This one is a big long winded but totally worth it. It’s a great alternative to lasagne if you’re not into pasta. You have to bring together 4 different things and I would recommend doing them separately the first time around. So the 4 things are: – 1. mince2. white sauce3. aubergines4. potatoesDefinitely have the mince ready before you start if this is the first time you're making moussaka. You can even do it the day before and have it ready to go in the fridge.
Cook time : 2 hours 30 minutes
Ingredients
Mince
- 2 medium brown onions, finely chopped
- 3-4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
- 1 tsp oregano
- 500 grams mince beef
- ½ cup red wine
- 1 can chopped tomatoes
- 1 tbsp tomato puree
- ½ tsp cinnamon
- 1-2 bay leaf
- 6-7 mint leaves, chopped
White sauce
- 100 grams butter
- 50 grams plain flour
- 50 grams parmesan, grated
- 1 litre milk
- ½ tsp nutmeg
- 1 tsp salt
- ¼ tsp black pepper
Vegetables
- 2 large aubergines
- 1 kg potatoes
Instructions
- Put a large pot on medium heat and throw in a good glug of cooking oil. Once hot add the onions and fry until translucent – so around 4-5 minutes. Then add the oregano and stir through for a minute or so. Now add the chopped garlic and fry for another few minutes until you can smell the garlic and ginger.If you can’t be bothered with all that kerfuffle just throw in the onions, garlic and oregano all together.
- Turn the heat to full and get the pot nice and hot for a couple of minutes. Then throw in the minced meat, you can use beef or lamb. Keep the heat on high and mix the meat with the onions.
- Throw in the cinnamon powder and continue stirring.The meat might start to stick to the bottom of the pan but don’t worry, we’ll unstick it later and all that sticky caramelised stuff will add flavour.
- Once the meat has browned add the wine, let it sizzle and reduce a little. Then add a can of chopped tomatoes, a tablespoons of tomato puree and a cup of water. Throw in a bay leaf and some chopped mint leaves.
- Stir it through and once it boils turn the heat down to medium/low and leave to simmer for 30-45 minutes.
- Now lets turn to the aubergines; wash them and slice into thinnish slices. Lay them out on a baking try, season with lots of salt and leave while you sort out the potatoes.
- Right, the potatoes. Peel around a kilo of potatoes. If they’re big cut them in halves and aim to get equal sized pieces. Wash and throw into another pot with cold water so that they’re covered.Put the pot on the boil. They’ll take at least 10 minutes to boil so back to the aubergines.
- Put the tray of aubergines in the oven at around 130 C for 15 minutes to soften them up. They should go slightly brown on the top. OK, take a break, maybe try some of that wine from earlier if you haven’t already
- When the potatoes start boiling, turn the heat down so that the pot is simmering and put the timer on 7-10 minutes.The timing does depend on the potatoes a little, so you have to keep testing, White potatoes will soften a lot quicker than Maris Piper for example.The potatoes are ready to take out once a sharp knife pierces the potatoes 1cm-ish before stopping. We’re going to slice them so we don’t want them like mush, just parboiled.
- Right the next thing to happen will be that the potatoes are ready. Drain into a colander and then put them back into the pot with cold water so that you can handle them.Now start slicing, yep, slice up all the potatoes, they might seem like a lot of potatoes but we’ll get through them. Don’t worry about precision – the moussaka is very forgiving 😊
- While you were chopping the aubergines probably beeped, check if they’re brown on top, if not leave in for another 5 minutes and check again, repeat if necessary.Phew, almost there, so the potatoes should be sliced, the aubergines should be browned and out of the oven and the meat should have thickened up nicely.
- You can take the meat off the heat when its kinda dry and thick like the picture.
- Almost there, now we have to make béchamel and lots of it. Don’t worry Béchamel is just a posh French word for white sauce. Right, to make your life easier, place at hand, a bag of flour and stick a table spoon in it, a carton of milk, around 100g of butter chopped into cubes, around 50g of finely grated cheese, the nutmeg and your salt and pepper mills.
- Put a pot on medium heat and melt the butter.
- As soon as the butter is all liquid add 50g of plain flour so around 3-4 tablespoons while continuously stirring.
- The mixture should start turning into a hot dough, as soon as it does add half a litre of milk.
- Remember to stir all the time and if you see the milk starting to boil turn the heat down slightly. Now add around ½ teaspoon of freshly grated nutmeg, around a teaspoon of salt and a little pepper. Keep stirring and add the remaining ½ litre of milk. The béchamel will start to thicken up and you need to keep stirring until it does – sorry it’ll be totally worth it. Once the béchamel is nice and milkshake thick, but not quite pancake batter thick, turn the heat off.
- Alternatively, you can buy store bought white sauce, works the same, but you got this – home-made is the way.Sorry the pictures aren't great here, I was trying to stir and not drop my iPhone into the sauce at the same time !!
- OK, now to put this damn moussaka together.Get a big oven dish and oil it all over.
- Start with the béchamel, spread it all over the bottom.Then layer 1/3 of the potatoes.Then add 1/3 of the meat, spread all over.Layer on the aubergine slices.
- Now go again – Béchamel – Potatoes – Meat – Aubergines
- And again, one more time.
- I wouldn’t worry too much about the sequence, I get it wrong all the time. ( in fact you might see from the pictures, I am all over the place ).Finally finish with the béchamel and a thick coating of cheese.
- Lord almighty that was a lot of work – but you’re done.
- Stick it in the oven on around 160 ℃ for around an hour and a half and keep an eye on the cheese in case it browns too fast. If the cheese starts browning too fast, lower the moussaka in the oven or lower the heat and cook for longer.
- Once the moussaka is done you really need to leave it until the next day. I know, I know, it’s was hard work and it smells delicious – it needs to be inside my face right now. OK fine, just try to let it set for at least 45 minutes.
- It does get a lot easier once you’ve done it a few times and it’s so worth the effort. It will keep in the fridge for 4-5 days.Enjoy your block of joy.