Greek Moussaka with eggplant - 6 recipes

This Greek dish includes both a meat component and a side dish. It does not require any additions and is surprisingly tasty. There are a lot of Greek recipes with eggplant in Greek, and any option will appeal to the most demanding gourmet.

Classic Greek Moussaki Eggplant Recipe

Mousaka is not a national Greek dish. She has an author, the famous Greek chef Nikos Celemendis. He was a supporter of not only national, but also European cuisine, so the recipe he invented whimsically combines traditional Greek vegetables and lamb, and refined French bechamel.

The recipe is only about a hundred years old, but is enjoyed by the musaka in all countries. There are many options for its preparation with various ingredients, but it all started with the classic Greek Moussaka.

This dish can not be called neither low-calorie, nor dietary, but how delicious it is! When cooking do not spare spices and olive oil.

What is important, according to the classic recipe, moussaka in Greek is prepared only from lamb. Well, as a last resort, from beef.

Of course, you can take pork or chicken, but that will not be right.

Ingredients:

• 4 small eggplant with a total weight of about 700 g;
• already twisted minced meat - 0.5 kg;
• 2 onions;
• several ripe tomatoes with a total weight of about 300 g;
• hard cheese - 75 g;
• dry white wine 150 ml;
• olive oil - 2 tbsp. spoons.

Mushaku is supposed to pour sauce. For him you need to take:

• hard cheese - 150 g;
• 2 chicken eggs;
• 400 ml of milk;
• 2 tbsp. tablespoons of flour;
• butter - 75 g.

Season the sauce with a pinch of grated nutmeg, and the minced meat - with dry herbs to your liking.

How to cook:

1. If the eggplants are bitter, they are cut into rings without peeling and sprinkled with salt. In 20 minutes.washed and dried.
2. Tomatoes are peeled, for which they should first be scalded.
3. Fry the rings of eggplant over high heat, adding oil. To make them brown, usually 1 minute is enough.
4. Onion sliced ​​in half rings passer in oil until it becomes transparent. Add the minced meat, knead and fry for 5 minutes. Season with herbs, pour in wine and stew so that all the liquid evaporates. At the end of the stew, they are salted to taste.
5. Let the tomatoes cut into circles.

Separately prepare the sauce:

• fry flour in butter until golden brown;
• diluted with warm milk, adding it in portions and thoroughly mixing until smooth;
• warm up to a thick sour cream, turn off the fire;
• lightly beaten eggs are kneaded in the sauce so that they do not curl;
• the remaining grated cheese is added to the sauce, season with nutmeg and salt and mix well.

Next, the bottom of a high baking dish is covered with eggplant (take ½ part), put half the minced meat and cover with half the tomatoes. Spread the products again in the same sequence, pour the sauce and sprinkle with grated cheese.

Bake a dish in a hot oven for about half an hour.

The liquid should evaporate completely, but no burning should be allowed.

Before serving, allow the dish to infuse for a quarter of an hour.

Cooking option with potatoes

The cooking technology is the same. If you add 300 g of sliced ​​potatoes to the ingredients specified in the previous recipe, the dish will have a different taste.

Potatoes must first be fried until half-cooked or baked in the oven for 10 minutes. When forming a dish, it is laid in the first layer. Greek baking time with Greek eggplant and potatoes will have to be slightly extended, as potato slices are prepared longer than all the other ingredients.

With the addition of zucchini - step by step

Mushaku with zucchini is easy to cook, they will give the dish a special taste and juiciness.

Ingredients:

• 3 eggplants;
• 1 zucchini squash;
• 1 onion;
• 5 tomatoes;
• 500 g of already rolled minced meat of lamb or veal;
• 300 g of hard cheese;
• 4 tbsp. tablespoons of flour;
• 2 cups of milk;
• 70 g butter;
• 4 tbsp. tablespoons of olive oil.

The dish is seasoned with salt and pepper to taste.

How to cook:

1. Eggplant and zucchini sliced ​​in thin plates are sprinkled with salt.
2. After a quarter of an hour, wipe them off the juice and lightly fry with the addition of olive oil.
3. Peeled tomatoes are chopped, as well as onions.
4. Pass the onions in oil for 3-5 minutes.
5. Stuffing is added to it, mix and bring to half-preparedness.
6. Spread tomatoes to semi-prepared ingredients, season with spices, mix.
7. Fry flour in butter for 3-4 minutes. The mixture should be homogeneous, without lumps.
8. Dilute it gradually with slightly warmed milk, achieving uniformity after each serving.
9. Remove the sauce from the fire, and then mix it with half the cheese grated on a fine grater.
10. Zucchini and eggplant are divided into 3 parts, and minced meat in half.

Next, put a third of eggplant and zucchini on the bottom of a deep baking dish, then half the minced meat, which is sprinkled with half the remaining cheese, again a third of the eggplant and zucchini, the remaining minced meat, cheese, and on top of the zucchini and eggplant. All. Pour the moussaka with prepared bechamel and bake in a not too hot oven for about 40 minutes.

Musaka after baking before serving should cool slightly, so its taste will become brighter and more saturated, and when cut, it will not disintegrate.

Greek Vegetarian Moussaka

This recipe is for those who do not eat meat in any form, but do not deny themselves eggs and milk. The dish does not look like classical Greek moussaka with minced meat, although it is prepared using the same technology. But it certainly does not become less tasty.

Ingredients:

• 2 medium-sized carrots and onions;
• a small root of celery weighing 100 g;
• 5 potatoes;
• 0.5 kg of asparagus green beans;
• 0.5 cups of rice;
• 4 eggs;
• 2/3 glasses of milk;
• olive oil as needed.

In this recipe, the pouring sauce is made from a mixture of milk and eggs, but you can also cook classic bechamel.

How to cook:

1. Three carrots and celery on a grater, cut onions. Fry vegetables until soft.
2. Boil rice and beans until cooked. Cut the last into pieces.
3. Jacketed and peeled three potatoes on a grater with large holes.
4. We make the sauce by mixing slightly beaten eggs with milk. You can add your favorite dried herbs to it.
5. We spread in a baking dish, oiled, first potatoes, and then the remaining ingredients in layers.
6. Pour all the sauce and shaking the mold so that it permeates each layer.

Vegetarian moussaka is baked twice as fast as a traditional dish - only 20 minutes. in a hot oven with a temperature of 200 degrees.

With eggplant and rice

There is very little rice in this dish, but it is he who absorbs the delicious juice that meat and vegetables produce.

Ingredients:

• 2 eggplants with a total weight of about 500 g;
• 100 g of rice;
• 2 pcs. bulbs and large tomatoes;
• a couple of cloves of garlic;
• olive or vegetable oil - how much will go;
• 2 tbsp. tablespoons flour and butter;
• 2 cups of milk;
• 100 g of hard cheese, ideally Parmesan;
• 500 g minced pork or mixed with beef;
• a pinch of grated nutmeg.

Salt and pepper are added to taste.

How to cook:

1. We clean the eggplants, cut them with longitudinal plates and soak them for half an hour in well-salted water. Wash and dry on a napkin.
2. Fry on both sides until golden brown, but not overdried.
3. Cook the rice almost until done.
4. Fry finely chopped onions until golden, adding chopped garlic.
5. Add the minced meat, fry a little more, add and simmer with the addition of finely chopped tomatoes for 5-7 minutes.
6. For bechamel, we mix the flour until smooth with butter in a deep frying pan. Fry them for no more than 5 minutes.
7. Dilute the composition with warm milk so that the sauce is homogeneous. To do this, you need to constantly interfere.
8. Season the bechamel with salt and nutmeg.
9. We “collect” the moussaka: put rice at the bottom of the mold that needs to be greased ahead of time, put the whole mince on it, which we then cover with the eggplant.

It remains to pour mushaka with bechamel and sprinkle with grated cheese. In a very hot oven, the dish is baked in 25 minutes.

In a slow cooker

This delicious Greek dish can also be cooked in a slow cooker. It will turn out surprisingly gentle due to the special heating mode of the appliance bowl.

Ingredients:

• 2 small eggplants;
• bulb;
• 2 tbsp. spoons of sour cream, flour;
• 0.5 kg of minced meat;
• 1 tbsp. a spoon of tomato paste and butter;
• 2 eggs;
• 150 g of hard cheese;
• clove of garlic.

Spices and salt to taste and desire. In a slow cooker, moussaka is cooked a little differently, but it still turns out very tasty.

How to cook:

1. Cut eggplant into circles half a centimeter thick without peeling them.
2. Pour salt and keep for about half an hour. Rinse and dry. Frying them in this case is not necessary.
3. Grind garlic and onions, fry with a slice of butter in a multicooker bowl in the “Baking” mode until golden.
4. Add minced meat, season with salt, pepper and spices, fry for another 20 minutes.
5. Stir with tomato paste and simmer another 10 minutes.
6. We mix the cheese, eggs and sour cream, add and gradually add the flour, achieving uniformity of the sauce.
7. We put eggplant circles on the minced meat, pour sauce and cook in the “Baking” mode for another third of an hour. We make sure that the "blue" vegetables are browned.