Yesterday we had Stuffed Peppers for dinner and as I had some left-over minced beef and tomato filling, I thought I'd keep with the Greek theme and make moussaka. It's a layered dish with aubergine and potato and topped with bechamel sauce.I browned onion and minced pork in a frying pan along with 2 cloves of minced garlic until browned. I added a carton of chopped tomato and seasoned well with salt and pepper. For flavouring, I added 1 teaspoon of ground cumin, some chopped mint and some chopped parsley and let it simmer for about 10-15 minutes to allow the flavours to develop.
Aubergine was sliced into 1cm thick slices, drizzled with olive oil, seasoned and grilled under a hot grill for 5 minutes each side until golden brown. I boiled three medium-sized (peeled) potatoes until just tender (about 15 minutes) before slicing into 1/2 cm slices.
To layer up the dish, I placed half the meat mix into the bottom of a ovenproof baking dish. I topped this with the potato slices then half of the aubergine slices. The remaining meat mix went on next before finishing with the rest of the aubergine slices. To top it off I made 1/2 pint of cheese sauce and then added 1 beaten egg into the sauce. The egg will set the sauce almost like a custard on cooking so it isn't runny and oozy like in a lasagna. The sauce is poured over the top before baking in the oven for around 30-45 minutes (I think I over-browned it a little). As I had added last nights leftover meat mix with today's meat mix and used three potatoes and two aubergines, I found my dish was a little full! I had a fun time trying to carefully pour the cheese sauce without making it dribble over the sides! Luckily, I placed a baking tray on the shelf below the moussaka to catch any drips - and yes! That WAS a good idea!
It didn't look particularly pretty on cooking but I love the cooked aubergine in this dish and the mint and cumin flavouring the meat mix. As it was quite a large dish it is quite filling on it's own but I had mine with some left-over Greek salad from last night's dinner.
