Aki's Kitchen - Recipes

Pastitsio

Main Meals

1 2

Tender pasta, topped with a hearty beef sauce, covered with a buttery flavoured cream. Makes 32 squares

Beef Tomato Sauce Ingredients:	Béchamel Cream Ingredients:	Pasta:
1 1/2 - 2 pounds ground beef, lean 2 - 3 tbsp oil: vegetable or canola 2 large onions, skinned and finely chopped 2 - 3 garlic cloves, skinned and mashed 1 cup, more or less, ground tomatoes 2 -3 heaping tbsp tomato paste 3/4 tsp ground cinnamon 1/4 tsp ground clove 2 tsp oregano 1 tbsp pulverized pickling spices 2 tsp beef base or chicken base powder 1 bay leaf water	9 cups milk (1% or 2%) 1 1/2 cups, flour 3/4 cup sweet butter 1/4 cup oil; canola or vegetable 3 eggs 1/4 tsp each: ground nutmeg, pepper and salt 1 tbsp chicken stock powder 1/2 cup Parmesan, Romano cheese, or Kefalotir, finely grated	500 - 600 gm. uncooked pasta, preferably the long tube type 1/4 inch diameter water 1 tsp salt
		Tools & Equipment:
		large regular pot, for cooking the pasta and warming the milk large non-stick pot, for cooking the ground beef and making the cream sauce medium size mixing bowl whisk flat wooden ladle foil paper rectangular shallow baking pan, 11 1/2 x 16 1/2 x 3 inches large, or 13 x 16 x 3

Making the Meat Sauce:
In a large non-stick pot, brown the ground beef, without using any oil, over high heat, for about 5 - 7 minutes, or until beef is no longer pink; drain and discard liquids; set the ground beef aside. Wipe the pot clean with paper towel and then sauté the onion with the garlic using 2 - 3 tablespoons oil, over medium heat, for 3 - 5 minutes. Add in the browned ground beef and tomato paste, and then continue to sauté everything for 1 - 3 minutes, stirring frequently to prevent scorching. Add in ground tomato and enough water to cover the ground beef by 2 inches. Add in the cinnamon, clove, oregano, pickling spices, beef base, and bay leaf, stirring occasionally until the mixture reaches a boil.

Reduce the heat to low - medium and cook partially covered with matching lid for about 60 minutes. Check beef mixture every 5 - 7 minutes for liquid level; sauce should reduce to between 1/4 and 1/3 of its original liquid quantity as it cooks away. Add more water if sauce reduces to a lesser amount.

After 30 minutes of cooking the beef mixture, start on the pasta. The total cooking time for the pasta, from the time you start boiling the water to the time you drain it should be about 25 - 30 minutes, by which that time, the beef mixture will have reduced and will be ready to use.

Cooking the Pasta:
Bring a large regular pot, filled 3/4 worth with cold fresh water to a boil. Add in 1 teaspoon salt and the pasta; boil the pasta a little beyond "al dente", but not over cooked. Pasta shouldn't be cooked "al dente", since this dish will be oven baked and the pasta might dry out too much, thus being difficult to serve and eat. Avoid overcooking the pasta, since mushy pasta isn't pleasant to eat. Drain pasta well and then lay it out evenly in an ungreased shallow baking pan; set pan aside. Rinse your pot and have it ready to heat up the milk.

Making the Cream:
Heat the milk, in the same pot that was used to cook the pasta, over high heat for 3 - 5 minutes, or until hot to the touch, but not to a boil. Turn off heat and allow to rest on burner. In the meantime, in a large non-stick pot, melt the butter with 1/4 cup oil, over medium heat.

When the butter has begun to bubble, dump in all the flour all at once, stirring to combine everything together and cooking it for 4 - 6 minutes, or until flour has become slightly brown, or tan, in colour; remove from heat. The flour mixture should be frothing and bubbling as it cooks (picture 1). This step takes time; so don't increase the heat, since this might burn the butter flour mixture. If flour does not seem frothy, then add in a few tablespoons of oil, until the mixture becomes frothy (picture 2). The flour mixture must be thoroughly cooked, otherwise; the sauce will taste floury and raw, and it won't thicken properly later on. If you overcook the flour, on the other hand, the sauce will taste burnt; you don't want that either.

Note: The pot with the flour mixture will be hot, so be careful when adding the hot milk into it.

When the flour mixture has been cooked, remove both pots away from the heat. For your convenience, work on a table or a countertop and not on the stove top, since the next step is a little messy.

Carefully and slowly, using a soup ladle, pour in a ladle's worth of the warmed milk, all at once, into the flour mixture and vigorously combine everything using a whisk (picture 3). Don't add all the milk (9 cups worth) at once, since it will be difficult to smooth out the lumps. At this point, things will look very messy; large clumps of flour mixture that won't combine with the milk.

1. Butter, oil and flour mixture that holds itself during cooking, yet is frothy.

2. Butter mixture bubbling, while at a stand still.

3. After 1 addition of 1 soup ladle of hot milk.

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