Get the recipe for Pastitsio II at: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/23159/pastitsio-ii/
Spoon up big portions of this hearty Greek classic to the acclaim of your friends and family—you’ll love how this recipe is designed to feed a crowd. Cooked ziti pasta is tossed with brown butter, Parmesan cheese, nutmeg, salt, pepper and eggs and layered in a baking dish with a meat sauce made with ground beef cooked with onion and garlic, tomato paste, red wine, broth and parsley. Finally, a rich béchamel joins all the ingredients along with extra Parmesan. Baked up bubbly, this dish is irresistible.
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16 Comments
My old boss, a first generation Greek, would make this for what he called, "company dinner". But for one small difference, he added cinnamon to the recipe.
Oh, we would eat, and the Ouzo would flow… better times.
Well since i am greek a few things i have to say. We dont put cheese and eggs in the pasta. We put way more cream on top. We put a thick layer of cream and if you want you sprinkle some cheese ON the cream and not into the pasta. Other than these two things the rest of the recipe is ok.
This is a lovely, traditional, old fashioned Pastitsio recipe exactly like my mother used to make whenever we had a celebration or "company" coming over. Your recipe is the definitive Pastitsio recipe!
Do you guys have any vegan recipes? If so where can I find them.
Any small YouTubers want to support each other? 😊
ENOUGH WITH THE MUSICAL RECIPES!!
Yummy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Would love to know the "per serving cost" of this recipe. Just the butter should add quite a wollop.
Use olive oil instead of butter; it 's healthier!
Did you just make a Greek recipe using butter and no oil?
forgot cinnamon..
One of the biggest problems with Pastitsio is the dryness factor. To solve this, you can create more sauce… rather, a bit of a sauce blend: A Tomato Feta Bechamel…
It's close to what you see in the video, except you make two sauces first:
Sauce #1:
This is a very basic red wine tomato type sauce, made with tomato puree and just a hint of cinnamon (along with a couple other spices, as seen in the video). Essentially think: Italian Cabernet Sauce, yet replace traditional Italian spices with traditional Greek spices and add a pinch of cinnamon. You will take a portion of this sauce to mix with the meat (as seen in the video), a generous bit to pour over the meat and 1st layer of noodles. The remainder – about a quart (more or less, depending on how much sauce you want) – you will keep warm and set aside for later.
Sauce #2
Just as seen in the video, but with one or two minor revamps. 1. more of it. 2. the addition of an extra ingredient: Feta Cheese. This adds a very nice richness to the sauce. Run 8 – 12 oz. with a little bit of milk or cream, through a food processor or blender, until it is smooth and add it to your Bechamel, along with a pinch of nutmeg. Be sure to put aside about a quart (more or less) for later (about equal to the amount of sauce #1) and blend the remaining sauce #2 – as shown in the video – with the top layer of noodles.
Now… your Pastitsio is all put together. It's baking in the oven. But, before you are 2 pots of sauce, each with about a quart of so of sauce left in them. Take sauce #2 and pour it into sauce #1 and combine them evenly. In a way, you could say that this mixture is the Greek version of an Italian Vodka sauce. If done right, the flavor is AMAZING.
When you serve up your Pastitsio: Take your plate and ladle a desired portion of this amazing sauce blend in the center of the plate. Set your serving of Pastitsio in the center of the sauce. Then again, I have known people to simply ladle the Tomato Feta bechamel sauce right over their serving. Your choice… But… Either way, you will never again need worry about Pastitsio that may have come out a bit too dry.
Do you have to use red wine??
You forgot to mix cheese in the bechamel sauce
definetaly not Greek, but close.. good effort! 😀
Goodness, this is not really greek, starting with the wrong pasta.
Second the bechemel can be used throughout, but thinned a bit with more egg and milk, then the thicker on e to top. Cover the top with nutmeg. In Greece a different cheese is used as well. So is it Greek- NO- Has the recipe "assimilated" into American culture it has and it is still delicious. It is about the live, generosity and HOSPITALITY. OPA!