The classic moussaka recipe: juicy and fragrant

As you know, Mediterranean cuisine is distinguished by the fact that most of the dishes included in it are very healthy and unusually tasty. This is achieved due to the fact that their preparation uses a large number of vegetables, herbs and mild, but fragrant spices, mainly herbs, dairy products, olives and olive oil, seafood and lean meat. All this leads to the fact that such dishes contribute to the normalization of the level of cholesterol in the blood, do not lead to the formation of fatty deposits, and the body thus receives a full-fledged food, rich in all necessary nutrients. There is even a so-called Mediterranean diet, very effective, but very gentle.

Greek cuisine is a typical Mediterranean variety: it uses all the same vegetables, dairy products and herbs, only the meat in it is found somewhat more often. The classic dish of Greek cuisine is moussaka. It is a fragrant layered vegetable casserole. The classic moussaka recipe assumes an indispensable presence in it of eggplants, meat, greens and garlic, as well as tomato sauce. However, today there are more than one moussaka recipe known: it can consist of various ingredients, can be both very nutritious and light vegetarian, and for its preparation you can use different sauces, for example not only tomato, but also béchamel, as well as cheese . There are so many of them that it is already quite difficult to understand how to make moussaka according to the classical recipe. Many people are so fond of it that they adopted the recipe for moussaka and made their own changes. There is a moussaka in Bulgarian, Croatian, Moldovan, Romanian, Turkish - there are a lot of recipes, and all of them sometimes differ so much that the only thing in common is the name and the process of cooking, namely baking.

Moussaka recipe in Greek

This recipe for moussaka is one of the closest to the classical version. To prepare a classic mousaka, you need to take 500-700 grams of aubergines, as much minced meat (best of all mutton or beef, but any other), two onions, two tomatoes, olive oil, greens (parsley, mint), 100 ml of white wine, 2 tablespoons of flour, a glass of milk, 50 grams of cheese, one egg, 30 g of butter, spices (ground nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon, coriander, black and red pepper, salt, several cloves of garlic).

The onions are finely shredded and lightly fried in olive oil, after which mince is added, and all together is fried for another 10 minutes. Then the mincemeat is added with spices, finely chopped mint, diced tomatoes, and all together stewed for another 15 minutes. Then wine is poured into the mixture, everything is boiled, excess liquid is drained - the stuffing should turn out to be rather thick, and the frying pan with the contents is left under the lid.

Eggplants are sprinkled with salt and left for 10 minutes until the juice is given - this is done in order to remove excess liquid. Then they are cut either along the length or with rings and fried in flour in a frying pan or on a grill or slightly baked in the oven until a slightly golden crust appears, after which some of them are laid out in a greased olive oil baking mold. A layer of minced meat is laid out on a layer of aubergines, then again a layer of aubergines, minced meat and again eggplant.

Next, sauce is prepared: the flour is roasted in butter, the milk is mixed with eggs and poured into the same place, after 2-3 minutes, finely grated cheese is added, everything is cooked for several minutes, after which salt and greens are added. The sauce should turn out thick. Then the mousaka is poured with this sauce and placed in the oven and baked for about half an hour until golden brown.