Culinary Disasters

Last week I started planning what I was going to cook during the week and paging through the latest Food and Wine I noticed ohh…Greek food was being featured and *gasp* pastitsio was one of the recipes.  Holy crap how could I have forgotten about the joy and joyness that is pastitsio?? This definitely had to get added to the todo list for the week.

The true joy came when I opened up Peter the Greek’s Blog (Kalofagas) and noticed a post about pastitsio being featured for Tony’s Taste of the Mediterranean and I thought this is just that extra little bit of push I need to make pastitsio.

I tried to stick a little bit more to the traditional side and since my last trip to the meat market I picked up some ground lamb I figured why the heck not.  Also, I have been slacking on give the piggy its love so this dish definitely needed some ground pork in it.

For the filling you will need:

• 1 lb ground lamb
• 1/2 lb ground pork
• 1 onion
• 3 cloves of garlic
• 2 cup of tomato sauce
• Pinch of oregano
• Pinch of capers
• 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• Pinch of crushed red pepper
• Kosher salt and black pepper

For the pasta you will need:

• 1 lb cooked ziti drained
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup of grated Parmesan cheese

For the sauce you will need:

• 1/4 cup of butter
• 1/4 cup of all-purpose flour
• 4 cups of whole milk
• 1 cup of grated Parmesan cheese
• Pinch of grated nutmeg

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
In a large skillet brown the meat.

Once the meat is browned, drain, and set aside. Add the onion into the skillet with a pinch of salt and pepper and cook till softened (about 5 minutes) and add in the garlic and cook for another minute. Once the onions and garlic are cooked add the meat back into the skillet along with the tomato sauce, capers, nutmeg, cinnamon, oregano, and crushed red pepper. Let this mixture simmer for a couple minutes so everything is heated through.

In a large sauce pan melt the butter and then whisk in the flour.

Whisk for a couple minutes till it is slightly golden and then add in the whole milk. Whisk till the mixture is thickened, dump in the cheese and nutmeg, and whisk till the cheese is melted through.

Mix the eggs and cheese into the pasta while the pasta is still hot.

Basically the rest is like assembling lasagna but instead of using sheet of pasta you will use the pasta.

Place 1/2 of the pasta on the bottom of a large baking dish and then dump the meat mixture on top of that.

Add the other 1/2 of the pasta and then dump the cheese sauce on top of that.

Grate more cheese over top of that and then shove in the oven till it is bubbly (about 40 minutes).

Serve and enjoy!

Tags: lamb, pork, All //