How to Make Pastitsio (Greek Lasagne)

 

I love the kind of food that can be cooked first thing in the morning and then just left until it’s time to eat.

 This enables you to get on with the rest of your day without having to worry about what to feed your family.

 Pastitsio is traditionally eaten cold in Greece but is just as good, eaten hot, which is how I prefer it, MGG (My Greek God) thinks otherwise!

 Prepare it in the morning and pop it in the oven for fifteen minutes before serving.

 Add a crisp green, or Greek salad, crusty bread, olives, feta cheese and a bowl of tzatziki, open up a bottle of good Greek wine, and there you have it, a traditional, mouth watering, Greek meal.

 

Pastitsio:

Greek Lasagne

 

 Pastitsio, is pasta, meat sauce and béchamel sauce, all layered together to create this tasty, traditional, Greek dish.

 

 

Ingredients:

 

For the meat sauce:

 

The size of the roasting tin I use for these amounts is 30 x 35 cm.

 

I kilo minced beef

1 carton tomato puree (about 450 gr)

2 large onions chopped

1 clove garlic chopped

150 ml olive oil

1 Bay leaf

1 Cinnamon stick

 1/2 tsp ground cloves

Salt & pepper to taste

 

For the béchamel sauce:

 

 

 

200 gr butter

150 gr Plain flour

1.5 liters milk

2 lightly beaten eggs

About 100 gr Grated hard cheese e.g. Greek Kefalotiri or Parmesan

1 tsp grated nutmeg

(Whole nutmeg, freshly grated, has much, much more flavour than powdered nutmeg)

 

Pasta

 

 500 gr spaghetti pasta size number 2

 

Method

 

First boil the pasta, drain and put to one side,  then prepare the meat sauce, once the sauce is ready, turn on your oven to 180 deg.C and make the bechamel sauce.

Finally assemble the pastitsio and put in oven to brown.

 

Boil Pasta

 

Bring a large pan of water to the boil, add half a teaspoon of salt, and drop in the pasta, leave to boil for the amount of time stated on the packet, stirring frequently.

 When cooked, drain and rinse in a colander, leave to one side

 

Meat sauce:

 

 Heat the olive oil in a large pan, sauté the chopped onion and garlic for 5 minutes and add the minced beef, sauté for another ten minutes.

 Add the tomato puree, along with a couple of cups of boiling water, stir well.

Pop in the bay leaf, the cinnamon stick and the ground cloves.

Season with salt & pepper to taste

Simmer the sauce for around forty minutes, stirring occasionally.

At this point, switch on the oven, 180  deg.C

 

Béchamel sauce

 

People are nervous about making béchamel sauce, worrying that it will become lumpy.

 Using this method, I have never had that problem.

 I’m frequently asked;

 “How do you make such a good béchamel sauce?”

I’m sure that I don’t make it “The correct way” but it works every time, without fail!

 I’ll explain my method to you as best as I can.

 

 

  Melt  about 200 gr of butter, remove the pan from the heat, this is important, then, slowly add flour, stirring well, until the mixture forms a ball and falls away from the sides of the pan, without sticking.

  You may not need the whole 150 gr of flour, or, you may need more, just add enough to make the mixture form a ball, see above picture.

  Gradually add the milk, first slowly, mixing well with a spoon, then as the mixture becomes more liquid, whisk well with a balloon whisk.

 If you do spot lumps beginning to form, whisk as fast as you can for a minute!

I Have found the easiest way to add the eggs, is to lightly whisk them into the milk, before adding the milk to flour and butter mixture, the Greek way, is to add them at the end but this takes a lot of elbow grease to mix them in well, do it my easy way, the results are the same.

 Once all the milk has been add the grated nutmeg

Season with salt & pepper, if the cheese you have (This will be added later) is salty, go easy on the salt in the béchamel.

Once all bechamel ingredients have been added, return the pan to the heat, stirring all the time and I mean all the time, a bit of a bore but you have to, otherwise it will burn on the bottom of the pan and become lumpy!

 

 

I use a balloon whisk and away, until the sauce comes to the boil, then remove the pan from the heat.

 At this stage, most recipes say, leave the sauce to cool, I don’t!

 Add and stir in well, about a cup of grated cheese, mix it really well!

 

 

I think the secret of a successful béchamel sauce is to combine the flour and all the milk into the melted butter, before putting  the pan on the heat.

 Whisk, whisk, whisk, as hard as you can, continuously!

 

Assemble Pastitsio

 

Now it’s time to put it all together; firstly, add just enough of the béchamel sauce, to cover the bottom of the ovenproof tin, or baking dish that you are using.

On top of the béchamel sauce, add half of the boiled pasta and on top of the pasta, sprinkle a tablespoon of grated cheese.

 While sitting in the colander, the pasta may have become a big lump!

  Just run under hot water for a second or two, to separate it, drain well.

 

 

 Second stage; add all the meat sauce on top of the pasta (remember to discard the bay leaf and cinnamon stick) spreading it out evenly.

 

 

Finally, add the remaining pasta on top of the meat sauce and again, sprinkle with grated cheese.

 Give the remaining bechamel a quick whisk and pour all of it, over the pasta.
Spread out evenly, with the back of a large spoon.

 

 

Now it’s ready to go into the oven.

 Bake for about twenty minutes, at 180 degrees C, or until the surface, is nicely browned.

Leave to cool completely before cutting into squares.

 

 

If you try to cut it, before it has cooled, it will just collapse on the plate, it needs to be cood to stand up, in a nice neat square. If later on, after it has cooled, you heat it up again, it can be cut hot and will keep its shape, I don’t know enough about science to tell you why!

 

 

 Kali Orexi (Bon appetit in Greek)

 Enjoy!