Over the months Chelsea and I spent on our blog sabbatical, I must have made pastitsio at least a dozen times. Pastitsio is a Greek pasta bake- rich tomato meat sauce, warming spices, creamy bechamel… it’s got comfort food written all over it, and it’s become one of my all-time favourite dishes for those grey Raincouver days.
I started off following a few recipes I found online and, over time, my own unique recipe emerged from my favourite bits and bobs and amendments (who uses ONE whole clove? What is the clove for, superstition? ‘Cause no one’s gonna taste one clove in 1 1/2 kilos of meat and pasta.)
Most pastitsio recipes you find online look neat and layered and very photogenic, as if Martha Stewart herself had painstakingly arranged the noodles *just so* in the perfect matrix of meat and bechamel… and that’s cool. I dig it, it’s pretty. But does it make sense? Here was my issue with all those neat, tidy, organized looking pastitsios- I don’t want a layer of immaculately stacked but mostly naked noodles, a thick layer of meat and then a thick layer of bechamel sauce. I love a good bechamel but no one needs to chew through an inch of it.
Also, what’s with using penne, or ziti? In my understanding, a pastitsio should hold together more or less- like a lasagna. If we’re using short noodles, it’s just a great mess of a pasta bake. Using bucatini (basically really long-ass macaroni, the love child of macaroni and spaghetti), the noodles themselves create a perfect, tangled nest. Baked and rested, you can cut into the pastitsio and the slices will hold together because of the chaos of those long strands.
So, what I’m giving you today is probably one of my favourite comfort food recipes *of all time,* stress-reduced.
Could it go viral for its beauty queen looks and flawless, organized layers? NAH. It’s comfort food, it’s there to make you feel good, not stress you out.
As the picture above shows, even my toddler couldn’t keep her little mitts off this ridiculously tasty, ridiculously satisfying meal. It’s a hug in a dish, perfect on cold, rainy days.
Serve it with a salad and keep your fingers crossed for leftovers. Trust me, you’re gonna want leftovers.
| Perfect Pastitsio | | Print |
- Meat sauce:
- 1 Tbsp olive oil
- 900g ground beef, lamb or a mixture of the two
- 1 large onion, chopped
- 4 large cloves garlic, minced
- ½ cup full-bodied red wine (optional)
- ¼ cup tomato paste
- 1 small can (411g/14.5oz) crushed tomatoes
- 1½ tsp ground cinnamon
- ¾ tsp ground cloves
- ½ tsp dried oregano
- ½ tsp dried thyme
- 1 bay leaf
- Salt and pepper, to taste
- .
- Bechamel sauce:
- 3 Tbsp unsalted butter
- 3 Tbsp flour
- 2½ cups milk, slightly warmed
- ¼ tsp freshly grated nutmeg
- 1 cup Parmesan cheese, grated
- 2 large eggs, lightly beaten
- Salt and pepper, to taste
- .
- 300g (2/3lb) bucatini pasta
- ⅓ cup feta, crumbled (optional)
- Heat olive oil in a large, heavy-bottomed pot over medium heat. Add ground beef/lamb and cook until no longer pink, breaking the meat up with a spoon as you go. Add onion and garlic and cook until softened, roughly 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
- If you are adding red wine, add it now and cook 2-3 minutes until the alcohol has cooked off. Add tomato paste and crushed tomatoes and stir to incorporate. Add cinnamon, cloves, oregano, thyme and bay leaf and mix through. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 10-15 minutes, then season with salt and pepper, to taste. (This sauce can be made a day in advance, or even frozen up to a month in advance, simply stop at this step, cool it down and pack it up)
- Preheat oven to 350°F.
- Cook pasta noodles until *almost* al dente. Remember, we're baking the pasta as well, so we want to stop it cooking early so we don't end up with mushy noodles. Drain, toss with a small glug of olive oil and set aside.
- Now to start the bechamel. Melt butter in a medium saucepan. Add flour and cook over medium heat to create a roux, whisking constantly for 2 minutes. Slowly pour the milk into the roux, whisking constantly. Continue cooking, stirring occasionally, over medium heat for 5 to 7 minutes, until smooth and thick. Add nutmeg, ~1/2 teaspoon salt and ~1/2 teaspoon of pepper (or to your tastes). Stir in Parmesan cheese and the eggs until well combined.
- Take a large ladle and scoop two ladlefuls of bechamel into your meat sauce, stirring to incorporate. Pour your noodles into the meat sauce and mix well.
- Pour the sauced noodles into a large baking dish, patting them down gently so that there are no big air pockets in the mixture and surface is somewhat flattened. Pour the remaining bechamel sauce over the pasta in the baking dish and, using a spatula or the back of a spoon, spread it so that it covers the surface of the noodles more or less evenly. Top with a light sprinkling of feta, if desired.
- At this point, I like to put the loaded baking dish on to a large baking tray, because we've got a very heavy, very full casserole on our hands- this is a precaution I haven't always needed, but if your tray looks pretty full, and there is any chance of the odd bubble-over, it's a good thing to do. Bake for 45 minutes, until the dish is golden and bubbly.
- Now, this is the HARDEST STEP in the entire recipe: Take it out of the oven and let it sit, undisturbed, for at least 10 minutes. You're going to want to dive into it right away, I know. It's gonna be tough. Try and resist. The longer you let it sit, the better your servings will hold their shape (I have been known to make a pastitsio after lunch and warm it through slightly for dinner, since I already have a full belly when it comes out of the oven and the temptation isn't quite as great.)
Who puts the amount of meat in grams? I’m old school along with everyone else that’s 50 or older. No metric system in the recipes!
Hi Steve, I live in Canada where we use the metric system. I buy my meat in grams and kilos, not pounds. If you can google a recipe, I’m sure you can google a quick conversion 🙂
Finn, please forgive my fellow countryman, he knows not of what he speaks, although when you wrote “Raincouver” it should have been a dead giveaway. But then again, perhaps he doesn’t realize Canada uses the metric system.
I look forward to making and reviewing this recipe!
Hi Finn
Tried your pastitsio for dinner tonight. It was a great success even with Miss Fussy Eater! The sauce on the top was divine! We have left overs but not sure how long they will last. Thank for sharing a recipe that will now be on our go-to meals.
Cheers k
P.s not sure about the other comment – we commonly use grams in our recipes here in Australia 🙂
Perfect Pastitsio indeed. Absolutely the best recipe I’ve ever tried for this pasta bake, and I’m Greek! Even my four-year-old, 9-year-old and 10-month-old scarfed it down. Do you have any idea how hard it is to cook something those three kids all agree on? AMAZING.
Perfect. I like to eat this dish. This is my favorite food when I was kid. I have followed your instructions. As a result, I have delicious and beautiful cakes. This recipe is really easy to make and effective. Thanks for sharing this very great article.