Pastitsio with Bechamel (Greek Lasagna)

Pastitsio with Béchamel (Greek Lasagna)

 

Note:  This is at least a 2 hour commitment.  This is why it’s nice to have some wine while cooking.  You will layer like a lasagna!  The meat sauce however is a little different than a traditional Italian meat sauce, as there is no tomato sauce and you will be using cinnamon and oregano to flavor up the meat. Additionally, you will be using tubular noodles called, Ziti Campani.  I used No. 8 size, you may use another size – whatever fits your casserole dish or lasanga pan. 

Your Pan:  Get a lasagna or casserole dish to put your pasta in.  I say, use whatever fits your noodles.

Your Noodles: I use long ziti for effect!  You will see why.  Though you can use short tubular pasta as well but they may not line up straight.

There are 3 steps. You are going to cook noodles and set aside, then you will make a meat sauce and then a bechamel sauce.

Cook Pasta:  Boil up your long pasta according to package directions, in a tall wide pot of salted water until just done.  You can even cook 2 minutes under since the noodles will further bake in the oven. This is a tough pasta by the way, very hard to break the noodles, HOWEVER, I didn’t drain but rather picked out with tongs and set aside in a pan.  I then tilted pan and soaked up water with a paper towel.  While this is a nice tough pasta, I didn’t want to drain just in case the tubes broke, but you can absolutely drain instead.  Because I put them aside, I put a little olive oil over noodles and tossed around so they wouldn’t stick.

The Meat Sauce:   (I doubled this recipe for leftovers), but this is the regular recipe. I like to make more of everything, including bechamel sauce as I hate running out.  Anything leftover can be repurposed in another dish or frozen for a future dinner.  Remember, the secret to any sauce is to taste it once the ingredients are all together.  Add more seasonings if you like, more salt, or more pepper.

3 lbs. lean ground beef, 1 medium onion chopped, 2 tbsp. olive oil, 1 small can tomato paste, ½ cup water, 1 cup red wine, 3 garlic cloved, minced, 1 tbsp. ground cinnamon, 1 tbsp. oregano, 1 tbsp. paprika (I used smoked), pinch red pepper flakes, optional, 1/2 tbsp. salt, 1 tsp. pepper.

Sauté onion and garlic in olive oil in pot until soft.  Once done, add all of the spices and stir for a minute to cook spices. 

Add hamburger and water to spices and stir to evenly distribute the spices and onion into hamburger and break it up with large spoon.  When cooked through, add the tomato paste and wine, put the heat to low and simmer for 30 minutes or longer if you like.  I simmered for 2 hours!  Set aside and skim off any fat.

Bechamel Sauce (it’s like a white sauce, but you are going to add an egg or two to the sauce). Once again, I doubled the amount of sauce because I made a large pastitsio.

In a pot add ¼ cup butter and melt.  Then add ¼ flour and whisk.  Then add 4 cups of whole milk and whisk more until it becomes thick.  Add a handful of mozzarella cheese to sauce to melt, and then add a tsp. of nutmeg and salt and pepper.  You don’t even need to cool the bechamel before you add one or two blended eggs. Add eggs and whisk vigorously and leave until you are ready to assemble.

Time to assemble.

First layer add ½ cup of bechamel sauce to lasanga pan. Then add some of the ziti noodles.  Top with ½ cup of mozzarella and parmesan cheeses, make sure cheese gets all over noodles.  Add more cheese if you like. Repeat with noodles and cheese.  When all the noodles are in the pan, top with meat sauce, then lastly, top with bechamel sauce and bake at 350 degrees for at least one hour.  Feel free to add some parsley for decoration.

Make it Your Own:   The cinnamon is simply divine and is what makes this dish extra special, but you can also add chopped tomatoes to your sauce and if you like, when layering add bechamel to every layer.  My whole family absolutely loved this comforting dish.  It is truly delicious!