Greek Pasta Mixed With Seasoned Ground Beef Topped With Bechamel Cream
My very best Greek Pastitsio recipe (Pastichio)! This is my authentic "Greek Lasagna" recipe for you to make this traditional delight just like my grandma used to make information technology! So go ahead, read on to discover all my tips and tricks, my video showing yous how to make information technology and of course the recipe!
What is Greek Pastitsio / Pastichio?
The simplest way to draw what is Pastitsio is a Greek version of Lasagna! The traditional pastitsio / Pasticcio recipe has a deep layer of tubular pasta, a delicious, aromatic beef ragu and is topped off with athick and velvety béchamel sauce.
This is the ultimate Greek comfort food, along with the legendary traditional Greek Moussaka of course!
How to make traditional Greek Pastitsio?
This easy to follow Greek pastitsio recipe can exist summarised in three simple steps:
- Prepare the Pastitsio pasta
- Prepare the meat sauce
- Prepare the béchamel sauce
In the sections below I'll take you through each one of these in more than detail so you tin hands brand the very best pastitsio on your beginning attempt! Truth is that the whole process volition require dirtying some pans, but the end result is well worth it!
Greek Pastitsio recipe – Gear up the pasta
The accurate Greek Pastitsio recipe is made with bucatini pasta, a thick pasta like spaghetti with a hole running through the centre. This pasta is what is used to make Pastitsio in near every Greek household or restaurant.
Withal sourcing bucatini pasta abroad tin can be a fleck tricky, so a more than convenient alternative that you can readily discover at your local supermarket is penne pasta and ziti.
There are two petty tips that make all the deviation when preparing the pastitsio pasta. Firstly, boil the pasta for the pastitsio 2-3 minutes less than the packet instructions. Your pasta will also cook when the dish is baked in the oven, so if you cook them fully on their own they will plow out mushy!
Secondly mix the boiled pasta with crumbled feta cheese and a the whites from ii eggs. The feta cheese volition give your pasta a delicious tang while the egg whites will help the pasta stay together when your pastitsio is cut!
Greek Pastitsio recipe – Gear up the meat sauce
Greek pastitsio (pastichio/pasticcio/Pastizio) owes its distinctive and rich flavour to the two effluvious spices used in the meat sauce. These are zilch else thancinnamon andclove! In one case put in the oven, the intense aromas of those spices bring dorsum so many childhood memories!
To prepare the pastitsio meat sauce starting time by heating upwards a large pan on medium/loftier oestrus, add the olive oil, the chopped onions and sauté until the onions are translucent. Add the beefiness, tomato paste, garlic and break it up to small chunks using a wooden spoon.
Permit it simmer until its nicely browned and cooked through. And so proceed to deglaze the pan with the vino, add the tomatoes and spices and season with some salt and pepper. Allow it simmer for a while until the sauce has reduced and has barely whatever liquid left in it. Finally taste it and add some more salt & pepper to taste if needed!
Greek Pastitsio recipe – Prepare the Béchamel sauce
The perfect béchamel sauce for your pastitsio should exist smooth, thick and creamy. To achieve the perfect texture the key is to add the lukewarm milk a lilliputian bit at a fourth dimension whilst constantly stirring with a whisk. Whisk the sauce constantly, permit the flour to blot the milk and add some more until the milk is used upwardly. That fashion your sauce will turn out incredibly smooth and flossy!
Secondly be careful to set your stove to medium to low rut so that your bechamel sauce doesn't burn and doesn't stick on the lesser of the pan!
Finally, in one case you add the grated cheese to your béchamel it will thicken up a piddling bit. So continue that in heed to attain the right texture. At that point give your bechamel a taste and add some salt. It volition lift the flavor and make your bechamel taste just divine!
Can this Greek Pastitsio recipe be made in advance?
Making Greek Pastitsio can be a bit fourth dimension consuming, so sometimes y'all volition need to prepare information technology in advance. If you similar to fix pastitsio in advance, you can set all its components above and assemble information technology the previous night. Let it cool downwardly completely, encompass it with some cling film and put it in the fridge. The next day put it directly in the oven and bake it! Just remember to allow information technology cool down before cut it up.
Alternatively yous tin prepare the whole pastitsio and bake the day before, let it cool down, wrap in cling film and store in the fridge. When its time to serve, pop it in the oven for 20 minutes at 150C/300F to reheat information technology, cut it upwards and serve immediately.
Can you freeze broiled Pastitsio / Pasticcio?
This pastitsio recipe tin can also exist cooked in advance and frozen in individual portions. Truth is that sometimes you will cease up with leftovers, as this recipe makes for a generous blistering tray! Allow your pastitsio cool down completely, cut it up in pieces and place it in sealed plastic containers and so in the freezer.
To serve information technology, thaw in the fridge the night before, oestrus your oven to 150C/300F and warm it up for 20-30 minutes until warm throughout. Information technology will taste as good as fresh!
What goes well with it?
I love serving my pastitsio with a refreshing Greek feta salad, or a Greek Orzo Salad (Orzo feta salad) and some greek country style crusty bread. You don't demand anything else as this dish is pure perfection on its own!
If you dearest Pastitsio as much equally I do so yous have to give these amazing recipes a effort!
- Traditional Greek Moussaka!
- Blimp eggplants (Papoutsakia) also known every bit individual moussaka!
- Vegetarian moussaka
So go ahead, give this traditional Pastitsio recipe a try and amaze your friends and family unit with this actress tasty hearty dish!
Description
The Best Greek Pastitsio recipe (Pastichio)! An authentic Greek Lasagna recipe to recreate this traditional please but like my grandma used to make it.
Base Ingredients
- 450g/ 15oz. bucatini pasta, penne or ziti
- 110g/ 4oz. feta cheese
- 2 egg whites
For the meat sauce
- 900g/ 30oz. lean footing beef
- 2 medium sized red onions (finely chopped)
- 2 cloves of garlic (chopped)
- 400g/ 14oz. canned chopped tomatoes
- one tbsp tomato paste
- 1 tsp carbohydrate
- 150ml/ five fl.oz. red wine
- one bay foliage
- 1 cinnamon stick
- 1 whole clove
- 1/four of a cup olive oil
- ii teaspoons bounding main salt and freshly footing black pepper (to sense of taste)
For the bechamel
- 120g/ 4.3 oz. patently flour
- 120g/ 4.iii oz. butter
- 1000ml/ 34 oz. milk
- 2 egg yolks
- 50g/ one.7oz. Kefalotyri or Parmigiano-Reggiano
- a pinch of nutmeg
- salt to gustation
- 50g/ 1.7oz. Kefalotyri or Parmigiano-Reggiano to sprinkle
- To prepare this traditional pastitsio recipe (pastichio), start with the meat sauce. Identify a large pan over medium-high rut and add together the olive oil, the chopped onions and sauté for ii-3 minutes. Add the garlic, tomato paste and the beef. Suspension upward the meat with a wooden spoon and brown for four-5 minutes. Pour in the red wine and await to evaporate. Add the canned tomatoes, the sugar, cinnamon, clove, the bay foliage and season. Bring to the eddy, turn the estrus down and simmer with the chapeau on for near thirty minutes, until most of the juices accept evaporated. (Later on the meat is cooked, discard the bay leaf, the clove and the cinnamon)
- Set the bechamel sauce for the pastitsio. Melt the butter in a large pan over low-medium heat. Add the flour whisking continuously to make a paste. Add together warmed milk in pocket-sized batches, whisking continuously in social club to prevent your sauce from getting lumpy. If the sauce nevertheless needs to thicken, boil over low oestrus whilst continuing to stir. Remove the pan from the stove and add the egg yolks, salt, pepper, a pinch of nutmeg and the grated cheese (50g/ 1.7oz.). Whisk quickly, in order to prevent the eggs from turning an omelette! Season with salt to gustation.
- Cook the pasta for the pastitsio 2-iii minutes less than the bundle instructions, so that they don't become mushy after turning out of the oven later. Bleed the pasta and stir in the egg whites and the feta cheese (smashed with a fork) and mix gently with a spatula.
- For this pastitsio recipe you will need a large blistering dish, approx. 25*35 cm / 10*14 inch. Butter the bottom and sides of a pan and assemble the pastitsio. Layer the pasta, top with the meat sauce and fifty-fifty out. Summit the pastitsio with the bechamel sauce and smoothen out with a spatula.
- Sprinkle the pastichio with grated cheese and bake in preheated oven at 180C (350F) Fan for virtually 40 minutes, until crust turns a calorie-free golden dark-brown. Let the pastitsio cool down for a while before serving.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: i foursquare
- Calories: 724kcal
- Sugar: eleven.1g
- Sodium: 607.6mg
- Fat: 30.7g
- Saturated Fatty: 14.6g
- Unsaturated Fat: 14.1g
- Trans Fat: 0.2g
- Carbohydrates: 63.2g
- Fiber: 3.1g
- Protein: 44.5g
- Cholesterol: 169.6mg
Keywords: how to make pastitsio, Pastitsio, Pasticcio, Pastichio, Greek lasagna, pasta bake with béchamel sauce
Source: https://www.mygreekdish.com/recipe/pastitsio/