Moussaka with sauce
Description
Perfectly complements meat, poultry, and side dishes. Compared to hot moussaka, cold moussaka neatly divides into portions and is easy to serve. And if someone really wants to eat this dish hot, it can be reheated. The prepared sauce can be stored in the refrigerator for several days.
Instructions
- 1
Step 1
First, we need to slice the eggplants into rounds about 1 cm thick.
- 2
Step 2
To prevent them from absorbing oil during frying, soak them for 15–20 minutes in salted water (2 tsp of salt from the main ingredient list; the rest will be used for the meat).
- 3
Step 3
While the eggplants are soaking, prepare the sauce. Nowadays, moussaka is typically made with béchamel sauce, but in Crete I learned to make the moussaka sauce using olive oil instead of butter. To do this, heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil, add flour, and vigorously stir and rub it until the mixture thickens. The result looks somewhat like sour cream curdled from frying. Excuse me, I can't take a photo right now—I'm in a hurry to slowly pour in the milk in a thin stream, while continuously stirring everything.
- 4
Step 4
The resulting sauce should be seasoned with salt, freshly ground black pepper, cinnamon, and nutmeg.
- 5
Step 5
After mixing, let it cool down. As you can see, the texture turned out lumpy and very thick. To those who fear lumps in a classic "Béchamel" sauce, I assure you—when cooked with olive oil, the inhomogeneity does not affect the final taste of the dish, and as for the appearance, you'll see it shortly for yourself. At least, I've decided from now on to prepare moussaka only with this sauce.
- 6
Step 6
Heat olive oil (a lot) over high heat and fry the eggplants on both sides until browned. You will need to add oil from time to time. If you have plenty of olive oil but little time, it's more convenient to fry on several pans at once. To the question of whether you can deep-fry eggplants for classic moussaka in a deep fryer, the answer is no (I clarified this with a chef). Do not skimp on the oil either.
- 7
Step 7
The eggplants cool down, the sauce cools down, and we peel and chop the onion. The size of the pieces—we don't worry too much about it.
- 8
Step 8
Pass the lamb through a meat grinder to turn it into minced meat. Fry the meat together with the onion in the remaining olive oil. The meat should dry out slightly, and the onion should become at least translucent.
- 9
Step 9
Add oregano, cinnamon, freshly ground black pepper, salt, and wine to the meat, mix well, and let it cool slightly.
- 10
Step 10
Line the bottom of a deep fireproof dish with a layer of eggplants.
- 11
Step 11
Cut the cheese into small cubes.
- 12
Step 12
Add eggs and cheese to the meat, and mix everything well.
- 13
Step 13
Place a layer of meat filling on the eggplant layer. The general rule for moussaka is to start and finish with a layer of eggplant (the sauce goes on top). Otherwise, the number of layers depends on the number of eggplants and the baking dish configuration.
- 14
Step 14
The second layer of eggplant is already being added...
- 15
Step 15
And the second layer of the filling..)
- 16
Step 16
And finally, the third, final layer of eggplants! Phew...
- 17
Step 17
But no, that's not all yet! On top of the eggplants, we spread our sauce and smooth it out evenly. Bake in the oven at 160°C for 45 minutes without convection, then turn on the convection, increase the temperature to 180-200°C, and bake for another 10-15 minutes (depending on how crispy you want the crust). I'm a lucky person—I have a Russian stove, and I prepare my moussaka right there. In Greece, they don't cook it in regular ovens either.
- 18
Step 18
And after that, let our moussaka cool down for at least 8 hours. And look at this beauty we've got?! Notice there are no large bubbles, which regular "Béchamel" sauce tends to produce.