Recipe: Delicious Pastitsio

Pastitsio. It's a Greek version of lasagna- characterized by a white and creamy bechamel sauce used in place of marinara and a hint of cinnamon. You may also know it as Greek pasta bake, and. Spoon half of the prepared ziti evenly in the bottom and top with meat sauce.

You can cook Pastitsio using 24 ingredients and 13 steps. Here is how you achieve it.

Ingredients of Pastitsio

1. Prepare 500 g of various grated cheese or kefalotiri cheese.
2. You need 1 1/2 packets of macaroni No3 (usually long, thick, hollow pasta).
3. Prepare of butter.
4. It's of For the mince layer.
5. Prepare 750 g of ground beef.
6. Prepare 1 of large onion, finely chopped.
7. You need of olive oil.
8. It's 2 of fresh ripe tomatoes, chopped.
9. You need 500 ml of Passata.
10. Prepare of salt.
11. Prepare of pepper.
12. It's of ground nutmeg.
13. You need 500 ml of water.
14. Prepare 200 ml of red wine.
15. Prepare of For the bechamel sauce.
16. Prepare 7-8 tbsp of flour.
17. You need 250 g of butter or margarine.
18. You need 4 of eggs.
19. You need 1 can of evaporated milk.
20. It's 1 can of water (use the now empty milk can).
21. It's 300 g of grated cheese (this portion is taken from the 500 g grated earlier).
22. It's of salt.
23. You need of pepper.
24. It's 1 of level tsp ground nutmeg.

Pastitsio step by step

1. Boil the pasta in salted water..
2. Strain the pasta using a colander and rinse with cold water..
3. Melt 2 tbsp butter in the pot and return the pasta into the pot tossing it well to coat it with the melted butter.  Leave it aside to cool..
4. Preparing the mince  Sauté the onion and mince in the heated oil until the mince is browned..
5. Add the fresh tomatoes, passata, salt, pepper, nutmeg, water, and allow to simmer for approximately 40 minutes (or until most of the liquid is reduced). Just before removing the mixture from the heat, add the wine.  Let the mince mixture to cool..
6. To prepare the bechamel sauce  Melt the margarine in a saucepan over medium heat, and add the flour, whisking constantly till flour is lightly browned..
7. While whisking constantly, pour in slowly the evaporated milk, water, eggs, salt, pepper, nutmeg and finally add the grated cheese.  As soon as the sauce thickens, remove from heat and allow it to cool..
8. Preheat oven to 180 degrees C..
9. In a well greased ovenproof dish, place 2/3 of the pasta to create a bottom layer.  Level out and sprinkle with some of the remaining 200g grated cheese..
10. Next spread the mince on top of the pasta..
11. Cover the mince with the remaining pasta, and more of the grated cheese..
12. Cover the whole pastitsio with the bechamel sauce, and sprinkle with the remaining cheese, which will add extra flavour as well as a golden colour to the finished dish..
13. Place dish in the pre-heated over and bake for approximately 1 hour..