Moussaka: aubergines roasted not fried, cinnamon meat sauce, béchamel set with yolks
The Greek bake of three layers, each made on its own: aubergines salted and roasted, a meat sauce simmered half an hour with cinnamon, and a béchamel enriched with egg yolks that sets in the oven into a thick golden custard. Roasting the aubergines instead of frying them saves a lot of oil and mess. One dish for eight, and twenty minutes' rest before it is cut.
Your own work in that: 45 min.
- Aubergines salting 30 min
- Roasting the aubergines 25 min
- Meat sauce 30 min
- Béchamel 15 min
- Baking 45 min
- Resting 20 min
Step by step
0 / 7 doneSalt the aubergines
Wash the aubergines, trim the stalks and cut into rounds 1 cm thick. Lay them in a single layer on a rack over a tray, salt both sides and leave 30 minutes. Dark beads of liquid will gather on the surface. Pat the slices dry with paper towel, pressing firmly.
Ingredients: 1000 g aubergines · 2 tsp coarse salt · 5 tbsp olive oil
TipSalt draws out water by osmosis and collapses the cells of the flesh. Collapsed flesh no longer acts like a sponge, so it absorbs noticeably less fat, and any bitterness leaves with the juice. Drying is not optional: a wet aubergine steams instead of roasting.
1 cm rounds, salted both sides, half an hourRoast the aubergines
Heat the oven to 200 °C. Lay the slices on lined trays in a single layer (you will usually need two), brush both sides with oil (5 tablespoons covers the lot) and roast 25 minutes, turning halfway and swapping the trays round. They are done when soft, floppy and golden at the edges.
TipFried aubergines soak up a great deal of oil and turn heavy. Brushed and roasted, they need only five tablespoons, and get their flavour from browning at 200 °C instead. Drop the oven to 180 °C as soon as the trays come out.
Twenty-five minutes, floppy and goldenSimmer the meat sauce
Heat the oil in a wide pan, add the finely chopped onion and cook 7 minutes, until soft. Turn the heat up, add the meat and break it up with a spoon; fry 8 minutes, until the juices evaporate and the meat begins to brown. Add the garlic, tomato paste, cinnamon and oregano and fry 2 minutes. Pour in the wine, reduce by half, add the passata, bay leaf, sugar, salt and pepper. Simmer uncovered over low heat 30 minutes.
Ingredients: 600 g minced lamb or beef · 2 pcs onions · 4 cloves garlic · 2 tbsp olive oil · 2 tbsp tomato paste · 500 ml tomato passata · 150 ml dry red wine · 1 tsp cinnamon · 2 tsp dried oregano · 1 pcs bay leaf · 1 tsp sugar · 1½ tsp salt · 1 tsp black pepper
TipCinnamon in a meat sauce is a Greek classic, not a dessert note: it adds a warm, spicy aroma that suits lamb and tomato, much as marjoram does with meat in Polish cooking. A teaspoon is noticeable without taking over.
Half an hour uncovered, the sauce thickensMake the béchamel and enrich it with yolks
Melt the butter in a saucepan, add the flour and cook the roux 2 minutes, whisking, until it smells nutty. Add the milk a ladle at a time, whisking hard after each. Cook 8 minutes, until thick enough to fall from the whisk in a heavy ribbon. Take off the heat, cool 5 minutes, then whisk in the yolks, cheese, nutmeg, salt and white pepper.
Ingredients: 60 g butter · 60 g plain flour · 700 ml milk · 2 pcs egg yolks · 80 g parmesan · ½ tsp nutmeg · 1 tsp salt · ½ tsp white pepper
TipThe yolks go into a béchamel that is off the heat and cooled, because they set at 68 °C. Dropped into a boiling sauce they seize into threads. They are what turns the top of a moussaka from a sauce into a thick custard you can cut.
Yolks into cooled sauce, never boilingBuild the layers
Oil the dish. Lay half the aubergines across the base, snugly side by side, with no gaps. Spread all the meat sauce over them and level it. Cover with the second half of the aubergines. Pour the béchamel over the top and spread it, sealing every edge.
Aubergine, sauce, aubergine, béchamelBake
Bake 45 minutes at 180 °C, until the top has risen and is deep golden and freckled, and the sauce bubbles at the edges. If it is still pale after 30 minutes, move the dish up a shelf.
Forty-five minutes, top freckled darkRest twenty minutes
Take it out and leave 20 minutes. Hot moussaka slumps on the plate; after twenty minutes the yolk-set béchamel is firm enough for a spatula to lift a clean square. Serve with a salad and a wedge of lemon.
TipThose twenty minutes are not idle: the starch-thickened béchamel and the meat sauce firm up noticeably as they cool. Cut straight away, the moussaka spreads across the plate.
After twenty minutes the layers stand up
Before you start
With potatoes
Many Greek home cooks add a potato layer underneath: 400 g cut into 5 mm slices and pre-roasted 20 minutes at 200 °C with oil. They go in first, under the aubergines, and turn the bake into a complete dinner.
A day ahead
The meat sauce and the roasted aubergines can be made a day ahead and kept in the fridge separately. Always make the béchamel fresh, just before assembling: reheated, it turns gluey.
Vegetarian
Instead of meat, 400 g green lentils cooked al dente and 300 g mushrooms fried over high heat. Simmer the same 30 minutes with cinnamon and oregano; the cinnamon matters even more here than in the meat version.
