Moussaka

This recipe is a variation of Felicity Cloake's recipe in the Guardian. Its a fantastic write up with descriptions of variations to the dish and why she chose the variation she did. We followed a lot of the original recipe, but since I luh-ve an abundance of veggies in my food, I used zucchini instead of potatoes for the second layer. This dish was not a spectacular success, technically speaking, but was absolutely delicious. The caveat is that the zucchini should probably have been processed differently because it is a fairly watery veggie and I suspect it released water when we cooked it with the rest of the components.
I was also not a huge fan of the eggs in the bechamel. Again, this may be because our dish is more watery than the original, but thats probably not a variation we will use again. It was sort of spongy and wet.

Ingredients

• 4 tbsp olive oil
• 3 medium or 2 large aubergines, sliced
• 2 large zucchinis
• 1 large onion, finely chopped (I used 2)
• 4 cloves of garlic, finely chopped (We used minced garlic)
• 1.5 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 500g minced lamb (We used bländfars, mix of beef and pork)
• 2 tbsp tomato purée, mixed with 150ml water ( we added more puree, I like my meat sauce fairly red)
• 150ml red wine
• Small bunch of flat-leaf parsley, chopped

For the bechamel:

• 500ml milk
• 60g butter
• 60g plain flour
• 50g kefalotyri or pecorino cheese, grated (We used gratang grated cheese, DON'T JUDGE!!!)
• 2 eggs, beaten
• Nutmeg, to grate (We used pre-powdered, but added almost a teaspoon)

Method

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180C. Cut the aubergines lengthways into 0.5cm slices, and put them on to oiled baking sheets. Brush with olive oil and season. Bake for about 25 minutes until soft, golden and floppy.  Two things, 1) I was on the phone with my mum and totally let the eggplant bake for about an hour, whoops! Was still pretty delish. 2) I treated the zucchini the exact same way. Sliced and then baked, will probably alter this as and when I come across a good treatment for zucchini in moussaka.
2. Meanwhile, put 2 tbsp olive oil into a large frying pan over a medium high heat and cook the onion until soft. Add the garlic, cinnamon and oregano and cook for a further couple of minutes, then stir in the lamb. Turn up the heat slightly, and brown the lamb well, cooking until the mixture is quite dry. Stir in the tomato and wine, bring to a simmer, then turn the heat down low and cook for 30–40 minutes until most of the liquid has evaporated. Season and stir in the parsley.
3. Meanwhile, make the bechamel. Bring the milk to just below boiling point, and melt the butter in another saucepan. Stir the flour into the butter and cook for a couple of minutes, then gradually whisk in the hot milk. Cook until you have a thick sauce, then stir in the cheese until melted. Take off the heat and allow to cool slightly, then beat in the eggs, salt to taste and slightly more nutmeg than you might think wise (it's a strong flavour, but you need a heft of it in this dish I think - half a teaspoon at least).  We found the bechamel much too thick after this and added more milk and more cheese till it was still quite thick but more "flowy"
4. Arrange a third of the aubergines in the base of an oven dish, and top with half the meat. Repeat these layers, then finish off with a layer of aubergine, and top with the sauce. Bake for about 45 minutes until well browned, and then leave to cool for half an hour before serving. We put in all the zucchini, then all the meat sauce and then all the aubergine topped with the bechamel sauce and then a little of the gratang cheese. We made sure we covered the entire base when we added the next layer. We were used a pretty massive baking pan and thats probably why we could only manage one layer of each thing. We could not wait 30 minutes before eating (pffftt, because normal people cook when they are hungry and are fucking starving by the time stuff comes out of the oven). That said, the moussaka was 25% more delicious after spending the night in the fridge, so there maybe something to this "wait time".