I don’t have a cooking gene, but have made over the years, lasagne: an easy, one pan kind of meal. I hadn’t thought of making it in France though, for some reason, until the other day. I bought FIORINI brand “Lasagnes aux oeufs” (eggs=19%)
which were totally UNlike the American wavy-edged lasagne noodles. And, there was even a recipe on the back of the box (OK, I admit, this is the real reason I bought it)!
Whoa! I started reading the recipe and it didn’t say to cook the noodles before layering them into the pan – What!? I had to be mis-translating something here, so I then looked at the general cooking directions on the side of the box:
“Ne necessite pas de pre-cuisson” (not necessary to precook)
HUH? I had never made lasagne without first cooking the noodles – so surely, I was not reading the French correctly – but Non, this was correct! I didn’t believe it, but went ahead and layered my UNcooked noodles with my own version of vegetable lasagne, thinking this couldn’t possibly turn out well.
Voila! In 40 minutes, it had finished cooking and was DONE! Now I’m wondering if I really needed to pre-cook American lasagne noodles, or is this a case of cultural cooking differences!?
24/7 in FRANCE 
We have both types of lasagn shhets her in South Africa. The difference is that the one is ‘pre-cooked’ and just needs to soften in the sauce. The other is ‘raw’ and the ingredients in the pasta needs to be cooked first. I agree, having to cook flat pasta is such a mission, I NEVER use it if I can help it! Enjoy your cooking triumph!
Hmm, I hadn’t thought about it being “precooked” so that would make perfect sense! Thanks for the additional cooking lesson 🙂
That should read ‘sheets’! Fingers can’t spell…
May be I can help : ) I am french, I have never pre-cooked my pasta while making lasagna. The goal of using either fresh pasta or dry pasta is to let it cook in the juice/sauce of your lasagna. If you cook with dry pasta it usually will take about 45mins to cook, if you have fresh pasta, I’d say between 15-30min. Although I am interested to know did you tasted a difference between US & French pasta?
The French (egg) pasta was not as heavy in texture, so the meal was lighter. Thanks for your comment/help.
There is a huge difference from our pasta in the USA and the Italian Fiorini that I just tasted a week ago in Portugal. I can’t find this pasta in the US. How can I get it over here? Do you know of a store that would ship this internationally? Thank you for your help.
Hi Susan – I don’t know of a store per se but here are two links and maybe they can direct you:
http://www.cimolino.fr/?gclid=CLzNpbuxnrkCFS3HtAod7zgAXw
http://www.fiorinipastafresca.it/aboutus.php
Good luck and thank you for commenting!
I’ve been experimenting lately with lasagne, and I must say my least favorite part is pre-cooking the pasta– mostly because it sticks together, making it a chore to separate the noodles. I’ll have to see if I can find noodles here that don’t need to be pre-cooked; that would make it so much more fun! Yours looks delectable, by the way! ; )
Bravo sounds like the perfect quick winter dish! We are in Salon de Provence…will try to connect for a coffee when we get to Nice again…late Dec. Bon fetes!
OK, sounds good. Meilleurs voeux!
I remember having trouble separating the noodles – this was definitely easier to do! Hope you can find them.