Greek cuisine

Moussaka

Name: Moussaka
Prep time: 40 min
Cook time: 75 min
Total time: 115 min
Yield: 6
Cuisine: Greek cuisine
Ingredients: 3 Aubergines; 2 Potatoes; 600 g Minced lamb or beef; 1 Onion; 3 clove Garlic; 400 g Tinned tomatoes; 120 ml Dry red wine; 1 tsp Cinnamon; 80 g Butter; 80 g Plain flour; 700 ml Milk; 2 Egg yolks; 80 g Kefalotyri or parmesan; 60 ml Olive oil; to taste Salt, pepper, nutmeg

Μουσακάς

Aubergine, a meat sauce with cinnamon and a thick layer of béchamel, baked until it sets firm enough to cut.

Prep: 40 min
Cook: 75 min
Total: 115 min
Difficulty: Takes practice

Servings

Units

Ingredients

Aubergines — in centimetre slices3
Potatoes — thinly sliced2
Minced lamb or beef600 g
Onion1
Garlic3 clove
Tinned tomatoes400 g
Dry red wine120 ml
Cinnamon1 tsp
Butter80 g
Plain flour80 g
Milk700 ml
Egg yolks2
Kefalotyri or parmesan — grated80 g
Olive oil60 ml
Salt, pepper, nutmegto taste

Salt and spices grow more slowly than the rest: doubling a dish does not double the pepper.

Weight converts to ounces and volume to cups. Grams of flour are not turned into cups, because that depends on how tightly it is packed.

Method

1
Salt the aubergine slices and leave them in a colander for half an hour, then pat them dry. Brush with oil and roast at 200 °C for twenty minutes until soft and golden.
50 min
2
Fry the onion until soft, add the mince and cook, breaking up the lumps, until every drop of water has gone and the meat starts to brown. Pour in the wine and let it cook away.
15 min
3
Add the garlic, tomatoes and cinnamon and simmer for twenty minutes. The sauce is right when a spoon drawn across the bottom leaves a track behind it.
20 min
4
Melt the butter, whisk in the flour and cook for a minute. Pour in warm milk in a thin stream, whisking without stopping, and cook to the thickness of soured cream. Off the heat, add nutmeg, the yolks and half the cheese.
12 min
5
Layer it up: potato, aubergine, meat sauce, aubergine again. Pour the béchamel over and scatter the rest of the cheese.
6
Bake at 180 °C for forty-five minutes until the top is golden. Let it stand for half an hour before cutting: hot moussaka does not slice, it slumps.
75 min

About the dish

Moussaka in its current form is a twentieth-century dish: Nikolaos Tselementes added the béchamel in the 1920s, and it has not been served without it since. Before that it was closer to a bake of aubergine and meat.

Two mistakes ruin it more often than any others. The first is frying the aubergine in a pan: it drinks oil like a sponge and the dish turns heavy. Roasting gives the same result on a quarter of the fat.

The second is a wet meat sauce. It has to reduce almost dry, or the layers slide after the oven and the moussaka collapses on the plate.

Worth knowing

— The cinnamon does not read as sweet here — it gives a depth you only notice when it is missing. Half a spoon is already too little.
— Moussaka slices perfectly the next day and reheats better than most bakes: make it ahead on purpose.
— The potato layer is optional and some regions leave it out, but it absorbs spare moisture and insures the dish against sliding.

Nutrition

Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.

Calories: 580 kcal
Protein: 28 g
Fat: 36 g
Carbs: 34 g

Useful for this recipe

Oven Temperature Converter