagne RIGHT NOW for tonight's supper. With garlic bread. And green salad. And red wine. Yum.

Goddammit, you people have turned me into a drooling idiot.

(What kind of wine?)

― Jody Beth Rosen (Jody Beth Rosen), Wednesday, 23 October 2002 17:43 (twenty-three years ago)

All food prepared by ILX people while posting to be shared with everyone else. It's the Jeff Spicoli Principle.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 23 October 2002 17:48 (twenty-three years ago)

I don't trust them at all!

I'm old-school. I don't trust them either. Baking the noodles (or steaming, to be more accurate) is part of the ritual of lasagna-making, maaaan! It's supposed to take a long time -- there's a certain thrill in checking the oven every 15 minutes or so, lifting up the aluminum foil and getting a blast of steam in your face, poking the noodles to see how they're coming along. But I'm from Brooklyn. We take Italian food seriously here.

― Jody Beth Rosen (Jody Beth Rosen), Wednesday, 23 October 2002 17:48 (twenty-three years ago)

But I'm from Brooklyn. We take Italian food seriously here.

Only if it's Bolognese, though. WHERE IS THE LIGURIAN LOVE. ;-)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 23 October 2002 17:50 (twenty-three years ago)

Only if it's Bolognese, though. WHERE IS THE LIGURIAN LOVE. ;-)

In Liguria, I'm guessing.

― Jody Beth Rosen (Jody Beth Rosen), Wednesday, 23 October 2002 17:56 (twenty-three years ago)

Hmph. Get thee to Genoa.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 23 October 2002 17:58 (twenty-three years ago)

Jody Beth : wine is a Côtes de Beaune

― C J (C J), Wednesday, 23 October 2002 17:58 (twenty-three years ago)

The company is springing for wine tonight at annual meeting, hopefully its not noname-no style red and white.

I don't drink wine only labelled "Red" and "White" its my one wine drinking rule.

― Mr Noodles (Mr Noodles), Wednesday, 23 October 2002 18:11 (twenty-three years ago)

Ned: Brooklyn-Italian comes from a very Sicilian aesthetic -- heavy, artery-clogging red sauces. Your Ligurians and Tuscans look down on that sort of thing, but I love it. The generosity, the overwhelmingness of flavor, the way it's more like "extravagant family food" than "simple peasant food" (and anything labeled "peasant food" in any "humble bistro" in this city is bound to be AT LEAST $20 a plate, so clearly it is NOT being eaten by peasants). No sir, I grew up on fried scungilli drowned in marinara sauce -- $4.95.

― Jody Beth Rosen (Jody Beth Rosen), Wednesday, 23 October 2002 18:26 (twenty-three years ago)

Num. :-) No, I have absolutely nothing against the red sauces of god -- far from it! But I've grown fond of Ligurian cuisine of late. It's good to have a range!

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 23 October 2002 18:33 (twenty-three years ago)

one year passes...

omg this is mad! but asian noodles are not all made of rice!!

except on some packagings of the actual asian RICE noodles they call it Vermicelli! which is a pasta! arrgh.

― ken c (ken c), Tuesday, 12 October 2004 14:52 (twenty-one years ago)

Take a deep breath. Say noodle. Now, don't you feel better? Say pasta. Breathe. find the place deep down inside that LOVES pasta noodles.

― aimurchie, Tuesday, 12 October 2004 15:10 (twenty-one years ago)

i love pasta and noodles!! and i bet i would love pasta noodles if such a thing exists!!! but it doesn't :)

― ken c (ken c), Tuesday, 12 October 2004 15:18 (twenty-one years ago)

what is the thing that they call "instant rice"? it is not rice. i suspect it is noodles. very small ones.

― You've Got to Pick Up Every Stitch (tracerhand), Tuesday, 12 October 2004 15:19 (twenty-one years ago)

"Arthur, hand me one of those _____. I just need one more _____ to finish this lasagne!"

Arthur, hand me one of those spaghetti, I just need one more spaghetto to finish this...um...bolognaise!

― JimD (JimD), Tuesday, 12 October 2004 15:21 (twenty-one years ago)

those are bread, tracer.

― ken c (ken c), Tuesday, 12 October 2004 15:21 (twenty-one years ago)

My burning question is: If you can canoodle can you canpasta?

― aimurchie, Tuesday, 12 October 2004 15:27 (twenty-one years ago)

they don't taste/feel as good as pre-boil.

― redfez, Tuesday, 12 October 2004 16:28 (twenty-one years ago)

okay, I don't get this:

Baking the noodles (or steaming, to be more accurate) is part of the ritual of lasagna-making, maaaan! It's supposed to take a long time -- there's a certain thrill in checking the oven every 15 minutes or so

so you bake or steam your noodles? we're talking about normal lasagna noodles that come in a box, right? you don't boil them? How, then, are they different than the "no cook" sheets everyone else is talking about (where you just slather on the sauce and other toppings and bake; so "no cook" is a bit of a misnomer, they cook in the dish with other ingredients).

FWIW, I think these sheets are fine. I hate boiling the noodles. But I also discovered that you can use just regular old noodles and not boil them and cook them with the sauce if you make the sauce wet enough, it will cook to a good al dente firmness in the oven.

― kyle (akmonday), Tuesday, 12 October 2004 16:48 (twenty-one years ago)

five years pass...

Regular Americans will say they are making "lasagna."

Italian-Americans will say they are making "a lasagna."

― iiiijjjj, Monday, 16 November 2009 23:50 (sixteen years ago)

Avoid the pre-cook debate alltogether: make yr own pasta sheets. Its ridic easy and tastes way better anyway!

― hulk would smash (Trayce), Tuesday, 17 November 2009 00:19 (sixteen years ago)

Or skip the pasta entirely and use polenta

― Elvis Telecom, Tuesday, 17 November 2009 00:40 (sixteen years ago)

or just have pop tarts

― a full circle lol (J0hn D.), Tuesday, 17 November 2009 00:47 (sixteen years ago)

lasagna made with pop tarts instead of pasta sheets sounds pretty good

― 囧 (dyao), Tuesday, 17 November 2009 04:55 (sixteen years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.