Greek baked pasta dish with ground meat and béchamel sauce, with variations of the dish found in other countries of the Mediterranean Sea. Pastitsio takes its name from the Italian pasticcio, a large family of baked savory pies which may be based on meat, fish, or pasta, with many documented recipes from the early 16th century, and continuing patitsio modern times.
In the Albanian-speaking regions of the Balkans, the dish is called Pastice, deriving from Pasticcio. It is, however, often meatless and made with an egg and cheese mixture instead of béchamel. The most recent and most popular contemporary variant of pastitsio was invented by Nikolaos Tselementes, a French-trained Greek chef of the early 20th century. In Cyprus, it is an essential dish during weddings and celebrations such as Easter, where it is served along with spit-roasted meat.
Recipes vary, but usually the meat sauce in the middle is made of pork, beef or lamb, tomatoes are only sometimes used, and it is flavoured with mint, parsley or cinnamon. The dish is typically made with penne or macaroni pasta, a minced-meat sauce with tomato and onion, and a white sauce often enriched with Rumi cheese. Hard-boiled eggs or sheep’s brains are sometimes added. Accademia Italiana della Cucina, La Cucina: The Regional Cooking of Italy, pp.
John Florio, A Worlde of Wordes: Or Most copious and exact Dictionarie in Italian and English, London, 1598 p. Cyprus Ministry of Agriculture Natural Resources and Environment. Aglaia Kremezi, “Nikolas Tselementes”, Cooks and Other People, Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery, p. Food and Communication: Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery 2015. Greek baked pasta dish with ground meat and béchamel sauce, with variations of the dish found in other countries of the Mediterranean Sea. Pastitsio takes its name from the Italian pasticcio, a large family of baked savory pies which may be based on meat, fish, or pasta, with many documented recipes from the early 16th century, and continuing to modern times.
In the Albanian-speaking regions of the Balkans, the dish is called Pastice, deriving from Pasticcio. It is, however, often meatless and made with an egg and cheese mixture instead of béchamel. The most recent and most popular contemporary variant of pastitsio was invented by Nikolaos Tselementes, a French-trained Greek chef of the early 20th century. In Cyprus, it is an essential dish during weddings and celebrations such as Easter, where it is served along with spit-roasted meat.