Name: Moussaka
Prep time: 40 min
Cook time: 45 min
Total time: 1 h 25 min
Yield: 6 servings
Cuisine: Greek
Ingredients: 2 Eggplant; 2 Potatoes; 4 tbsp Olive oil; 500 g Ground beef; 1 Onion; 3 cloves Minced garlic; 400 g Tomatoes; 2 tbsp Tomato paste; 0.5 cup Red wine; 0.5 tsp Cinnamon; 0.25 tsp Allspice; Salt & pepper; 4 tbsp Butter; 4 tbsp Flour; 3 cups Milk; 2 Egg yolks; Nutmeg; 0.5 cup Parmigiano

Ingredients

6servings

Layers
Eggplant2
Potatoes2
Olive oil · for roasting4 tbsp
Meat sauce
Ground beef · or lamb500 g
Onion · chopped1
Minced garlic3 cloves
Tomatoes · canned or fresh400 g
Tomato paste2 tbsp
Red wine · optional0.5 cup
Cinnamon0.5 tsp
Allspice · optional0.25 tsp
Salt & pepper · to taste
Bechamel
Butter4 tbsp
Flour4 tbsp
Milk3 cups
Egg yolks2
Nutmeg · a pinch
Parmigiano · grated0.5 cup

Steps

Slice the eggplant and potato 1cm thick; salt the eggplant, rest 10 minutes, and pat dry. Brush with olive oil and roast at 200C or pan-fry until golden.
⏲ 20 min
Meat sauce: fry the onion and garlic in olive oil, then add the ground meat and brown it.
⏲ 5 min
Add the tomatoes, tomato paste, red wine, cinnamon, and allspice and simmer until thick and nearly dry.
⏲ 15 min
Bechamel: cook the flour in the butter, whisk in the milk until thick, then off the heat stir in the yolks, cheese, and nutmeg.
⏲ 7 min
Layer potato, then eggplant, then meat sauce in a baking dish, and pour the bechamel evenly over the top.
⏲ 5 min
Sprinkle with cheese and bake at 180C for 40-45 minutes, until the top is golden.
⏲ 45 min
Rest 15 minutes before cutting so the layers hold. Serve with Greek salad.
⏲ 15 min

Variations

No potato: Use only eggplant for a lighter version.
Zucchini moussaka: Layer zucchini instead of eggplant.
Vegetarian: Swap the meat for lentils.
Mini moussaka: Bake in individual dishes.

Tips

Salt the eggplant to draw out bitterness and reduce oil absorption.
Simmer the meat sauce thick so the layers don't turn watery.
Cinnamon and allspice are the signature aroma of Greek moussaka.
Rest 15 minutes after baking so it slices into clean layers.
Cinnamon and allspice are the Ottoman inheritance, and they are ground spices, so they go in with the tomato rather than at the start (blooming spices).

More detail and the reasons why (4)

The resting is the béchamel setting. Two egg yolks go into it, and egg sets on cooling as much as on heating — straight out of the oven the topping is a sauce, and fifteen minutes later it is firm enough to hold an edge. Cutting early does not spoil the flavour, it just gives you a plate of layers that have slid apart.
Salting the aubergine is mostly not about bitterness any more. Modern varieties are bred with very little of it. What salting still does is collapse the sponge: aubergine flesh is mostly air pockets, and a salted, drained slice has far less of them left to fill, so it drinks a fraction of the oil. Caponata takes a different route to the same problem — cooking each piece separately to drive the water off. Yuxiang Eggplant salts exactly as this dish does and puts its third move not on the aubergine but in the sauce: in caponata's own words, "China coats it in a starch-thickened sauce." Which follows from the switch above — past the point where the sponge has collapsed the slices stop taking oil up and start giving it back, so the sauce has to be able to hold it.
This dish is built the way dry heat and moist heat describes: the sauce is made with moist heat and only the top is finished under dry heat, so the surface browns while the inside stays moist. It is the same construction as Lasagna and Shepherd's Pie.
A béchamel roux is cooked barely at all. Thickening sauces notes that a roux taken to dark brown is there for aroma and thickens almost nothing; this one is held pale, just long enough to lose the raw flour taste, because thickening is the entire job.

The basics behind this dish

Cooking basics →

More of the same kind

Main course →

More from this country

Greek →