We were in Hawaii for a few weeks visiting family after not going back for almost 2 years. With all the restrictions in place-- Hawaii requires proof of vaccination or a negative COVID test prior to boarding-- we actually felt pretty safe flying, but I still brought our N95 masks and a big box of Chlorox wipes to clean the seat belts, arm rests, and tables because I'm neurotic.
After not being back to Hawaii for so long, I realized there were so many Hawaiian things I missed, which led to admittedly a lot of irrational purchases-- especially at the Hawaii Costco where I loaded up the cart with 12 lau laus, 4 sticks of Portuguese sausages, and 3 giant bags of cornflake cookies to bring home. I even missed the 88 cents Longs Hawaii Calendars and bought 3. The hubby protested, cuz you know, you really only need ONE calendar for the year and you can't save them to use for next year. Yeah, I know... But I missed Hawaii so much, I just bought everything I could get my hands on.
Hey, I'm helping their economy, right?
So bear with me.....
The next couple of posts will be all Hawaii inspired cooking because I just can't help it when I'm surrounded by the beautiful Ko'olau Mountain ranges, turquoise oceans, and lush Hawaiian greenry.
This recipe is an Asian twist on the classic Italian lasagna. It's got Hawaiian style Portuguese sausages and ground beef, with Asian seasonings, paired with lasagna noodles and cheese. I've written about Hawaiian Portuguese sausages here in this post about Hawaiian fried rice-- but Hawaiian Portuguese sausages may be hard to find outside of Hawaii. So for this recipe, you can use the Silva brand of Portuguese sausages (available at Safeway, Albertsons, Costco, and even at Walmart!) or any brand of Portuguese sausage you can find. The regular Portuguese sausage is less sweet than the Hawaiian style one, but would work in this lasagna recipe.
Here's step by step pictures of how to make this Asian lasagna:
My sister-in-law planted an interesting variety of eggplant this year. I'm accustomed to purple eggplants, but these are green eggplants that turn yellow and tough when left on the plant too long. To not waste and throw the organic yellow eggplants away, I diced some to put in the sauce and cooked them until they were soft. It was a perfect way to use up old eggplants and hide some extra veggies in the sauce! But feel free to use whatever eggplants you can get your hands on.
And most importantly, this Hawaiian lasagna passed the nephew's "picky taste buds test", despite the hidden diced eggplants in the sauce, so I hope you like it.
Yields 7-8 servings
Meat Sauce Ingredients:
- 12oz Portuguese sausage, diced
- 1 lb ground beef, 90% lean
- 1 large onion, diced
- 3 small Japanese eggplants diced (about 2 ½ cups diced)
- 2c low sodium chicken broth
- 1 8oz can of no salt tomato sauce
- 2T tomato paste
- 3T light soy sauce
- 2T gochugang sauce, 1T if you don’t like spicy
- 1T sugar
- 2 t garlic powder
- 3 garlic cloves, chopped
- 1T dried onion flakes
- 1T mirin
Remaining Lasagna Ingredients:
- Half package no boil lasagna noodles (12 noodles)
- 4oz shredded mozzarella cheese
- 6 slices provolone cheese
- ½ c water
Procedures:
1. Brown Portuguese sausage and drain oil on paper towels.
2. Using a large pot, brown ground beef and onions. (If your ground beef is not lean, drain off all but 1T fat before adding in rest of the ingredients.) Add sausage to pot along with soy sauce, gochugang sauce, both garlics, dried onions, mirin, tomato paste, tomato sauce, and chicken broth. Mix to combine.
3. Add diced eggplant. Mix. Simmer at medium heat for 30 min. Add a splash of water if the sauce starts getting too dry during the simmer. Eggplant should be super soft after 30 min. If not continue to simmer an additional 15 min, and add more water as necessary. Taste and adjust salt to your taste.
4. Place a layer of sauce at bottom of 9x13 deep baking dish. (About 2 c sauce goes on the bottom.) Layer with no boil lasagna noodle, over lapping the noodles very slightly to fit. Top with layer of sauce, mozzarella cheese, then noodles. Repeat the layering of noodles, sauce and cheese, until the ingredients are used up, ending with sauce as the final layer. Pour ½ c water over the final top layer. (This helps add more moisture so the no boil lasagna noodles have enough water to cook properly.) Top with 6 slices of provolone cheese.
5. Cover tightly with foil and bake at 350 F for 40min. Uncover and Bake 5 min more. Cool for 5 minutes, and serve hot.