Baked Moussaka
Ingredients
- Ingredients
- 2 Eggplant
- salt
- olive oil
- 2 onions
- 500 grams Tomatoes
- 500 grams Ground meat (Beef or lamb)
- 250 milliliters dry white wine
- 1 generous pinch sugar
- ½ tsp cinnamon
- peppers (freshly ground)
- 1 tsp dried oregano
- ½ bunch parsley
- 4 Tbsps Sunflower seed
- 80 grams breadcrumbs
- 80 grams grated Graviera cheese (or Gruyère)
- 30 grams butter
- 3 Tbsps Pastry flour
- 500 milliliters milk
- Nutmeg (freshly grated)
- 2 tsps lemon juice
- 3 eggs
- 150 grams soft Feta (such as feta)
Preparation steps
For the eggplant: Rinse the eggplants and cut lengthwise into 0.5 cm (approximately 1/8 inch) slices. Place them in a bowl of salted water for 20 minutes. Drain and pat dry. Heat 3-4 tablespoons of the olive oil in a large non-stick pan set over high heat. Cook the eggplant slices until lightly browned on both sides. Remove and drain on paper towels.
For the ground meat filling: Peel and dice the onions. Blanch, cool, peel and remove the cores from the tomatoes. Dice the tomatoes into cubes. Heat 3 tablespoons of the olive oil in the nonstick pan and sauté the onions until translucent. Crumble in the ground meat and brown until all the juices have evaporated. Stir in the tomatoes, white wine, salt, sugar, cinnamon and pepper, and simmer, covered, over medium heat, about 5 minutes. Rinse the parsley, shake dry and finely chop the leaves. Stir the sunflower seeds and oregano into the meat mixture. Simmer for an additional 5 minutes and cool to room temperature.
Preheat a convection oven to 180°C (approximately 350°F).
Stir 2 tablespoons of the breadcrumbs and half of the gruyere cheese into the meat mixture. For the sauce: Melt the butter in a saucepan. Stir in the flour to make a paste. Gradually whisk in the milk, reduce the heat to low, and simmer until thickened, about 5 minutes. Season the sauce with salt, pepper, nutmeg and lemon juice. Cool slightly. Whisk 2 eggs with 2 tablespoons of the gruyere cheese and stir into the sauce. For the assembly: Brush a baking dish with melted butter. Sprinkled the bottom with the remaining breadcrumbs. Add the remaining egg to the meat mixture. Lay one half of the eggplant slices over the breadcrumbs. Sprinkle the meat mixture evenly over top and flatten into an even layer. Top with the remaining eggplant slices. Cover the top with the sauce. Crumble the feta and sprinkle it over top. Sprinkle the top with the remaining gruyere cheese. Bake in the oven until set and bubbly, about 1 hour.
