Guest Food Post…Hands Across the Ionian: Pastitsio
While I’m covering the AT&T Pro Am at Pebble Beach this week, I’ve asked my good friend John from the Bartolini’s Kitchens to handle today’s food post. For those of you who are unfamiliar with John’s site, it’s mainly dedicated to the sharing of his family’s recipes as well as some of his personal favorites. I highly recommend you perusing and subscribing to his blog. Your recipe box will be fuller and your stomach happier…I know mine are.
Thank you for guest posting today John and the readers are yours…
Thanks, Jed. I’m glad to be of help. To your fan base, I think you’ll like the recipe I’m sharing today. It’s a Greek pasta recipe and, if you’re at all like me, when there’s pasta in the dish, I’m reaching for a plate.
So, Jed, you can go, secure in the knowledge that your place and followers are in good hands. And don’t you worry about Max. He’s fully house bro–.
Um … where are the paper towels again? You know what, just go. We’ll be fine.
Max! Get down from there! Take care, Jed. Have a good time. MAX!!!
On with the recipe…
It should come as no surprise to anyone that, sooner or later, my blog would feature today’s recipe, a Greek dish called pastitsio. Not only is it a pasta dish but its name is derived from the Italian word for mess, pasticcio (in our dialect, pastroccio). Certainly, the guy whose response to an Asian menu’s “Choice of Noodle” is always, without fail, “Vermicelli!” wouldn’t let a little thing like geography get in the way of a good pasta recipe. And make no mistake, this pastitsio is one good pasta recipe.
Limited today to the Ionian Peninsula and the islands that spread eastward across the Aegean, Greek culture once traversed trade routes covering the entire length and breadth of the Mediterranean. As a result, Greek cuisine represents a true melding of the flavors of the entire Mediterranean and today’s recipe, pastitsio, is where Middle East meets West. This dish relies upon cinnamon, garlic, and oregano to enhance a rich lamb and eggplant ragu, while utilizing cloves and garlic to mildly flavor a feta-enriched besciamella sauce. Split a pound of cooked penne between the 2 sauces, layer them (red on bottom, white on top), bake until bubbling throughout, and this is one “mess” of comfort that you’ll be making again and again.
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Pastitsio Recipe
Ingredients
1 lb penne, divided in half
Meat Sauce
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1 large onion, chopped
- 1 lb ground lamb (beef may be substituted)
- 1 eggplant (1 lb.), peeled & chopped into 1/2 inch cubes
- 1 can (28 oz) crushed tomatoes
- 1 clove garlic, diced
- 1 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 tsp oregano
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp black pepper
White Sauce
- 2 tbsp butter
- 2 tbsp AP Flour
- 2 cups whole milk, heated
- 2 whole cloves garlic, lightly crushed
- 2 whole cloves
- 1/2 lb feta cheese, chopped or crumbled
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp pepper
- 2 eggs
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Forget Helen. If Penelope had this recipe, Odysseus never would have left home.
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Directions
Prepare Red Sauce
- Heat olive oil in a medium-sized sauce pan over med-high heat. Add onion and sauté until translucent, about 5 – 8 minutes.
- Add lamb to the pan and continue to sauté until meat is browned and juices have evaporated.
- Add remaining red sauce ingredients, stir well, bring to a boil, cover, reduce heat and simmer about 40 to 45 minutes or until eggplant is tender.
- Remove cover and continue to simmer for 10 minutes more.
- Cover and set aside.
Prepare Cheese Sauce
- Following package directions, cook penne until 2 minutes shy of al dente. Drain & reserve.
- At the same time, in a 2nd sauce pan, melt butter over medium heat. Add flour and stir until well combined.
- Add heated milk, garlic clove, and whole clove to the pan and whisk until smooth.
- Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, and continue until thickened.
- Add feta cheese, salt & pepper and stir until cheese has melted and sauce is smooth.
- Crack the eggs into a large mixing bowl and beat slightly.
- Add a ladle of cheese mixture to the bowl with the eggs, whisking constantly to prevent the eggs from cooking. Add a 2nd ladle of the cheese sauce and continue whisking.
- The eggs are now sufficiently tempered. Add the rest of the cheese sauce to the egg mixture and whisk until well-blended. If possible, remove garlic and whole clove.
- Cover and set aside.
Assembly
- Pre-heat oven to 425*
- Take half of the cooked penne, add it to the red sauce, and mix until well-coated.
- Add the other half of the penne to the cheese sauce and mix until well-coated.
- Grease a large baking dish and place all the red sauced penne on the bottom of the dish in an even layer.
- Place all the penne in cheese sauce into the baking dish atop the other penne in an even layer. (At this point, the dish may be covered and stored in the fridge, or freezer, for later cooking.)
- Place into a pre-heated oven and bake for 25 to 30 minutes, longer if you prefer a crunchier top (see photo above and Notes below).
- Allow to rest 10 minutes before serving.
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Three singles ready for the deep freeze.
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Variations
If made as directed, this will fill a large baking dish, resulting in 8 servings. If you prefer, rather than fill one dish, fill smaller, oven-proof dishes, to be frozen and served at a later time. These can be either single serving-sized or whatever suits your needs.
Notes
Try to time it so that the white sauce and penne finish cooking at about the same time as the red sauce. Failing that, make sure the penne is the last thing to finish, keeping the 2 sauces covered until ready for use.
That oven-browned picture above resulted when I took too long removing the snow during our last storm. As a result, although superbly crunchy, the pastitsio was a bit dry. If you’re looking for that extra crunchy topping, I would suggest covering the dish in foil for the first 15 or 20 minutes of baking to reduce the amount of evaporation during the cooking process. Once uncovered, leave it to bake until the top is as brown & crunchy as you like.
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Inspired by: “Sara’s Secrets”, featuring Sara Moulton, recipe courtesy of Gourmet Magazine
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[...] on beverage selection, and a bit of humor, sports-glutton.com has it all. So, please take this link to see my Pastistio Recipe and then take some time to look around and check out sports-glutton.com. You will not be [...]
So nice to see you doing a guest post John. Lovely recipe!
Mandy
Looks like a good replacement for lasagna! Love this recipe
Hi John!
This another good looking and delicious recipe, as usual.
Is good to see you here
G
So nice to see you here John. My mum makes something very similar minus the eggplant and the feta. I am looking forward to trying it your way. If it was up to me I would put eggplant in every other recipe lol
Looking good John. I love “fusion” food, and none more so than this Grek dish. Having visisted Greece many times, the fusion is there in front of you from the Italianate buildings on the waterfronts of Islands and yes in the food too.
That is such a yummy and delicious looking recipe. Who wouldn’t want a bowl of that? I must use this recipe. Everyone in my family would be thrilled if they arrived home and found this on the table.
Your recipe looks like the ultimate in comfort food for a winter night. Delicious. I appreciate the tips on the timing as when you haven’t made something before, you find out the hard way. Also, the foil tip. A wonderful guest post today and the image of the jet plane on the mouse was perfect!
Am going to check out the sports-glutton, too.
Oh, MY….another giant pasta recipe for the rotation! I’ll let you know if Angelface likes this as much as some of the others…Last night’s dinner was an enormous plate of baked ziti and TWO, count them, TWO pieces of bread and butter!
Grandmom ate her share, too….
Fabulous post John!!! This will take me all day to make and truly be worth it!! I think the lamb will give it a unique taste to this dish and I’ll certainly use the lamb vs. beef. I enjoy Greek dishes as well as Italian, I guess I love all Mediterranean foods!!
Love the sauces! Cinnamon with the lamb is a real winner in my book, the aroma when it is simmering is divine. Great recipe.
Wow, wow, wow. You should come here more often who’s that Jed guy. Kidding, but boy do I need to make this!
I agree looks like a lovely comfort food dish! My mouth is watering as we speak!
I love this dish but (she says somewhat shamefacedly) have never made it at home. No excuses now! Hope you enjoyed your guest appearance as much as we did….hope Max has calmed down now
One word: Bravissimo!! Luckily my official Bartolini Kitchens taste tester ID badge got me in on this recipe. It was great!
What a dish, John! Fabulous! Both sauces look amazing. I’ll try making the red sauce without the meat and see how it goes…maybe a little extra eggplant will fill in? (though not as tastily I’m sure.) My Dad was Greek, and man would he have loved this dish. So will we! Great post John! (And really good of you to watch Max.)
Oh my gosh, I love Greek (and Italian) food, and your recipe for pastitsio just moved to the top of the heap of best sounding recipes for this dish. Just amazing, and I don’t recall having this dish with feta in it before, but have only had it in restaurants. What fun to have you (and Max) guest blogging, and I’ve been enjoying Jed’s site since you first pointed us here!
Irresistible! Love me some pasta and this looks incredibly delicious
This greek pasta dish looks amazing! So glad you had John guest post here, thanks for the intro. I am saving this delicious recipe to try at home. Now popping over to John’s site.
Hope you are enjoying the Pro Am!
Heaven. This dish looks like perfect comfort food and I could use some of that right now. Glad you subbed in for him.
It’s as though a busload of Greek chefs and a busload of Italian chefs got in a head-on collision and the only thing that was mashed up was the bundles of groceries carried in the respective buses. So many good ingredients in one dish, beautifully prepared, OH HELP ME!!! I don’t know the phone code equivalent of 911 when you’re halfway between Italy and Greece, but y’all can just skip the dialing–I’ll clean up *this* “mess” gladly!
Kathryn
Oh, wow. That just plain looks heavenly! I love the melding of all sorts of cultures in food.
I love this! It’s like Greece’s answer to baked ziti (or vice versa). The flavors sound amazing, and I really like the bit of cinnamon. I add a but to all of my tomato-based sauces.
I love Pastisio. I have tasted it maybe once in my life, but I still remember how good it was. This one sounds luscious, the post is great and I’m very happy to meet John
Thanks again for guest posting John, but could you please UPS me some of this dish ASAP. I’m starving after a long day on the golf course.
Wow, this looks fantastic John. I absolutely love eggplant and I’m sure it adds to the creaminess of the dish. I just finished lunch and I’m already thinking about dinner, thanks to this post.
This is just “over the top” and with the layers of color and that cinnamon it is perfect for Valentine’s Day!! I’m copying and saving this one… Just when I think I’ve read about every sort of pasta dish you “knock one out of the park” … thought I’d through in a little sports metaphor here since it’s Sportsglutton’s page… Now I’m going to post this comment over on your page as well? Not sure how this all works! xo Smidge