Moussaka
"A classic Greek dish that can be prepared the day before for the busy family!"
- Ready In:
- 2hrs 10mins
- Ingredients:
- 22
- Yields:
-
1 casserole
- Serves:
- 6
ingredients
- 2 lbs eggplants
- 1 1 lb spicy sausage (optional) or 1 lb mushroom (optional)
- 1⁄3 cup olive oil
- 1 large onion, finely chopped
- 1 garlic clove, minced
- 1⁄4 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1⁄8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1⁄4 teaspoon white pepper
- 1⁄2 - 1 teaspoon oregano
- 1⁄4 cup chopped parsley
- 2 teaspoons tomato paste
- 1⁄2 cup dry red wine
- 1 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese
-
Cream Sauce
- 2 teaspoons butter
- 2 teaspoons flour
- 1⁄2 teaspoon salt
- 3 dashes nutmeg
- 3 dashes white pepper
- 2 cups milk
- 2 whole eggs
- 1 egg yolk
directions
- Preheat oven to 350°F.
- Remove eggplant stem's, cut lengthwise down the middle, then crosswise into 1/2 inch slices (half-moon shaped).
- Place on paper towels (optional), lightly salt and set aside.
- In a large fry pan heat 1 T oil and cook meat (or mushrooms) until browned. Drain if necessary (optional).
- Mix in onion and cook until onion is tender.
- Mix in garlic, cinnamon, salt, nutmeg, pepper, oregano, parsley, tomato paste, and wine.
- Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer until sauce starts to thicken up.
- Blot moisture from eggplants (optional).
- Arrange eggplants in a single layer on a baking sheet.
- Brush with oil and cook until lightly browned, turn, brush with oil and repeat-around 10 min total. (or you can just rub oil into them, cook for 10 minutes, turning once).
-
Cream Sauce:
- Melt butter in a med saucepan, stir in flour, salt, nutmeg and pepper.
- Remove from heat and gradually stir in milk.
- Return to heat and cook, stirring constantly until thickened.
- In a small bowl beat the eggs and additional yolk, temper the eggs by adding a bit of the hot mixture and over low heat slowly add the eggs to the sauce, mixing well.
-
Assembly:
- Place half the eggplant in an ungreased square or oval casserole dish, top with the meat or just onion sauce and 1/4 cup parmesan cheese.
- Cover with remaining eggplant, pour on cream sauce and top with remaining parmesan cheese.
- At this point you can refrigerate overnight.
- Bake at 350°F, 180°C for about 40 minutes or until the top is well browned.
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Reviews
-
I doubled the meat and used heavy cream for the cream sauce for my low carb diet! -
I, too, used dry sherry instead of red wine. Also, as preparing the white sauce and pre-baking the eggplant took some time, the meat mixture was getting a little dry, so I added a little beef stock. I wish there were some way to edit these things, as one may edit articles on Wikipedia. "Two teaspoons" of butter in the white sauce just didn't sound right. Who measures butter in teaspoons? I used two tablespoons of both butter and flour, and the sauce came out just right. Also, "Remove eggplant stem's"? The stem's what? Of course the OP meant to say "stems." Being able to fix such things would be nice. -
This is the best version of Moussaka that I've come across...it will be our 'go-to' recipe for this dish! We made it using lean ground lamb. In order to make it a healthier dish, we fried the lamb and then rinsed it under hot water to remove as much fat as possible (sounds gross, I know...but the finished product tasted great). We brushed oil on only one side of the eggplant (the down side) and did not flip the slices half way through. We cut out the second egg yolk and used only half the parmy, sprinkling the full amount over the meat layer. Thanks for posting this, DiB! M&Mers -
I've made both versions of this, the original and Nicky's variant, and both were very well received. The white sauce needs some changes to work with cheese instead of eggs. I melted butter and added 200g of feta cheese and 200g of cream cheese, chopped finely, stirred hard and smoothed out the lumps until it made a thick sauce, then slowly added 1/2 cup of milk, all on low heat. I used mushrooms (1 lb) instead of meat for the sauce, and added some chilli seeds for extra spice.
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this recipe is great. used good old sherry instead of wine (yummy) & the second time i did this i substituted half a tub (about 125g) cream cheese for the eggs in the cream. this accentuated the cheesiness but the sherry & lamb still had great flavour.
Tweaks
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I've made both versions of this, the original and Nicky's variant, and both were very well received. The white sauce needs some changes to work with cheese instead of eggs. I melted butter and added 200g of feta cheese and 200g of cream cheese, chopped finely, stirred hard and smoothed out the lumps until it made a thick sauce, then slowly added 1/2 cup of milk, all on low heat. I used mushrooms (1 lb) instead of meat for the sauce, and added some chilli seeds for extra spice.
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I, too, used dry sherry instead of red wine. Also, as preparing the white sauce and pre-baking the eggplant took some time, the meat mixture was getting a little dry, so I added a little beef stock. I wish there were some way to edit these things, as one may edit articles on Wikipedia. "Two teaspoons" of butter in the white sauce just didn't sound right. Who measures butter in teaspoons? I used two tablespoons of both butter and flour, and the sauce came out just right. Also, "Remove eggplant stem's"? The stem's what? Of course the OP meant to say "stems." Being able to fix such things would be nice.
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this recipe is great. used good old sherry instead of wine (yummy) & the second time i did this i substituted half a tub (about 125g) cream cheese for the eggs in the cream. this accentuated the cheesiness but the sherry & lamb still had great flavour.
RECIPE SUBMITTED BY
Diana Adcock
Geneseo, Illinois
