Traditional Greek food recipe : Pasticcio

Hello steemit friends.It has been about 1 week that I have posted a recipe cause I am very busy at work lately. Today I woke up earlier in order to write this post because my mind always works better in the morning the time I wake up. I have the pictures ready captured and edited since last Friday but I couldn΄t find time to write the text. But here I am today with traditional Greek food called "Pasticcio" which is one of the favorite food of most children and a large number of adults in Greece. Pastitsio consists of 3 layers which they blend harmoniously with each other. The first layer is pasta and we use spaghetti with holes called "Bucattini", the second is a red mince meat sauce called bolognese and the final layer is a very rich in butter béchamel. The spices we use in order to flavor pastitsio are nutmeg, savory, cinnamon, cloves, and a few laurel leaves. As you can understand, the moment that pastitsio gets out of the oven, the whole kitchen smells with scents of the Orient.

I think I said enough now it is time to give you the recipe with 3 different preparations.

PASTA
1 pack Bucatini spaggeti
300 grams of parmessan
Salt & Fresh Pepper

Salt the boiling water and pour the spaghetti into the pot. Boil them two minutes less than the indicated time (they will boil more in the oven) and strain them. Sprinkle with olive oil and leave them aside.

Bolognese sauce
Olive oil
1 kg of pork mincedmeat
1 finely chopped onion
1 cinnamon wood
Salt, Freshly ground pepper, cloves and few laurer leaves
2 tomatoes
1 clove of garlic

Warm up the saucepan and pour olive oil, pork mince and lower the heat. Break the minced meat into small pieces with a wooden or plastic ladle. Then add salt and pepper and stir till the mincemeat gets a light brown color. Next add the onion, the garlic, and all the spices and stir until the onion becomes soft. At last, add the ground tomatoes and leave it to boil for 10 minutes until the tomato becomes a thick sauce.

Béchamel
80 grams of Flour
160 grams of Cow's butter
70 g ground parmesan
500 ml Milk fresh
2 egg yolks
Salt, Fresh Pepper, Nutmeg

In a non-stick pan on medium heat, put the butter and let it melt. Then add the flour and Stir continuously with a wooden or plastic ladle until the flour is cooked and its color become yellow. Then add the milk gradually and mix vigorously with a fouet. After the whole milk is added stir béchamel until it becomes a thick sauce. When it is ready, remove from the heat, add the 2 yolks and the cheese and mix well to cook the eggs from the temperature of the sauce. Bechamel is now ready to pour it on the pan above the mixture of the pasta, mincemeat and parmesan!!

The Composition.
Mix the pasta with the bolognese sauce and the parmesan, Then put this mixture in a pan and pour the bechamel above. Try to cover all the surface of the pasta with bechamel and at last pour some parmesan on the top of the food in order to become crispy and delicious. :drooling_face: Ready!!!

When I was a kid, pasticcio was my favorite food. It is not so easy to make cause it needs 3 different preparations in order to compose the final result. As you can understand it is a very time-consuming food so I didn΄t have the chance to eat it as often as I want it too. But every time my mother was announcing to me that she was going to make it the next day, I was feeling very happy and I couldn΄t sleep cause I was thinking the fluffy pastitsio that I was going to eat the next day. (I was a very glutton as a child).

She was making it approximately once a month usually on Sundays that she wasn΄t working. Back then I remember my self eating breakfast while mother was making my beloved food, My heart was beating so fast, and I couldn't wait for the food to be ready. First, she was boiling the pasta and then she was making the bolognese sauce which was my favorite process because I loved the scents that were emerging from the sauce pot. At last, she was making the bechamel and she was asking me to stir it until it becomes a tight sauce. (It needs some time because you boil the bechamel in low temperature and you have to be there all the time stirring) Then she was taking a big pan and first she was putting the pasta and a big amount of parmesan and she was mixing them very good in order the cheese to stick throughout the pasta and give them its valuable flavor. Then she was putting a rich layer of bolognese sauce and at the end, she was pouring the bechamel over the mincemeat and she flattened it with a spatula and poured more parmesan on the top. Then she was baking it for about 30 to 40 minutes and all this time I was asking her how much time I have to wait in order to taste my favorite food.

The time that pastitsio was getting out of the oven is also very etched in my mind. All these scents that were flooding in the kitchen were watering my mouth and I couldn't wait for the food to be cool. I was eating the hot food with such gluttony and as a result, I was burning my esophagus.:sweat_smile: But when the food cools and binds all the flavors between them it becomes irresistible and very enjoyable.

Now that I have grown up I eat pasticcio much more rarely, I don't have my sweet mother near so I make it by myself. I eat it very rarely because it is very time-consuming. Also I avoid eating all these fats cause I have problems with my stomach. It deserves the time to cook it because you never eat it by yourself. Most of the times I invite my close friends and we eat it and accompany it with a bottle (or 2-3) of white dry wine. So it is a good occasion to see your friends that have been lost due to daily life and routine and have fun eating something tasty. Furthermore, I send some pieces to my sister because my knees love it and also I put some pieces on the freezer and I thaw them on the microwave every time that I feel hungry and I don't have time to cook. So as you can see it is a food that totally deserves the time and the effort to make it. :)

So that's it for today..Thanks for stopping by..
I hoped you liked my pictures and enjoyed my post!!
I will post more of Greek comfort food and desserts so if you are interested follow @skywaystelios

See you int he future