Pastitsio

Pastitsio is tube pasta layered with cinnamon-spiced minced beef in tomato sauce and baked under a thick bechamel crust until it sets firm enough to cut into clean squares. It's often described as Greece's answer to lasagne, but the layers and the pasta shape are different, and the warm-spiced meat sauce — cinnamon and sometimes a little clove worked through the beef — is a specifically Greek touch that a lasagne recipe wouldn't include.

What it really is

Long tube pasta boils just short of fully tender, then layers into a deep dish with a cinnamon-and-clove-spiced minced beef sauce simmered down thick with tomato. A thick bechamel, enriched with egg yolk so it sets rather than staying pourable, pours over the top in a generous layer and bakes until the surface turns golden and the whole dish firms up enough to hold its shape when cut — a properly baked pastitsio should come out of the oven as clean squares, not a loose scoop.

The bechamel has to set firm, not stay soft, or the dish falls apart on the plate. The egg yolk worked into the sauce is what makes that possible — skip it and the topping stays too soft to hold a cut square together, and the dish reads as an underbaked mistake rather than a properly finished pastitsio.

How it's served

• Hot, cut into clean squares, the bechamel top layer and pasta-meat layers visible in cross-section.
• As a main course, often alongside a simple green salad.
• Rarely reheated straight from cold — most kitchens let it rest briefly after baking so the squares hold together when cut.

How to write it on the menu

• Flag the wheat, dairy and egg.
• Say that it's built on tube pasta and cinnamon-spiced beef, not aubergine, since guests sometimes confuse it with moussaka.
• Note if a vegetarian version, built on lentils or mushroom in place of the beef, is available.

The ingredients, allergens and dietary notes listed here describe a typical recipe. They are not a binding declaration for any particular restaurant: recipes, portion sizes and the products used can differ.