Makaronia tou Fournou means pasta baked in the oven. It is similar to Greek pastitsio with different flavour and of course lots of halloumi in it.
Makaronia tou Fournou is a common dish and is often served as a main course, with a salad but in Cyprus it is an essential dish during all celebrations.
Macaronia tou Fournou or Pastitsio (Cyprus style)
Ingredients
- 1 packet (500 grs.)of tubular spaghetti No. 3 or No. 6
- 1 cup of grated halloumi cheese
For filling
- 500 grams ground pork
- 1 onion finely chopped
- 1/3 cup olive oil
- Salt
- Freshly ground black pepper
- Cinnamon
- 2 ripe tomatoes,grated (optional) or 1/2 cup of water
- 1 cup parsley finely chopped
Bechamel sauce
- See Recipe and step by step instructions here.
Directions
Preparing the ground meat:
In a skillet heat the olive oil and sauté the ground meat.
Add the onion and saute for a few minutes.
Add salt, pepper, cinnamon and tomatoes and cook over moderate heat.
Remove from the heat and mix in parsley.
Preparing the béchamel sauce:
In a sauce pan heat olive oil and add flour and stir until slightly browned. Add salt and nutmeg.
Add warm milk stirring continuously until a thick cream is made and remove from heat.
Beat eggs and add a tablespoon at a time stirring until incorporated. Continue until eggs are absorbed.
Add half halloumi cheese (reserving a few tablespoons to sprinkle in pasta and on top).
Preparing the pasta
Bring water to boil and add salt and a tablespoon of olive oil. Boil pasta al dente and remove from heat. Place in cold water and then strain. Add a few tablespoons of halloumi and mix.
In a baking tin add half pasta and dilute 3 tablespoons of béchamel cream with some milk to make a thinner cream and add to pasta and mix. ( If we do not add the cream our pasta will not stick together but will spread in the plate during serving). Alternatively you may reserve one of the egg whites, beat it and then mix it with the bottom layer of pasta.
Put the ground meat on top and add remaining pasta. Add béchamel sauce to cover pasta.
Sprinkle with remaining cheese and some cinnamon.
Bake in a preheated oven at 180ο C for about 45 minutes to 1 hour or until a golden colour is achieved.
Tags: bechamel, Cypriot, Ground meat, Pasta, Pork, Traditional
I think Haloumi would be wonderful in a Pastitsio…a family favourite.
I am so glad that I discovered your blog through comments on Peter’s blog. I have a passion for Greek food and was lucky enought to spend 5 weeks there last Spring. I love the fresh produce available there. I spent 8 days on the island of Kea at Aglaia Kremezi’s cooking school. I loved the immersion into Greek family life!!!I found some Kefaloteri cheese in our small community here. It would probably go well in the pastitsio?
Hi, Valli, I have seen you commenting on Peter’s blog and I am really a fan of his site. My recipes are just simple, every day recipes and hope you’ll like them. Kefalotyri goes perfectly well in the bechamel cream and sprinkled on top. However, because it’s a bit salty, avoid putting salt in the cream.
Oooh, this sounds wonderful Valli, thanks for sharing. I did search for it but for some reason couldn’t find it, I must have spelt Pastitsio wrong! (so is it spelled pasticcio???)
I’m glad you got the link. I’ve just learned today from Peter that the pasta is call bucattini (but I am not still sure if that is only the brand). About pastitsio or pasticcio I think the first is the Greek way of spelling it as in Greek they cannot pronounce the «ch» sound, whereas in Cyprus we do and because this dish has its roots from the Venetians in the Italian language the double cc are pronounced as «ch» so it’s something like tom(ei)to and tom(ah)to (lol).
[...] back then only a few persons read my recipes. I posted the Cypriot version of pastitsio called Makaronia tou Fournou (oven baked pasta) and today I have made the Greek one, which is about the same but there are a few [...]
[...] See detailed instructions how to make Pstitsio and Makaronia tou Fournou. [...]
Thank you so much for the recipe…..really gonna impress my family now! Thank you!!!!!