Hello everybody, it’s Brad, welcome to our recipe page. Today, I’m gonna show you how to make a distinctive dish, rich pastitsio. It is one of my favorites. For mine, I am going to make it a little bit unique. This will be really delicious.
Pastitsio is an authentic Greek baked pasta dish with ground meat and béchamel sauce. It's like a Greek lasagna but with béchamel sauce and thick spaghetti. Pastitsio has layers of pasta, minced beef, and a creamy béchamel sauce which are baked together to create a rich, velvety dish. Pastitsio can be called the Greek lasagna due to the similarities between the two dishes.
Rich pastitsio is one of the most popular of current trending foods in the world. It’s easy, it’s fast, it tastes delicious. It’s enjoyed by millions daily. They’re fine and they look wonderful. Rich pastitsio is something which I have loved my entire life.
To begin with this recipe, we must prepare a few ingredients. You can have rich pastitsio using 27 ingredients and 13 steps. Here is how you cook that.
The ingredients needed to make Rich pastitsio:
- Take Mince
- Take 700 g beef mince
- Prepare 1 large dry onion
- Take 2 large peeled tomatoes
- Get 1 medium green pepper
- Prepare 1 cup oil (approximately)
- Make ready 3/4 cups white wine
- Get 3/4 cups tomato Passata (approximately)
- Make ready salt
- Make ready cinnamon (powder)
- Prepare clove (powder)
- Get nutmeg (powder)
- Make ready water
- Make ready Pasta
- Make ready macaroni No3 (usually long, thick, hollow pasta)
- Make ready butter
- Take Bechamel sauce
- Get Bechamel sauce
- Prepare 130-150 g corn flour
- Make ready 1 1/2 l fresh milk (approximately)
- Take 2 eggs
- Take 2 full tbsp butter
- Get salt
- Prepare cinnamon (powder)
- Take nutmeg (powder)
- Take Cheeses
- Prepare 1 kg grated cheeses (regato, graviera, kasseri) (approximately)
Personally we prefer it of course and find it a little less rich and a little more moorish. The pasta that is usually used in Greece is a long thin macaroni called Perciatelli. If you can't get this then Penne is a good substitute but it is important to use a pasta that has a hole through it as the sauce seeps in and makes it extra delicious. Pastitsio, or pastichio is almost as popular as the famous moussaka of Greece.
Steps to make Rich pastitsio:
- Using a pot, lightly sauté the grated onion and the mince at medium temperature.
- When these are ready, add the tomato (grated), the pepper, finely chopped, quite a bit of cinammon and clove and a little bit of nutmeg, stir well to combine the flavors and cook for about 5 minutes with the lid on so that the liquids are absorbed.
- Then deglaze with the wine, put the lid back on and let the mince cook for five more minutes.
- Add about 1,5 to 2 glasses of water and let the food cook for about half an hour.
- After half an hour of cooking add the Passata, stir well and add water (about 1 cup), add salt, stir again and let the mince cook for another half hour till all the juices are absorbed.
- Take the pot off the heat and let the mince cool for a while.
- Prepare the pasta. Boil it in salty water and drain to get rid of the excess water. Then, put it in a baking tray, spread it and let it cool.
- Place the milk and corn flour in a pot stirring constantly with a whisk over medium heat. After a while, as the milk starts to boil, the mixture will start to thicken. Withdraw from the fire and keep on whisking. It might be necessary, according to how thick the bechamel is, to add a bit of milk or corn flour accordingly (just remember to whisk vigorously so that the bechamel doesn't get lumpy). Add two full tbsp of butter and let it cool for a while.
- Take small pieces of butter with your hands and butter the pasta well. Add half of the cheeses and mix all the ingredients together. Using your hands spread the pasta in the tray.
- Pour the mince over the pasta so that it goes everywhere and add half of the remaining cheeses spreading the mix with a spoon so that it is even.
- Back to the bechamel now. Add the eggs and stir very well. Add a bit of salt, quite a bit of cinnamon, a bit of nutmeg and stir again. Then add the rest of the cheeses to the bechamel and stir them with a fork or a whisk so that they combine well.
- Finally, pour the bechamel on the tray and shake it so that it goes everywhere and there are no uncovered places.
- Bake in medium temperature (we have already preheated the oven) for about 1 hour till it goldens to the nice colour that we all know!
If you can't get this then Penne is a good substitute but it is important to use a pasta that has a hole through it as the sauce seeps in and makes it extra delicious. Pastitsio, or pastichio is almost as popular as the famous moussaka of Greece. It is a rich mixture of aromatic minced beef with luxuriously creamy bechamel sauce and of course pasta. Pastitsio, Greek macaroni and meat pie, fabulous! This is old fashioned comfort food and holds so many memories for me.
So that’s going to wrap this up for this exceptional food rich pastitsio recipe. Thank you very much for reading. I’m confident that you will make this at home. There’s gonna be more interesting food at home recipes coming up. Don’t forget to save this page on your browser, and share it to your loved ones, colleague and friends. Thank you for reading. Go on get cooking!
