Traditional Pastitsio

Recipe-Ingrediants

Our beloved Italian meal that is a staple in every household. It was established in the 17th century and named "pastitsio" (pasticcio), which means a mixture, aiming to describe the image of a dish with layered pasta, meat, and bechamel sauce.

In this technique, they had the "pasticcio alla ferrarese," which consists of a dense dough enclosing pasta (made of three types of meat: pork, beef, and pigeon!), mushrooms, and sauce. A similar type of pastitsio is made with chicken, ham, and eggs, as well as the "pasticcio alla romana," resembling baked lasagna with ham, mushrooms, mozzarella, minced meat, and bechamel.

In Greece, it came to us through the Venetian rule on our islands. In Corfu, it comes in a variation called "pasticcio of the grandmother" (pasticcio tis nonas), which is essentially a macaroni pie with layers of phyllo dough enclosing chicken, egg, tomato, salami, and lamb, all finely chopped.

Tselementes helped popularize it and make it beloved throughout Greece. Nowadays, we find it in many variations, such as with vegetables, eggplant, mushrooms, seafood, tuna, and whatever inspires us.

Below, I'll give you the traditional version with plenty of creamy goodness that we all love, and even though it should cool down a bit before cutting a slice, we always end up cutting it right away because we can't wait... of course!

Our ingredients:

1 packet of macaroni, boiled for pastitsio

30g butter

1 kg of minced beef

2 dried onions

2 egg whites

1 tsp garlic

200g tomato juice

80g white wine

½ tsp sugar

100g graviera cheese

2 bay leaves

1 cinnamon stick Salt and pepper

For the bechamel sauce:

200g butter

200g wheat flour

1 ½ liters of milk

2 egg yolks

100g grated graviera cheese

? tsp nutmeg

Salt and pepper