I just want to point out one more thing

You don't oil water its so not nescersary. Just salt it

In Italy we use the "white pasta sauce" to make home made lasagna.

Prepare your salsa bolognese and set it aside
1 or 2 boxes of lasagna pasta
freshly grated parmigiano and mozzarella
bechamele

La salsa bechamelle

melt butter in saucepan (do not brown the butter) very low heat
add enough flour so that it becomes a paste
add salt, a little pepper and grated "noix de muscat" (muskatnüsse, nutmeg ?)
stir constantly
add a slow stream of full fat milk until you have a thick creamy mixture

For the Lasagna (it all about layers)
butter the bottom of your pan
spread a very thin layer of bolognese sauce on the bottom
add spoons of bechamelle here and there (be sparse)
sprinkle with the cheese
cover with a layer of pasta rectangles

start again (approx. 5 layers)

Make enough bechamelle to cover the last layer completely as it will seal the lasagna. Cover with aluminium and pop into a hot oven at 180° for 45 min to 1 hour.

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An Italian white sauce is a sauce without cooked tomatoes, it (normally) isn't actually white!

Tom

Sure but that one had tomatoes! Also my intuition leads me to believe the OP wanted something creamy.

RAW tomatoes!

Tom

Easier and faster to simply put everything in a pan, heat and whisk. Pretty well every cook does it this way now - the roux phase is unnecessary.

What you're looking for isn't Bechamel/white sauce but an Italian sauce called Carbonara. It's readily available fresh or dry packed, and it's dead easy to make: http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,1935...230199,00.html (one of a zillion variants).

That's a U.S. version of carbonara which has basically turned what is a fairly light pasta dish into something heart-cloggingly heavy.

Miss out the cream and butter and just use eggs, pancetta, garlic and grated parmesan and fresh black pepper.

Quite right. A real carnonara is not a sauce, it's a way of making pasta. The American version somehow reminds me of canned Alfredo sauce (nothing easier than making fettucine Alfredo without the help of canned stuff!) or of the "creamy Italian dressings" available in the USA. Never tried those things, may even be good, as long as you don't read the list of ingredients, but Italian? Come on!

Actually, one should only use egg yolks (though I also use the whole egg), and guanciale, not pancetta (but guanciale may be hard to find here, I always get it in Italy).

(the egg yolk is there to glue the cooked quanciale to the pasta)

Tom

Except IMO no black pepper. The carbonara is really aiming for something dull (not sharp) in sensation.

No, black (or chile pepper) is an important part of carbonara.

Also, pecorino romano is the correct cheese to use, not parmagiana (the pecorino has a much stronger taste, as does the guanciale compared to pancetta).

Tom

Guanciale is the pig cheek, incase you wondered. You can buy it in Conad for about 7 euros.

To be entirely honest I am not sure I am qualified to comment on Carbonara. I hate it, and don't eat raw eggs. For me, I only like red pasta sauce or white ones with peas and zuchini. Carbonara is an overly creamy, rich and bland sauce.

Oh dear, sometimes I am so stupid at things, I quite frighten myself .. I had always wondered when making lasagne why I needed vats and vats of bechemel sauce .. way more than any recipe said (and I tried a few). But of course, if you spoon the odd blob here and there (except top layer) then you end up with using half as much and have a much healthier and tastier meal. Thank you Sky. I am off to make lasagne now!

Then it's not carbonara.

It should have no cram, and it should NOT be bland.

That's what happens when they make it in German-speaking places!

Tom

I am Italian thanks, for the tip though.

From which region?

All my expertise on the subject of carbonara comes from friends from Alta Maremma (whom I've known since 1987).

Tom

In Bologna (it's cooking lives up to it's nickname La Grassa) la salsa Carbonara is made with pancetta and cream and with egg yolk and freshly grated parmesan

- prepare the pancetta first and drain the grease before adding light cream over low heat without boiling
- egg yolk and freshly grated parmesan mixed together into a paste

when both mixtures are ready, bring them together and mix into the steaming hot pasta.

Yeah, well the Bolognese also put milk into Ragu Bolognese. Clearly, they have too much milk!

At least they build nice motorcycles (I have three ).

Tom

Marche. Fermo to be precise. are you fammiliar with the area?