Dad’s Cooking – Moussaka

Let’s try to make Moussaka, as my first try in sharing a recipe and cooking tips.

According to Wikipedia, moussaka is an eggplant- or potato-based dish and it often includes ground meat. It’s common in the Balkans and the Middle East with many local and regional variations.

Today, we’ll take a look at my version of moussaka. It’s not the most ”traditional” or the quickest to prepare. With good planning though and basic cooking knowledge you can make this dish a family favourite.

Dedicating a significant portion of your time to preparation will result in a meal you can enjoy multiple times.

When I was preparing this, I was aiming to have 4 portions. This constitutes 2 meals for me and my wife.

Check out this video on my YouTube channel for an easy visual guide, below I will be sharing a detailed step by step guide.

List of Ingredients

• 500g minced meat
• 2 eggplants
• 3 potatoes
• 1 onion
• 500ml tomato passata
• 50g Butter
• 50g Flour
• 200ml Milk
• Parmesan cheese
• Allspice
• Nutmeg
• Cinnamon
• Oregano
• Bay leaves
• Salt
• Pepper
• Olive oil

After washing your potatoes and eggplants cut them up into nice thick slices. Start with the eggplants so you can salt them and let them sit like that to draw out some of the moisture and the bitterness. Soak the potatoes in salty water, until you chop your onions.

Once you are done with cutting and chopping, pat the vegies dry then line them up in a baking tray. Brush them with olive oil, you can use a spray, a brush or just simply do it by hand and season to taste with salt and pepper on both sides.

Place them into a pre-heated, 180C oven with convection (200C without convection) for 25-30 minutes, flipping them half way through. Depending on how thick your veggies are and on what setting your oven is on you might need to adjust the cooking time. The end goal is to have them nice and brown on both sides.

While your veggies are baking, time to start on the meat sauce. Start by sautéing your onions in olive oil over a medium heat, using a frying pan. Once onions are translucent add your minced meat, I used pork, but you can use any type or mixture you prefer. Incorporate the meat with the onions and let it cook until you don’t see pink/red anymore. Make sure to check in on the veggies, they should be more or less done by now.

Back to our sauce, season to taste with oregano, salt, pepper and allspice. Be careful with how much allspice you add since it’s very potent. I would recommend crushing 2-3 seeds for start and adjust in the end if you want/need to. You can also go the harder way by adding the seeds in full but then just don’t forget to fish them out in the end.

Ensure that you mix your herbs and spices well, then add your tomato passata followed by a cinnamon stick and two bay leaves. Set on low heat and whilst stirring occasionally cook until it becomes a very thick sauce. If you feel the sauce is already thick enough but your meat might not be cooked, simply add a bit of water and continue cooking. In this scenario, ensure you taste and readjust your seasoning.

IMPORTANT you need to avoid having a wet sauce, it will make your end product very soggy.

When oven baked veggies are done put them aside to cool. Until your sauce is cooking and thickening up let’s go ahead and start on our béchamel sauce by adding equal parts of butter and flour in a sauce pan on low to medium heat.

Before you move on to adding any milk to the béchamel make sure your butter and flour are well incorporated and cooked enough to get the flour taste out of it. It should smell similar to cookie dough, that’s the point you know it’s time for the milk.

Using a whisk start to incorporate your milk slowly. Best is to add it in 2 or 3 portions and whisking until it thickens up before adding more milk. After all your milk is added season to taste with salt, pepper and nutmeg. I would recommend using freshly ground nutmeg. Put it aside an whisk occasionally to avoid it forming a skin on top.

Now that we have everything ready, time to assemble our Moussaka. Start by laying a high wall oven safe dish with your potatoes, cover well every corner and edge, overlapping a bit is not an issue and press them down gently once done. Follow with the baked eggplants, similar logic and make sure you press down on them again. Depending on the dish you are using you might need a bit of oil or butter for the bottom/side of the pan, just to ensure you will not have issues with sticking. Avoid using baking paper, it will get very wet and it will just turn into a mess.

Next up is our meat sauce, make sure to remove the bay leaves, cinnamon stick and the allspice seeds if you went down the adventurous route. Using a spoon make sure you spread it out as equal as possible, filling all the corners. We follow by adding the béchamel on top, using the same logic.

Meanwhile, ensure you preheat your oven to 180°C; no convection is necessary for this step. Before putting your Moussaka in the oven cover the top with a good layer of parmesan cheese, or any other hard white cheese you can get your hands on.

Place in oven to bake for 45-50 minutes, uncovered. If you’re not finished in the oven but notice that the top is getting very dark, cover it with aluminium foil to prevent burning.

Once done, leave it to rest at least 1 hour. I know, it’s very tempting to just dig in once it’s out of the oven but it needs time to set properly. If you cut into it immediately it will just spread out and not hold its shape.

After having patience for an hour, plate up your Moussaka, dig in and enjoy. You should store leftovers in the fridge up to a couple of days but I highly doubt you will resist not eating it for that long. Bon Appetit.

If you have questions make sure to add them to the comments section below and I’ll do my best to answer them as quickly as I can.