veggie moussaka
as some of you know, my brother is a vegetarian. in a filipino household, that is like the equivalent of saying that you come from the planet mars. my parents, thus, put me in charge of the vegetarian offerings at W’s big graduation party (they were busy cooking for the rest of the 80+ visitors).
inspired by our wonderful dinner at istanbul the week before, my brother asked if i could make some veggie moussaka, essentially a greek eggplant lasagna that incorporates a bit of french with a rich bechamel sauce. so i found this recipe on epicurious and set forth on the epic journey that is making moussaka. wow, this was labor-intensive. here are the major steps and the final product at the end:
1. Draw out moisture from eggplant.
after reading many a google hit, it seems the consensus is that salting the eggplant and letting it sit (about 30 minutes) to draw out the water is a must. it helps with the cooking so that can properly roast, as well as gets rid of the bitterness. check out all that water!
2. Cook filling.
the epicurious recipe calls for onion, garlic, carrots, celery, portobello, and canned crushed tomato. i added in some fresh oregano left from the orzo salad. i also used canned whole tomatoes and crushed them by hand to make it chunkier. i’m sure it would’ve been fine w/ the crushed and saved a heck of a lot of time. oh, and the cinnamon in the sauce is a really interesting note!
3. Make bechamel sauce.
no pictures of this step, but i did run into a bit of a snag which was not a huge deal. since i was whisking the melted butter, flour, cheese, and milk mixture, parts were not reached on the curved sides of the pan. that means that some got burned on the bottom. oops. no big deal though, i just didn’t scrape too hard and tried to fish out the brown bits.
also, you are going to be tempering egg yolks with the hot milk mix, which might be tricky for the novice cook….two VERY important tips (screw up either of these, and you will end up with scrambled eggs):
1) make sure that you are adding the milk to the eggs and not vice versa, and
2) whisk in the milk mixture into the eggs VERY SLOWLY.
4. Layer.
start with eggplant, then the tomato sauce, then a layer of grated/cheese. the recipe asks for parmesean. i used parm-reggiano b/c that’s what we had. (yes there is a difference but that’s for another blog). repeat eggplant and tomato sauce. top with bechamel and then a sprinkling of cheese. i added some snips of flat italian parsley for presentation.
5. Bake.
if baking it right away, do it for 40 min. but this can be made up to a day ahead of time and chilled. in that case, it’ll take a bit longer (about 50-60 min). bake until golden brown on the top.
6. EAT!
this was delicious and a huge hit among meat eaters and veggies (i.e., a party of one - my brother) alike. very hearty! i’d definitely make this again, but make sure that you are planning with enough time because, as you can see, it is quite the endeavor. but a tasty one.
