One of my favourite Greek dishes is Moussaka – an eggplant (aubergine) casserole made with layers of roasted or pan fried eggplants and potatoes, a rich ground beef or lamb sauce with tomatoes and topped off with a creamy white bechamel sauce. This dish is definitely worth the effort and time it takes to prepare it. As it is prepared in a large dish and can be prepared in advance, it is sufficient for several meals.
Ingredients
- 2 eggplants (about 1 kg or 2.2 lbs)
- 700 g (1.5 lbs) potatoes, peeled and washed
For the meat sauce:
- 1 kg (2.2 lbs) ground beef
- 400 g (14 oz) canned tomatoes
- 150 ml (5 oz) red wine
- 1 medium size onion
- 2 tbsp tomato paste
- 4 -6 garlic cloves
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp ground cloves
- 1 tbsp thyme (dried)
- 1 tsp basil (dried)
- 1 tsp sugar
- salt, black pepper (to taste)
For the bechamel sauce:
- 100 g (3.5 oz) butter. I use unsalted.
- 100 g (1/2 cup) all-purpose flour
- 750 ml (3 cups) 2% or whole fat milk
- 3 egg yolks
- 100 g ( 3.5 oz) grated parmesan cheese
- 1/3 tsp ground nutmeg
- 1/3 tsp salt
- black pepper
Directions
Preparing the eggplant
- Wash the eggplants. Cut off the end with the leaves and stem. Cut the eggplants in about 1 cm thick slices.
- Sprinkle some salt on each of the eggplant slices and put them in a bowl. Put the eggplant aside for about half an hour. They will let out some liquid, which we do not need.
- Set the oven to heat to 240° C or 500° F for roasting the eggplant slices. You can also fry them in a pan. I prefer roasting in an oven, because eggplants will soak up more oil when fried in a pan.
- Wash and dry the eggplant slices. I put them on a rack to drain the water and pat with paper towels to finish the drying.
- Spread a little bit of cooking oil on both sides of each eggplant slice.
- Arrange the eggplant slices in a baking tray in one layer. As there are many slices, you will need either several baking trays or roast in several batches.
- Roast the eggplants in the oven for 5 – 7 minutes. Turn the slices and roast the other side too.
- Remove the eggplants from the oven and put in a dish or a bowl.
Preparing the potatoes
- Reduce the oven temperature to 200° C or 430° F.
- Slice the potatoes in about 1/2 – 1 cm thick slices.
- Grease the baking tray and arrange the potato slices in it in one layer.
- Spread a little bit of cooking oil on top of the potatoes, sprinkle with some salt and put the potatoes in the oven to bake for about 15 to 20 minutes. Potatoes don’t need to be fully cooked as they will still cook in the dish.
- Remove from the oven and put the potatoes also in a dish for later.
Preparing the meat sauce
- Chop the onion and garlic in small cubes for the meat sauce.
- Put a few tablespoons of cooking oil in a frying pan and heat up the pan. Put the meat to fry.
- When the meat has fried a bit, add the onion and the garlic. Put the lid on top and let it cook for a few minutes on medium heat.
- When the onion is somewhat transparent, add in the pan the canned tomato, the tomato paste and red wine. Mix everything and let it slowly cook, stirring once in a while.
- When the meat is cooked, taste to see if more salt or pepper needs to be added. Let the sauce cook without the lid to reduce the liquid as the sauce needs to be quite thick.
- When the meat sauce is thick remove it from the stove and put aside.
Preparing the bechamel sauce
- Melt butter in a pot on the stove on medium low heat.
- When the butter has melted, gradually add and whisk in the flour.
- Gradually add and whisk in the milk.
- Slowly stirring cook the sauce till it thickens.
- Once the sauce looks and feel thicker, remove it from the stove.
- Add ground nutmeg and black pepper to the sauce.
- Add about half of the parmesan cheese, salt and whisk in the egg yolks one by one.
- The sauce is ready.
Assembling and cooking Moussaka
- Grease a big casserole dish with cooking oil.
- Arrange the potato slices on the bottom in one layer.
- Sprinkle some salt, black pepper and about 2 tablespoons of the grated cheese on top of the potatoes.
- Arrange half of the eggplant slices in a layer on top of potatoes.
- Mix about 4 tablespoons of bechamel sauce with the meat sauce and put the meat sauce over the eggplant layer. Level it nicely.
- Arrange the remaining eggplant slices in a layer over the meat sauce.
- Spread the bechamel sauce on top as the final layer.
- Sprinkle the remaining parmesan cheese on top and bake Moussaka for 35-40 minutes.
- Remove from the oven, let it cool a little and enjoy!
Notes
- For best results, measure ingredients with a scale. All recipes are made with weighted ingredients using grams. Cup measurements are provided for your convenience.