The moussaka

Hi friends, I hope you're fine?

I am on leave today and I have an appointment with my childhood friend that I see little because we do not live in the same city and we both have a busy agenda. We try to see each other for two or three months and when we meet, we go to eat in a good little restaurant, we tell each other our lives and the latest gossip about our families and friends.

For today, I booked a Greek restaurant. This is one of my favorite cuisine, between the mezzé, the youvetsi of lamb, the good skewers grilled with a good salad accompaniment and pieces of Greek cheese, it's hard not to find happiness. But above all, my favorite dish is moussaka. I love gratins and aubergines so this explains that.

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I do not do it often because it still requires enough work but it's a treat so what I do when I decide to do one is that I increase my quantities to freeze parts for later.

I tested a lot of recipes and after a few years, I finally found one with ideas taken in each of the recipes I tested before. I do not say it's the best, but I really like it and my guests have always told me that it was great; o)

Ingredients (for a gratin dish of about 6 people)

6 eggplants (fresh or to save time in some stores they sell grilled frozen, it is much faster because you can pass the stage to make them disgorge)

4 potatoes

2 onions

Parsley (about half a bouquet)

5 cloves of garlic

A box of crushed tomatoes (small boxes of 400g)

650 gr spicy pork / beef mince

700 ml of milk

5 tablespoons flour

80 gr of butter

250 gr grated cheese (the one you prefer, I put a mixture of grated cheese for gratin) - (in the traditional moussaka we use sheep cheese but it tastes quite special)

Salt, pepper, nutmeg, olive oil (it takes a lot to cook the eggplants because they absorb much oil and if you put enough, they do not brown well).

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Preparation

Preheat the oven to 180 °.

Step 1

Cut the eggplants lengthwise into 1 cm slices (do not peel them). Salt them and let them disgorge on paper towels or in a strainer as for pasta for half an hour. If you want to skip this step, take frozen grilled eggplants.
After, cook in a pan with oil until golden brown. Do not hesitate to add oil during cooking.

Step 2

Peel and wash the potatoes and then cut them lengthwise in 1 cm slices as for the eggplants. Brown them in a pan with olive oil.
Then put the potatoes on paper towels to degrease them a little.

Step 3

Chop the onions, garlic and parsley.
Fry the onions and garlic in a saucepan. Then, when browned, add the meat and cook well until it turns a nice color. After adding the box of crushed tomatoes.
Simmer and thicken, stirring occasionally, then add the chopped parsley.
Little trick for chopping parsley I use scissors with spices, they are scissors with several blades, we find them in stores in the range of kitchen accessories.

Step 4

It is necessary to prepare the bechamel sauce, to do this, it is necessary to melt the butter in a small hot saucepan and then to add the flour by mixing with the whisk quite quickly until it makes a homogeneous paste. As soon as it is done, add the milk slowly whisking the preparation without stopping otherwise it will make lumps or it will stick to the bottom of the pan. You can stop when you think that your sauce has the desired appearance, it must be relatively thick if your moussaka will not be well cut but not too much otherwise your guests will have trouble digesting.

Little trick, if your béchamel does not thicken you can add a tablespoon of cornflour, it is super effective (cornstarch).
Then you can put salt and pepper and a little nutmeg, not too much otherwise the taste will take over the rest of the ingredients.

Step 5

Start editing your moussaka. Take a dish deep gratin and preferably rectangular.
Arrange first a row of potatoes, then a layer of eggplant and then a layer of the meat sauce.
Finish with a last layer of eggplant covered with a layer of bechamel and then put in the rain grated cheese.
Bake and cook for about half an hour until the moussaka turns a beautiful golden color.

Let a little rest before serving it will allow you to have shares that are well on the plate, indeed, if you serve it directly out of the oven, it will collapse on the plate and it will not be very presentable. Anyway the taste is there and for me it's the main thing.

Try it, it's a delight!

Enjoy !