Moussaka is one of the treasures of Greek gastronomy. Internationally recognized, it resembles a lasagna, but substitutes layers of pasta for layers of eggplant. Have you had the opportunity to try it? Now that you can find aubergines in the market, it's time to do it!
The Moussaka or Musaka interspersed these layers of fried eggplant with lamb meat and tomato. The recipe is finished with a bechamel sauce that covers the last layer of meat and that is lightly browned in the oven. And although many recipes do not incorporate it, this time I wanted to add that layer of bakery potatoes common in many cookbooks and that allows a clean cut of the Musaka.
I'm not going to fool you, doing the Musaka is not a matter of half an hour. There are many necessary preparations To complete this recipe and although they are simple, you have to do them! So to take advantage of your time, my advice is that once you have put it, make a great source of Moussaka to enjoy it for at least two days. To complete your menu you will only need a light dessert.
The recipe
- 2 medium eggplants
- 2 potatoes, peeled and sliced half a centimeter
- 450 g minced lamb or beef
- 1 large onion, minced
- 1 garlic clove, minced
- 3 ripe tomatoes, peeled and chopped
- ½ glass of white wine
- Sal Island
- Pepper
- Rosemary
- Grated cheese for gratin
- 25 g. Of flour
- 25 g. of butter
- 460 ml. milk
- A pinch of nutmeg
- Salt and pepper
- We cut the aubergines into half-centimeter slices and we place them on an absorbent paper. Add a pinch of salt and let them rest to expel the water.
- Meanwhile, fry the potatoes in a frying pan and with plenty of oil until tender. Once tender, we take them out, drain and reserve.
- In the same pan but with very little oil now fry the eggplant slices by batches. As we remove them, we place them in a strainer to expel the excess oil and then reserve them.
- Afterwards, without changing the pan sauté the onion and garlic, seasoned. After five minutes we add the meat and fry until it begins to change color.
- Then, we add the thyme and the natural tomato. Mix well, cover and cook over medium heat for 20 minutes so that the tomato falls apart and the meat finishes cooking.
- Then add the wine and cook 15 minutes more so that excess liquid evaporates.
- We take advantage of that little time to prepare the bechamel. To do this, we melt the butter in a pan and add the flour that we will cook for a couple of minutes while stirring the mixture with a few rods. Then, and without stopping beating, we will add the milk little by little until we achieve a thick béchamel to which we will add salt, pepper and a pinch of nutmeg.
- Now that we have everything done, we only have to mount it, while we preheat the oven to 170ºC.
- We grease a mold suitable for oven and we place the potatoes on the base. Then a layer of eggplant and another of meat that we will distribute well and crush slightly. Then we will repeat the process: layer of aubergines and layer of meat.
- To finish we cover with the bechamel and sprinkle with grated cheese.
- We put the source in the oven for about 15 minutes. Afterwards, we raise the oven temperature to 200º and cook for 5 minutes.