Greek Pastichio




Well, this dish is one of a lot of people's favourites. It's certainly a favourite recipe with the kids - young and old! If you make this for your youngsters, you shouldn't have any problem with them eating their food!


Ingredients

½ kg pasta size 10 (hollow pasta/orzo)
100g hard cheese grated
½ teaspoon ground nutmeg

For the Sauce

½ kg mince
250g tomatoes finely chopped
1 large onion grated
5 cloves
2 cinnamon sticks
1 tablespoon tomato paste
120ml olive oil
Salt and pepper

For the Béchamel

1 litre fresh milk
250g butter
1 cup all-purpose flour
150g grated parmesan cheese


Preparation

Sauce
Place the oil in a shallow pan and when it is moderately hot, add the onion.

Fry gently for a few minutes and then add the mince.

Stir well and continue to fry for 5 minutes.

Add the chopped tomatoes and the tomato paste.

Add the cloves, cinnamon, salt and pepper.

Finally, add 500ml warm water.

Cook for about 1 hour, until you have a thick sauce.


While the sauce is cooking, boil a deep pan of salted water and add the pasta.

When the pasta is ready, drain it and return it to the pan (having removed the water) with a large knob of butter, off the heat.

Stir the pasta and sprinkle the nutmeg over it and prepare the béchamel.


Béchamel
In a heavy-bottomed pan gently heat the butter until it melts.

Add the flour and stir continuously.

Add half of the milk and continue to stir with a whisk.

When the mixture starts to thicken, add the rest of the milk whilst stirring continuously.

When it starts to thicken again, lower the temperature to the minimum and add the grated cheese.


Add 3 large spoonfuls of béchamel to the pasta and mix.

Place half of the pasta mixture in an oven dish 35cm long and 5cm deep.

Add all of the sauce as another layer on top of it.

Add a further layer with the remaining pasta.

On top put all of the béchamel.


Bake in a preheated moderate oven for 45 minutes or until it has a golden brown colour.


If you've tried this recipe please rate it!   




Eat and Enjoy

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

Stopped from Entrecard. Just wanted to say you have a great blog. I subscribed and hope to be making some great greek dishes in the coming weeks!

yolanda said...

great blog! i worked in a greek restaurant a few years ago and loved the cuisine. got a good recipe for avgolemono soup??

if you have a chance, please do check out my blog http://thestufflifesmadeof.blogspot.com/

i would appreciate the feedback :-)

love,
yolanda

symposio said...

Hi Yolanda, thanks for your kind comments! I'll post a recipe for avgolemono as soon as I can.

I visited your site and thought the photograph was fantastic! Did you take it yourself? I'm so envious of people that can take such wonderful photos.

You might want to add a favicon to your blog. You know, the little icon that always comes up next to your blog address. If you want to, it's really easy on Blogger. I wrote how to do it recently on one of my other blogs - http://moneyfromscratch.blogspot.com/2008/11/add-favicon-to-blogger.html

Thanks once again, and check back in a few days for the avgolemono recipe!

Simply Eva said...

Oh this looks so yummy! Much like the "macarona bechamel" we make here in Egypt but with ground beef in the middle. This is so nice of you're out of or just plain tired of meat. When I was in Greece the Plaza Hotel served a great cheese kind of strudel looking thing. Seemed to be basically some kind of feta-like cheese and phyllo dough. Could I possibly get the recipe? Thanks for a great blog!

yolanda said...

thanks symposio :-) yes i did take the pic myself. spying on dragonflies mating - im such a pervert! ;-)

thanks for the favicon tips.. im still not quite sure what they are but i will look into it!

peace,
yola x

sassy2 said...

I have my grandmothers greek cookbook, but was wondering how you convert the measurements to american. I want to try your pastitsio. Thanks

Glynis Peters said...

I have learned to cook Greek Cypriot dishes since moving here, this one is one of my favourites. Great Blog I found you through Friends Revolution blog

Nettie said...

Looks fantastic, only, what temperature is a preheated oven? Thanks for answering my question!

symposio said...

Hi Nettie - It's at a moderate temperature or 180 degrees Celsius.

Top Ten Greek Restaurants Melbourne said...

I do love Greek foods so much. I should try this up. Thanks for the recipe.

egkimosyni said...

Great blog! I loved the cuisine. got a good recipe for avgolemono soup??

if you have a chance, please do check out my site about Greek recipes gourmed.com

i would appreciate the feedback :-)

love,
yolanda

symposio said...

Thanks @egkimosyni! You can find our recipe for Avgolemono Soup here - http://realgreekrecipes.blogspot.gr/2008/11/greek-avgolemono-soup.html

Enjoy!

Unknown said...

Amazing recipe!! I have tried 2 of your recipes already (youvetsi) and my husband claims the recipes tastes as good as his mothers!!! As a non greek this is a high compliment!!
Thank you again.

Unknown said...

thanks for sharing great post admin


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Anonymous said...

It may be my naivete but there were a couple of things I was confused about in the recipe. First, what is mince? Are we talking about minced meat or a separate product altogether? Second, when you write cloves, you are not talking about garlic but actual cloves used in Indian cooking? Again, forgive the ignorance. Cheers

blonde venus said...

Hi, but isnt egg supposed yo be put in bechamel sauce after cooling it a bit? Was it forgotten, and if not, does it puff our and stay together well without the eggs?

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