Not new, but oh so yummy!

Last night I pulled out some pork chops from the freezer to have tonight. I had no idea what I was going to do with them at the time. So tonight I opened the pantry and searched for inspiration.

I found it in the form of two cans: one of green beans and another of diced tomatoes. They whispered to me, reminding me that there were slivered almonds in the cabinet and feta cheese in the fridge ...

You see, back in the day when Dorothy and I were doing Middle Eastern music and dancing, we formed a group with several of our friends. We named ourselves the Aladeen family, and performed as Raqsat Aladeen. During this time, I learned about Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cooking, particularly Lebanese and Greek styles. Green bean dishes are common, mixed with various other ingredients. I experimented, got my family's feedback, and eventually settled on my own dish which we dubbed Green Beans Aladeen.

Having decided that the pork needed to be accompanied by Green Beans Aladeen, I pondered how to cook the meat. Consulting my old mentor(1) Jeff Smith (the Frugal Gourmet), I discovered a simple Greek recipe that looked like it would serve nicely.

Finally, I thought some rice would be a nice finish. I happened to have a lot of rice cooked up from the last batch of spinach wraps, but it's been in the refrigerator long enough to get a bit dry. I plan to use it for fried rice soon, but figured I might be able to revive a bit to go with dinner.

So here's what I ended up with:

Greek Style Pork Chops

3 medium cut pork loin chops

1/2 medium onion, diced

3 stalks celery, chopped, with leaves

2 cloves garlic, diced

1-2 tsp whole cloves

2-3 cups chicken or vegetable stock

Preheat a large pan with a lid on high heat. Put a teaspoon of olive oil in the pan and brown both sides of the meat. Carefully pour in the stock (the pan is hot enough to start the liquid boiling immediately, so watch for steam and splatters!) so that it comes up the sides of the meat without completely submerging it. Reduce the heat to low and cover with the chopped vegetables and cloves. Cover and simmer for 30 minutes.

Green Beens Aladeen

1 15oz can green beans

1 15oz can diced tomatoes

2-3 oz feta cheese, crumbled

1/3 cup slivered almonds

Drain the cans of beans and tomatoes(2) and combine in a sauce pan. Bring to a simmer over medium heat, stirring occasionally. Just before serving, stir in the feta and almonds.

Reinvigorated Rice

1/2 cup chicken or vegetable stock

2 cups cold cooked rice

Bring the stock to a simmer in a small saucepan. Reduce heat to low and stir the rice into the stock. Cover and let sit for 10 minutes or until the rice is heated through and rehydrated.

There you go. 1 hour from start to finish, one awesome meal. I even remembered to take a picture!

_________________
(1) Not that I've actually met the man, of course, but I credit "the Fruge" as my first cooking teacher. For about six months when I was working part time, I watched his show on PBS over lunch and learned quite a bit.
(2) I'm serious here. Drain them well. When the tomatoes heat up they are going to release more liquid, and if you leave too much of the canning liquid, you're going to have soup once you add the cheese. It'll still taste fine, but you'll need to use a slotted spoon to serve it, and you'll lose some cheese to the soup.

Pastitsio

So today's dinner is Pastitsio.  I've tried it before with moderate success, but decided to give it another go once I found that my local middle eastern grocery carries proper pastitsio noodles. The recipe I used came from Jeff Smith's awesome The Frugal Gourmet Cooks Three Ancient Cuisines: China, Greece, and Rome. I modified it a bit(1) but it's mostly his recipe:

Meat Sauce

1 medium onion

2 cloves garlic

2 tbsp butter for sauteeing

1 1/4 lb ground beef or lamb

1 16oz can diced tomatoes

1/2 cup tomato sauce
2 tbsp butter for sauce

salt and pepper

cinnamon

Sautee the onions and garlic until just starting to turn golden brown. Add the meat and brown. Add the tomatoes, additional butter, and spices and simmer for 15 minutes, allowing most of the liquid to reduce, leaving a hearty meat sauce.

Noodles

3/4 to 1 lb of pastitsio noodles. If you can't get them, ziti will do. (2)

3 eggs

1/2 cup grated parmesan

Cook the noodles for 5-7 minutes. Beat the eggs and cheese together, and toss the noodles in the mixture.

Bechamel

6 tbsp butter

6 tbsp flour

1 1/2 cups warm milk

3 eggs

pinch of salt

pinch of nutmeg

Melt the butter in a medium saucepan. When the bubbling stops, add the flour and stir together to make a roux. Add in the milk a little at a time and let the sauce come together. Temper the sauce into the egg then stir the egg in and add the salt and nutmeg.

Put it all together

Put half the noodles into the bottom of a 9x12 inch baking dish. If you are using real pastitsio noodles, lay them out parallel (think of it like a lasagna -- the extra effort is worth it). Layer the meat sauce onto the noodles, then the rest of the noodles on top. Pour the bechamel over the whole thing. Bake at 350° for 15 minutes. When it comes out of the oven, give it 10-15 minutes to cool a bit and to let the bechamel set up. Slice and serve.

Jeff Smith says this serves 6-8. The bechamel makes it really rich; I cut it into 12 squares. Based on the ingredients, I estimate about 450 calories per square. Put that with a salad and you have a pretty decent meal. (3)

It turned out really well -- Dorothy even called it "awesome". Next time I'll probably scale up the meat sauce to match the noodles, or maybe do a smaller batch in a 9x9 inch pan for fewer leftovers. I'm freezing about 1/2 of the squares, so I'll report back on how well it revives as leftovers.

_____________
Footnotes:
 (1) I  cut some butter out of the meat sauce (though there's still quite a bit), only used about half the egg wash for the noodles (I can't imagine how he made use of all of it), and used more noodles (because I hate having 1/4 of a package sitting around). Should have scaled up the meat sauce to match the noodles, though the bechamel was probably adequate.

(2) Try to avoid elbow macaroni if you can, but if you can't, just don't tell me.

(3) Of course, as it happens I didn't remember to make a salad, so I ended up having 2 squares. Fortunately, I had eaten light the rest of the day, so my diet isn't horribly blown.