Dishes mediterranean cuisine conquer with satisfying ease and bright tastes. Their main secret is freshness and good quality products. Fortunately, most mediterranean recipes can be cooked for own kitchen and enjoy them to the fullest.
Even if you have never been to Greece, you have probably heard about famous dish under the name "moussaka". Strictly speaking, this meat casserole with eggplant: rather whimsical, quite high-calorie, juicy and unusually tasty. The meat is minced meat, usually beef, sometimes lamb, less often pork and beef. Eggplant moussaka, as in many recipes from this region (and as in lasagna, for example), uses a creamy bechamel sauce, which is poured over a large number of fillings. And even a small portion of moussaka is enough to satisfy the most brutal hunger.
Making moussaka is not a painstaking process, but troublesome. This dish should be prepared slowly, and it is better to postpone it for the weekend. However, you can prepare the filling and bechamel in advance, and then all that remains is to assemble the dish and send it to the oven.
Recipe Ingredients
To make eggplant moussaka you will need:
- eggplant 2 pieces (medium size)
- bulb 1 piece
- garlic 2 cloves
- minced beef 300 grams
- tomatoes 350 grams
- milk 250 ml
- hard cheese 100 grams
- butter 30 grams
- wheat flour 1 teaspoon with a slide
- salt, pepper, thyme, nutmeg
How to make eggplant moussaka
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. Cut the eggplant into slices about 5-6 mm thick.
Place them on a baking sheet, season with salt and put them in the oven for 15 minutes.
Meanwhile chop the onion small cubes and chop the garlic.
Heat up 10 grams in a frying pan butter and sauté the onions and garlic until they start to turn slightly golden. At this point, add the minced meat and start constantly stirring the mass to break up big chunks minced meat.
When the meat brightens and the filling becomes crumbly, add dry herbs and pepper, as well as a little salt.
Make cross cuts on the tomatoes and pour boiling water over them.
Remove the skin from the tomatoes and cut them into small pieces. Send the tomatoes to the minced meat.
Simmer for 10 minutes. If the tomatoes are not very juicy, you can add a little water to the filling so that it is not too dry.
Bechamel for moussac. Now prepare the bechamel sauce. To do this, melt the remaining butter in a frying pan and add flour to it.
Gradually adding milk, carefully knead the sauce with a whisk so that it is homogeneous.
After you have added all the milk, add the nutmeg and salt the bechamel.
Assembly. Now you can start assembling. In portions or one large form, lay out a layer of eggplant.
Place a layer of filling on top.
Alternate the eggplants with the filling in this way. Cover the last layer with eggplant.
Drizzle eggplant with bechamel sauce.
Sprinkle moussaka with eggplant with grated cheese on top and send the dish to the oven.
Bake moussaka for 30-40 minutes at 180 degrees until a delicious ruddy color.
Serve this delicious dish immediately after cooking, garnishing with herbs if desired. You can also cook it in a large form for future use, warming up before use. It can be stored in the refrigerator for 4-5 days.
Moussaka(casserole) - traditional eggplant dish in the Balkans and the Middle East. AT different countries have their own original recipes. classical Greek moussaka an unusually tasty dish, reminiscent of two types of sauces, but instead of layers of dough, thinly sliced \u200b\u200band fried eggplants are placed in it - this is a rather difficult dish to prepare and takes a lot of time. My recipe is a little simpler, but also very tasty.
You will need:
- minced meat 400-500 gr
- onion 1-2 pcs
- eggplant 5 pieces (medium)
- tomatoes 5 pcs
- eggs 6 pcs
- sour cream 2-3 tbsp
- cheese 250 gr
- Dry Provence herbs
- ground black pepper
- vegetable oil for frying
You will also need a baking dish approximately 38x25 cm with a rim height of at least 5 cm.
Advice: you can fry minced meat and eggplant in advance, for example, in the evening, and bake moussaka the next day.
Step by step photo recipe:
Cut and fry it in oil until soft. 5-10 minutes.
Add to onion. Fry minced meat for 10-15 minutes. Stir to break up meatballs. Salt and pepper. Can add 0.5 cup dry wine and wait for it to evaporate.
Cut the stem off the eggplant and peel it off. cut slices 1-1.5 cm thick.
Take a clean frying pan or wash the pan after frying the minced meat).Roast the eggplant on the vegetable oil from two sides.
When roasting eggplant absorbs a lot of oil, so get ready for the fact that you have to add it all the time. You can reduce the amount of oil absorbed by dipping the eggplants in flour before frying, but it is better to put the fried eggplants in a colander and press lightly to release the excess oil.
Grate the cheese on a grater
Prepare - remove the skin from them and cut into slices. To do this, cut the tomato on top, put in a bowl and pour boiling water for half a minute. Drain boiling water, pour over cold water- now the skin can be easily removed. If the tomato is hard and unripe, keep it in boiling water longer.
Better cut tomatoes round slices. Like this.
Fried eggplant place in a baking dish salt, pepper, add dry herbs.
Sprinkle over eggplant.
Now fried minced meat.
Sprinkle .
Last layer - tomatoes, salt, pepper, herbs.
Advice:
if you have a deep shape, then you can make another layer of fried eggplant - buy more eggplant or choose large fruits.
Sprinkle .
Whisk eggs with sour cream, salt a little.
You can do this with a blender.
Fill the mold with the whipped mixture.
Bake moussaka in a preheated oven t 200º C 35-40 minutes.
Moussaka is ready and smells delicious.
Juicy, tender, with melted cheese inside - just melts in your mouth! You will definitely be asked for more!
Enjoy your meal!
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Moussaka is a multinational dish. It is difficult to talk about its origin, but, probably, this is useless. The main thing is that she is loved and revered by everyone. There are actually a lot of cooking options, in each country it is prepared in its own way, and Greek moussaka always turns out incomparable.
In fact, it is a slightly modified one, in which meat, eggplant, cheese and sauce are added. For example, in Eastern countries it is more like with tomatoes, but in Croatia it may include mushrooms and even noodles. In Bulgarian cooking, the main ingredients are potatoes, minced meat, zucchini, sour cream and cabbage. In Turkey, zucchini and peas are put instead of eggplant.
Classic Greek-style moussaka is necessarily prepared with the addition of eggplant, which give the dish an exquisite aroma and unique juicy taste. This recipe was invented by chef Nicolas Celementes back in 1920. But for nutrition, he added minced meat, and poured Bechamel sauce on top of it - he borrowed this recipe from French chefs. The end result was an unexpected and delicious dish.
But be that as it may, no one knows the exact date of the "invention" of moussaka, and it is unlikely that they will find out. According to some sources, this dish is more than three thousand years old. If you open Arabic cookbook 17th century, you can find a similar recipe called "Maguma" in it.
We will not delve into the history of the famous " vegetable casserole”, but rather we will tell you how to cook this Mediterranean dish and get indescribable pleasure. In order for Greek moussaka to turn out really tasty, it is necessary to observe the multi-layered structure of this dish.
Moussaka in Greek
This recipe is designed for 10 servings, but if necessary, you can simply reduce or increase the amount of ingredients used in proportion to the number of eaters.
- one and a half kilograms of any minced meat;
- three eggplants;
- four fresh tomatoes, peeled;
- six medium potatoes;
- large head of onion;
- sweet bell pepper;
- three cinnamon sticks;
- 100 gr. red wine;
- - 200 gr.;
- spices (spices).
To prepare the bechamel sauce:
- half a liter of milk;
- any cheese - 200 gr.;
- sour cream - 50 gr.;
- olive oil- 100 gr.;
- flour - 30 gr.;
- 2 cloves of garlic.
Moussaka in Greek: cooking
Wash the eggplant, cut into small circles, salt and leave for half an hour to evaporate excess moisture. fresh potatoes cut into slices (like eggplant) and fry in olive oil until golden brown. Put the fried potato slices on a baking sheet and add a little salt.
We return to our eggplants. Wipe the slices from moisture with a paper towel and fry in oil, then put them on top of the potatoes. We do the same with bell pepper. Finely chop the onion, sauté, add minced meat to it. When the meat and onions are well fried, pour half a glass of wine into it, put spices (you can limit yourself to ordinary black pepper), cinnamon, chopped feta, shabby tomatoes - everything is stewed for about 10 minutes. Next, put the finished mass on a baking sheet.
Let's start making the sauce. Pour the olive oil into the pan and gradually add the flour, stirring constantly, bring to the formation of bubbles. Pour milk very carefully in a thin stream and mix well, preventing lumps from forming (in last resort, it can be strained through a sieve). When the sauce becomes homogeneous, add sour cream, chopped garlic, grated cheese, black pepper and salt. After a minute, remove from the stove and pour the layer of meat with the resulting sauce, send it to the oven for about 40 minutes at 180 C. Greek-style moussaka is delicious both hot and cold - delight your loved ones with interesting and unusual culinary delights! Enjoy your meal!
Grind the meat into mincemeat. Peel the onion from the husk. If the eggplants are bitter, cut them into slices or rings and dip them in salted water (1 tablespoon of salt per 1 liter of liquid) to get rid of the unpleasant aftertaste. After 15-20 minutes, take them out and dry them with a paper towel. Make cruciform cuts on the tomatoes, pour boiling water over them and immediately lower them into cold water- so the skin easily separates from the pulp. Peel them and cut into slices.
Sauce Preparation: Melt the butter in a hot saucepan. Pour the flour into the butter and fry it, stirring constantly, until slightly golden, carefully breaking up the lumps. Pour in a little warm milk. Continuing to stir constantly, bring the mixture to uniform consistency and thickening (the sauce should have the density of liquid sour cream). Remove from fire. Lightly beat the eggs with a fork and carefully fold them into the sauce, trying to do it quickly so that they do not have time to curdle from the temperature. Grate cheese on a fine grater. Stir it into the egg and milk mixture while it is warm to melt it. Season the mass with nutmeg, add salt to taste and mix well.
Fry eggplant slices in a well-heated pan with vegetable oil until half cooked, half a minute on each side. Cut the onion into half rings, fry it until translucent and add minced meat to it. Fry the minced meat with onions for 5-7 minutes, season with your favorite herbs and pour in the wine. Simmer until liquid evaporates. Salt to taste. In a separate pan, lightly simmer the tomatoes so that they release excess liquid, which will interfere with the moussaka baking process. Put a portion of the fried eggplants in a baking dish so that they tightly cover the bottom. Put the minced meat on top of the eggplant and evenly distribute. The next layer is laid out circles of tomatoes. All layers are repeated one more time starting with eggplant. Pour the formed casserole evenly cream sauce and sprinkle with grated cheese on top. Moussaka is baked at a temperature of 200 degrees. Cooking time ranges from 30 to 45 minutes - it all depends on how quickly the liquid boils away. Therefore, the process should be controlled independently. Dishes should be baked, but not burnt.
Delicious eggplant dish.
- 1000 g eggplant
- 800 g minced meat(+ oregano, cinnamon stick)
- 500 g potatoes
- 300 g tomatoes
- 200 g onion
- 200 g cheese
- salt pepper
- vegetable oil for frying
- 800 ml milk
- 80 g butter
- 50 g flour
- 0.5 tsp nutmeg
- 4 eggs
- salt
In season good eggplant it's time to cook one of the most delicious meals with eggplant. I consider moussaka to be such a dish, there are a lot of varieties of moussaka, but one of the most popular is moussaka in Greek, each housewife cooks it in her own way. The main components are fried minced meat with tomatoes, fried eggplant and Bechamel sauce. I have a large mold, so I made quite a lot of moussaka. Minced meat for moussaka should be quite fat, moussaka should be juicy, I used by no means lean beef and pork necks, from which minced meat was previously prepared. It turned out very juicy, tasty, satisfying, the sauce plays perfectly in this dish. Sometimes another layer of fried zucchini and sweet bell peppers are added to the moussaka, but it seems to me that this is already superfluous, since moussaka is already a multi-component dish.
P.S. The dish is not prepared quickly, so calculate the time with a margin!
Cooking:
Preparing the meat layer.
Finely chop the onion, fry in vegetable oil until light golden.
Remove the onion from the pan, put about half the minced meat in the pan.
Fry a little, all the time breaking the minced meat into separate pieces.
Similarly, fry the second half of the minced meat. If you have a very large and deep frying pan, you can fry everything at once, it was more convenient for me in two passes.
Return the minced meat, onion to the pan, add the grated tomatoes (rub the tomato on coarse grater, and the unnecessary skin remains in the hand).
Salt, pepper, add oregano, cinnamon stick, mix. Don't let the cinnamon stick fool you, it's a fairly common seasoning for Greek moussaka, if you don't have a stick add a small pinch of regular cinnamon.
Simmer uncovered until fully cooked and all liquid has evaporated. When the liquid has completely evaporated, fry the minced meat a little, increasing the heat.
The meat layer is ready.
Boil potatoes until half cooked in salted water.
Cooking eggplant.
Cut eggplant into slices. If you suspect that your eggplants are bitter, then salt them first, stand for 20-30 minutes, and drain the released liquid. But modern eggplants are no longer bitter, so this step is no longer necessary, I didn’t do this, but just salted it and immediately fried it.
Heat in a skillet over medium heat a small amount of oil, and fry the slices on both sides.
Eggplant absorbs a lot of oil when frying, so I initially pour literally tsp into the pan. oil, and then add quite a bit only when the pan is completely dry, so the eggplants are lean.
Preparing bechamel sauce.
Melt butter in a frying pan, add flour, fry while stirring.
Gradually pour in the hot milk in parts, stirring well after each portion of milk. It is best to mix with a whisk. Add nutmeg and salt.
Cool the sauce slightly, add the eggs, while stirring with a whisk.
Collecting moussaka.
Prepare the form (my form is 25 by 25 cm), you can even take the form a little more, because it fits in my butt. The form should be with fairly high sides.
Put the chopped potatoes, sprinkle with grated cheese.
