December 10, 2020, 5:57 am | Read time: 3 minutes
Greece’s national dish is an eggplant casserole with ground meat, béchamel sauce, and potatoes. Sounds like the perfect combination, doesn’t it? TRAVELBOOK shows you how to cook moussaka at home.
Anyone traveling to Greece can’t miss moussaka. With enough time, you can bring the Greek tavern experience home. While the casserole takes a bit of time, it’s incredibly good and not too difficult to prepare. It’s essentially the Greek version of lasagna and, unlike the Italian version, includes potatoes and eggplant. Additionally, the perfect moussaka features an irresistibly delicious béchamel sauce and ground meat. If you can’t find fresh lamb, you can use beef as an alternative.
The dish is also popular in Turkish and Arab regions, where zucchini is often used instead of eggplant. So if you’re not a fan of eggplant, you can confidently use zucchini as an alternative.
Recipe for Greek Moussaka
Ingredients (for 4 people)
- 2 eggplants
- 1 onion
- 400 grams of potatoes
- 400 grams of ground beef (or lamb)
- 5 tablespoons of tomato paste
- 800 grams of peeled tomatoes
- 1 teaspoon of cumin
- 2 tablespoons of rosemary
- 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon
- 5 tablespoons of flour
- 750 milliliters of milk
- Some Parmesan cheese
- 3 tablespoons of butter
- Nutmeg
- Salt
- Pepper
Preparation
- Cut the eggplant into 1 cm thick slices, salt them, and let them rest for 20 minutes.
- Chop the onion and garlic and finely chop the rosemary.
- Add olive oil to a pot and brown the meat for five minutes. Then add the onion, garlic, tomato paste, and tomatoes. Season with cumin, rosemary, cinnamon, and salt, and let simmer on low heat for 50 minutes.
- Boil the potatoes with their skins for about 15 minutes.
- Pat the eggplants dry with paper towels and fry them on both sides.
- Melt butter in a pot and mix with flour. Then stir in the milk, bring to a boil (stirring continuously), and season with nutmeg.
- Slice the potatoes, spread them on the bottom of the baking dish, and salt them. Then add a layer of eggplant, followed by a layer of meat sauce, and grate Parmesan over it. Finally, spread the béchamel sauce on top.
- Bake the casserole at 200 degrees for about 45 minutes and enjoy.