Pastitsio, Deconstructed (παστίτσιο)

It has been brought to my attention that I have yet to write, blog, post about a popular Greek dish called Pastitsio.

Pixie of You Say Tomato, I Say Tomato pointed out this glaring omission to me when she searched my blog unsuccessfully for the elusive recipe. Mea culpa. I'm sure I've made pastitsio during my blog's existence but she was right...no pastitsio recipe to be found.

Pastitsio is a Greek classic. It is simply an oven baked pasta with a meat sauce and Bechamel Sauce. Pastitstio is the Greek form of the Italian word pasticcio, which means hodgepodge (among other things).

I've heard many non-Greeks talk of pastistio as if it were some mythological dish beyond the reach of mere mortals, only to be tasted at the hands of the Greek neighbor or at the Greek restaurant in town.

Relax kiddies, Pete's gonna break it down for ya. There are three simple components to pastitsio:

1. Pasta - the classic uses Bucatini, a thick, spaghetti-like pasta that's hollow (penne works fine too).
2. Meat Sauce - a classic Bolognese finished with a pinch of cinnamon (essential for pastitsio)
3. Bechamel Sauce - a roux of butter, flour, milk, eggs, cheese and some nutmeg.

See, that's all pastitsio is, let's pull it together...Ba-by!

Pastitsio (παστίτσιο)

1 kg. of lean ground beef
3 medium onions, diced
1/4 cup olive oil
3 cloves garlic, minced
3 bay leaves
1 allspice berry
1 Tbsp. tomato paste
1 can crushed plum tomatoes
1/4 cup dry white wine
1 tsp. dried oregano
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
salt and pepper to taste
1 package of Bucatini pasta
1/2 cup grated Kefalotyri cheese (or Romano)




Meat Sauce

1. In a large skillet, add your olive oil and start sauteeing your onions, garlic and bay leaves under medium-low heat, for about 12-15 minutes for them to soften and be translucent.
2. Add your ground beef, allspice, turn heat to high and brown your meat. Strain off any excess fat.
3. Add your tomato paste and wine and simmer until most of the wine has been absorbed.
4. Add your crushed tomatoes, oregano and bring to a boil. Now reduce to a simmer until the meat sauce has become thick.
5. Adjust seasoning with salt and pepper, remove your bay leaves and allspice. Reserve.
6. Get a large pot of water boiling for your pasta. Upon boiling, generously salt your water and cook the pasta for approx. 10 minutes.
7. Strain the pasta and reserve.

Bechamel Sauce

1 stick of butter
1 cup of all-purpose flour
10 cups of whole milk (warm)
8 eggs (room temp.), beated
1 cup grated Vlahotyri Cheese (or Grano Padano)
salt and pepper to taste
1 tsp. grated nutmeg
More grated Kefalotyri for topping

1. In a large saucepan, add your butter to medium heat and when it's melted add the flour and stir constantly with a wooden spoon for about 5 minutes or until the flour has turned a light brown.
2. Grab a whisk and pour in a steady stream of milk into your roux. If you still get some lumps, use a potato masher to break them up.
3. Go back to stirring with your wooden spoon and bring the Bechamel up to a boil (medium heat).
4. Continue stirring until your Bechamel has become thick or until the sauce coats the back of the spoon.
5. Take the Bechamel Sauce off the heat and pour a steady stream of the beated eggs into the mixture. Add the grated Vlahotyri, nutmeg and adjust seasoning with salt and pepper.
6. Cover and reserve.

Assembly

1. Pre-heat your oven to 375F, middle rack
2. Start assembly of the pastitsio in a rectangular roasting pan
3. Mix about 1 ladle of Bechamel Sauce into the reserved meat sauce.
4. Mix about 3 ladles of Bechamel Sauce into the reserved pasta. (Steps 3 & 4 will ensure your pastitsio stays moist as a leftover)
   
5. Pour enough Bechamel Sauce to cover bottom surface area of the roasting pan.
6. Spread half of your pasta over the bottom layer of Bechamel Sauce.
7. Pour all of your meat sauce over your first layer of pasta.
8. Spread your second layer of pasta over the meat sauce.
9. Pour the remainder of the Bechamel Sauce over second (and last) layer of pasta and smooth out the sauce to make it even.
10. Spread grated Kefalotyri over the Bechamel Sauce and place into a pre-heated 375F oven for 45-60 minutes or until the top is golden brown.
11. Take your Pastitsio out of the oven and allow to rest for 20-30 minutes before serving.
    

Five Things You Wish You Didn't Know About Me

Heather from Gild the Voodoolily caused me to squirm the other day and get your minds out of the gutter (no prostate check) but she "MEME'ed" me, "tagged me" like rhino in the Serengeti that's been earmarked to divulge all.

I was thinking, how much shall I divulge? What shall I share or what shall I keep?

I wasn't enthused about being tagged but I'm a good sport and I'll pretend to play along.

Let's say I were to play the MEME game, I would:

1. Perhaps I'd be the type of person that always like to have the different foods on his plate separate...meat at 12 O'clock, potatoes at 3 O'clock, veggies and 9. Regardless of the presentaion, I'll rearrange my plate's food so that's it separate.
2. I might be the type of person that still hides under the covers at night when thunder & lightning strikes..."I see dead people"!
3. As a young boy, whilst playing with other kids and cousins, the toys used to get all mixed up and the parents were left with the conundrum of how to separate the toys. Lil' Petey had the unique talent of being able to to actually "sniff out" which toys belonged to whom as each home, person, item had a unique smell to it.
4. As a Greek child, I was hyper, would play - ALOT and would sometimes go out of the house in the morning and return at night. I would get spanked. As a Greek kid, the ritual spanking occurred courtesy of the "pandofla" or slipper. I am forever emotionally scarred.
5. Finally (if I were playing the MEME) game, to this day I still receive anonymous Father's Day cards. I've been promised to meet my offspring next year, "fer sure"!

There you have it folks, a little window on who I am and now it's time for me to dispense with further discomfort to five others:

Katerina from Daily Unadventures in Cooking
Elly of Elly Says OPA!
Maryann of Finding La Dolce Vita
Louise of Blue Cat-Gato Azure - Chat Bleu
Costas of I Love Olive Oil

These are the rules: 1. Link to your tagger and post these rules.
2. Share 5 facts about yourself
3. Tag 5 people at the end of your post and list their names (linking to them).
4. Let them know they've been tagged by leaving a comment at their Blogs.

Carrot Dip (Yoghurtlu Havuc)

Last year, as part of my trip to Greece, I also made a side trip to visit the enchanting city of Istanbul (Constantinople).

I went to visit this great city as a Greek, as a lover of travel, culture, history and to sample the local cuisine.

Much like the Greeks, Turks also enjoy sampling an array of appetizers (mezedes) as part of the long course of eating, drinking and talking.

One of the dips that I tried and very much enjoyed was this carrot dip. I was drawn to trying it because I've never had it and the brilliant orange piqued my curiousity.

This dip is carrot heavy but that's okay. This root vegetable is a biennial plant, they can be eaten raw, boiled, roasted, grated, fried, juiced, steamed or most importantly - essential for a good stock.

Carrots get their orange colour from beta-carotene which is then metabolized by humans into Vitamin A. Carrots are my entry for this week's Weekend Herb Blogging, founded by Kalyn of Kalyn's Kitchen and hosted this time 'round by Claudia of Fool For Food.

This carrot dip celebrates the carrot in it's brilliant colour and flavour. Make no doubt, carrot is the dominant flavour here but I've given this dip a nice kick that I'm sure will be a hit at your next party.

I've tweaked the classic Turkish recipe by adding cumin and some Harissa. I think my instincts were "bang on" as I was also told by a recent aquaintence that the Turks have condiment that's similar to Harissa called "biber salçası".

With this carrot dip, you'll first notice the sweetness of the carrot but the tart strained Greek yogurt along with the Harissa and cumin will balance off the flavour and make this quite the savory dip.

Finally, do garnish this dip with black olives...they serve more than just as a garnish. Scoop some dip with pita bread, take a bite and then have a bite of the black olive. The sweet carrot and salty olive play off well against each other.

Carrot Dip (Yoghurtlu Havuc)

6 carrots
2 Tbsp. olive oil
1 small onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, smashed
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tsp. ground cumin
1 tsp. Harissa paste
300gr. strained Greek yogurt
Pinch of salt
Black olives
extra-virgin olive oil for garnish
sweet paprika for garnish

1. Coarsely grate the carrots and cook in a skillet along with the olive oil, onion and smashed garlic until just softened (about 5-7 minutes). Remove from pan and set aside to cool.
2. Meanwhile, grate the remaining clove of garlic into the yogurt, add salt, cumin and mix well.
   
3. Add cooked carrot mixture (mash garlic with a fork) and stir to combine.
   
4. Garnish with olives, sweet paprika and a little drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil.
   

Pass Me The Salt, PLEASE!

I haven't gone outside all day today. It's Friday afternoon and I don't think anyone's going out tonight either.

School classes, daycare, work appointments, dinner reservations, shopping chores - all put on hold by winter's roar.

Contrary to what the rest of the world believes, Canadians do not live in igloos, nor do we have bears roaming in our backyards but we do have alot of snow!

The folks who are working hard today are the city's public works guys who plow, sand and salt our roads. Yes, that's right salt. Unlike in Europe, putting chains on car tires is illegal and they would tear up our already crumbling infrastructure.

So, we throw salt on our roads and sideswalks to melt the snow away to make way for man's progress.

Me, I use salt to bake my fish (HEY, I have to throw in a food reference). There's a snowball's chance in Hell that I'll go out and grill a fish on our barbecue.

So, I'm left with baking a fish in a very Greek and very Mediterranean way of cooking a fish - in the oven baked in a crust of sea salt. Greeks can't lay sole claim to this method of baking fish as I seen being done all over the Mediterranean but Greeks do enjoy this method.

This is simple, it's quick, hard to screw up and one is left with a perfectly baked fish, seasoned to perfection by the salt crust.

You'll need a whole fish for this method, such as a red snapper, sea bass, trout or a salmon. The salt and skin gets discarded so don't worry about a messy fish to clean or having it be too salty. The method works!
Whole Sea Bass Baked In Salt
(this fish fed 2)

1 whole sea bass, gutted and scaled
1 cup of coarse sea salt
1 cup of water
3/4 cup flour
4 egg whites
parsley
lemon slices

Preheated 500F oven

1. Rinse and pat-dry your fish and reserve.
2. In a bowl, add your salt, flour, egg whites and while stirring with a spoon, and gradually add the water. Keep adding the water until the mixture turns into a thick paste (sometimes you don't need the whole cup of water).
3. Place your parsley springs and lemon slices into the cavity of the fish.
4. Spoon a layer of the salt mixture onto a baking sheet and then place the fish on top. Now cover the fish with the remainder of the salt mixture. It's okay to leave the head and the tail exposed.
5. Place in the middle-top part of the oven and bake for 2o minutes.
6. Remove the fish and allow the fish to cool for 10 minutes.
7. Using the flat side of the meat tenderizer, hammer gently at the crust to crack it open. Carefully (it could still be hot) remove the salt crust and skin away from the fish and discard them.
8. Fillet your fish and serve with extra-virgin olive oil, a squeeze of lemon juice and salt to taste.