From Muffuletta to Yaki Curry, Chefs Reimagine Lasagna for Eagles Game Days

Liz Grothe’s Lasagna Classico / Photograph by Ed Newton

I think we can all agree that the Eagles have had a pretty rough start this season. Between injuries, bad calls, and heartbreaking, last-second (like literally last-second) losses, it has been an inauspicious start, to say the least. And while I know there’s nothing any of us can do to help, there is something happening this season at Liz Grothe’s Scampi that might take the sting out just a little bit.

Every Sunday that the Eagles play, Grothe is celebrating by selling take-and-bake pans of lasagna. And not just any lasagna, but collaborative lasagna, from some of the best chefs working in the city.

It works like this: Every week, Grothe is putting a Google form There, you can sign up for the week’s lasagna drop which will run you $35 and is large enough to feed about two people (so plan accordingly). Orders can be placed up to seven days in advance. And once you’re signed up, all you have to do is stop by Scampi’s Queen Village location ahead of the game and pick yours up. Simple, right?

The program kicked off (no pun intended) ahead of the October 11th game with Grothe doing her own version of a classic Italian lasagna — a “Lizagna Classico.” It was a Bolognese ragù, retired dairy cow beef, prosciutto, mortadella, and pancetta, layered with an herbed béchamel, and stacked with sheets of spinach pasta called sfoglia verde. That particular version of lasagna will be available every week of the series, but starting this weekend, Grothe will also be offering a collaborative lasagna from a different chef each week. And for this week’s game against the Panthers at the Linc, things are starting with a bang.

“It’s a muffuletta lasagna,” Paige Wernick, from Rougarou Baking, told me when I got her on the phone. She’s originally from the Gulf Coast, and her family has been there for generations, “So we are quite fond of the muffuletta sandwich.”

That makes sense. The muffuletta is a workingman’s sandwich. Been around for ages. And was originally created by an Italian immigrant. So when Wernick was looking for something that combined both the Italian history of a classic lasagna and a little bit of what makes Rougarou tick, “This was a kinda comically easy choice to make.” Her version combines Italian meats (salami, capicola, and mortadella) in a provolone béchamel, with everything layered between sesame crêpes instead of noodles in order to give the lasagna “the very wheat-y, sesame flavors of a real muffuletta,” according to Wernick. As to why the idea of a muffuletta lasagna spoke to her?

“I’m incredibly homesick as a Southerner here in Philadelphia.”

After that, it’s “Pardon Me! Lasagna” from chef Clynton Cox of Pardon Me! Philly, then a Japanese “Yaki Currry Lasagna” from chef Adam Barlyn (also known as pop-up sensation Curry Boy) on November 8th.

“For Curry Boy, I do mostly homestyle Japanese cooking, or yoshoku, which is like Western-style Japanese food,” Barlyn told me. “So I do a lot of curry rice with katsu, and there’s this spin-off dish called yaki curry. And that’s like a kind of gratín situation where you layer rice with curry sauce and top it with cheese, so I thought I could do something like that.”

His version kicks out the rice in favor of Grothe’s lasagna noodles, then layers them with spiced ground pork, mozzarella, eggplant, “and this really robust curry sauce,” according to Barlyn. “Then I’m probably topping it with panko breadcrumbs to give it that katsu quality.”

On November 22nd, chef Frankie Ramirez from Amá will be knocking out pans of “LasAmá” — an ode to his Mexican heritage with spices and Oaxacan cheese. Chance Anies from Tabachoy and Manong is up next with a Filipino lasagna done with a shrimp and pork ragù and achiote pasta, topped with egg, chicharron, and lime. Then, on December 6th, Miled Filianos from Habibi Supper Club rolls up with his “Lebsagna” — a Lebanese riff on an Italian classic, inspired by lasagna-adjacent Greek and Egyptian dishes.

“I was thinking about the already existing pasta dishes we have in Lebanon, and I felt like that would be too on the nose,” he explained when I asked where he came up with his version. But there was a dish he recalled that had kind of a gratin feel: whole gray squash, cored and stuffed with spiced ground meat, then cooked and served with white rice. He thought something similar might work, only deconstructed, and done in a pan, kind of like a Greek pastitsio.

The result is a layered dish of ground, spiced lamb, sliced gray squash, kashkawan cheese, pine nuts, and Lebanese spices, all sandwiched between sheets of pasta and topped with a smooth béchamel. “I haven’t actually tried it yet,” he told me, “But there are certain dishes that just kind of sound amazing when you think of them, aren’t there?”

After that, the crew from Paffuto is coming in to help you prep for the game on December 13th, and Chris Stillwell from Percy will be doing a New American lasagna, too, which takes us right up to the January 3rd bye week.

After that, Grothe has the schedule listed as TBD, so I guess we’ll all just be waiting to see how the collab series — and the season — has been going up to that point. Still, though, this is nine weeks of really interesting lasagnas to pair with your at-home Eagles game-day routine, so no matter what else happens, at least you’ll be well fed. This week’s collab is already selling, so if you’re interested, check out Scampi’s Instagram and get that order in because seriously? Muffuletta lasagna? That sounds awesome.

Oh, and of course: Go Birds.