Hello my friends. After a long time, I am writing a food post again and I am coming back with a very tasty dish that has a special place in the hearts of all Greeks and tourists who visit Greece every summer. I am referring to one of the most famous summer dishes in Greece, Mousaka which is a bit complicated to make, but its fantastic taste will compensate you for all the effort you put into making it.
In order to make moussaka, you will need to use almost all the kitchenwares you have such as pots, baking pan, frying pans, oven, spoons,ballon whisk and much more. So if you decide to make it, be prepared that after cooking you will need a lot of time to wash the utensils. Furthermore, you will need a lot of ingredients like vegetables, mincemeat, and spices which will make the whole kitchen smell while you are cooking it and your mouth will be watered while you are waiting for the food to get out of the oven.
The moussaka consists of three different preparations which are: fried vegetables, bolognese sauce and béchamel. Below I will write in detail how each preparation is done and how you compose the final result in the baking pan.
INGREDIENTS
- 3 eggplants
- 5 potatoes
- 6 zucchinis
- 1 grinded tomatoe
- 50 gr tomato paste
- 1 kg mixed mincemeat (70% beef 30% pork)
- 1 onion
- 2 garlic cloves
- 1 lt milk
- 100 gr flour
- 200 gr yellow grinded cheese
- 1 carrot
- 3 egg yolks
- salt, pepper, oregano, cinnamon, nutmeg, spice
Vegetable base
Peel the potatoes, and wash all the vegetables very well. Then cut them into thin slices and fry them at hot olive oil. Then lay them in the baking pan. Fisrt the potatoes which must be a little thinner that the other vegetables, then the eggplants and at last the zucchinis. You can see the entire process at the pictures below.
For more flavor, pour a little grated cheese between the layers of vegetables.
Bolognese sause
Warm up the saucepan and pour olive oil and saute the onion with the garlic. Then add the mince meat and lower the heat. Break the minced meat into small pieces with a wooden ladle and add the grinded carrot and stir till the mincemeat gets a light brown color. Then add in the saucepan the ground tomatoes with the paste tomatoes and the spices (oregano, cinnamon,bay leaves) leave it to boil , for 10 minutes until the tomato becomes a thick sauce.
Béchamel
Sift the flour and pour it into hot oil and stir until it turns a yellow thick cream and slowly add the milk. Then Stir constantly until the cream thickens and once it is ready add salt, pepper and nutmeg. At last remove the cream from the heat and add 3 egg yolks. Mix well to dissolve the yolk to homogenize with the cream and the béchamel is ready.
Now that all the preparations are ready, spread the bolognese over the fried vegetables and finally add the béchamel on top. Pour grated cheese on top and bake in the oven at 180 degrees Celsius for 20-30 minutes until the béchamel turns brown. At the picture below you can see the whole process of making the moussaka.
You can eat it straight as soon as it comes out of the oven or wait for it to cool so that the whole pieces come out without spoiling. You can also make a larger quantity and put it in the freezer and eat it one day that you will not have cooked. It is a very tasty food but it can put a strain on your stomach because everything is fried. Alternatively, you can bake the vegetables in the oven to make them much lighter.
So that was it for today. I hope you will try make this tasty food at your home despite the difficulty is has to make it. See you at my next post. :)
This and pastitsio I like eating right the moment they get out of the oven. If I could, I would eat them right from the oven 😂
Great post Stelio!!!