Try this alternative, savory pastitsio, made with sweet pumpkin, delicious cheese and creamy béchamel sauce! It will feed up to 8 hungry revelers…
Serves: 8-10 Preparation time: 30′ Cooks in: 1:30′ Ready in: 2:0′
Ingredients
1 package lasagna sheets
1 kg pumpkin, diced
1 onion, finely chopped
1 fennel bulb, finely sliced
3-4 bacon slices, finely chopped
1/5 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1/5 cup fresh spearmint, finely chopped
300 g anthotyro cheese (or other fresh cheese), crumbled
salt, freshly ground black pepper
For the béchamel
8 tbsp butter
8 tbsp flour
1½ lt milk, lukewarm
3 egg yolks
½ cup Kefalograviera cheese or Parmesan, finely grated
salt, white pepper
Method
Step 1
Preheat oven at 200C/fan. Season pumpkin with salt, drizzle with a little oil and bake on a dish lined with baking parchment for 25′ until tender.
Step 2
Heat a non-stick frying pan and sauté onion, bacon and fennel for 1-2 ‘. Then pour in remaining oil and cook until tender. Stir in cooked pumpkin, season with salt and pepper and remove pan from heat. Stir in fennel leaves finely chopped, spearmint, anthotyro cheese, half Kefalograviera or Parmesan.
Step 3
Béchamel: In a medium pan and on medium heat melt butter. Then add flour and stir continually using a whisk until flour gets a light color. Stir in milk (reserve 2-3 tbsp) until sauce thickens but it is smooth with no lumps. Remove pan from heat and 2-3’ later whisk egg yolks and reserved milk. Season with a little salt, pepper and stir in remaining cheese.
Step 4
Add 1/2 cup béchamel sauce into the pumpkin mix. On a buttered glass oven dish spread 2-3 tbsp of béchamel sauce. Cover the bottom of the pan with lasagna sheets. Add half pumpkin mix, lasagna sheets, remaining pumpkin mix, lasagna sheets and cover with the béchamel sauce. Sprinkle surface with extra Kefalograviera cheese finely grated and bake until golden.
Photo Anastasia Adamaki – Food styling Antonia Kati
Και η ελληνική συνταγή: Παστίτσιο με κολοκύθα
