Moussaka

[Music] hi everyone welcome back to demetra's dishes so today I'm going to bring to you a classic like soul food recipe Musa so it's sort of like um an eggplant Parmesan in a way there are layers of potato and and eggplant and a ground beef sauce it's just delicious and then it's topped with a Cheesy bashel simple elegant a perfect crowd pleaser especially since it serves up to 12 people this is great you put it in your oven and you make everyone happy you can serve this at any kind of get together especially now that the holidays are right around the corner we're going to go over the ingredients and then we're going to get started so you're going to need some eggplants you're going to need three eggplants for this dish about three or four mediumsized potatoes some olive oil salt pepper pepper freshly grated Parmesan cheese if you can find a Greek sheep's milk cheese known as keal graviera go ahead and use that because that's more traditional in this then we have the meat sauce I'm going to put the link Down Below in the description box I've already made this it takes like 20 minutes to make simple easy and that's in this recipe you're going to need a double batch of it and then for the bashal sauce which we're going to make later you're going to need some eggs flour nutmeg some more salt and pepper a little bit of cheese and some whole milk that's it you want to make sure your oven is preheated to 475° because we are going to roast the vegetables traditionally they're fried but we're going to keep it healthier and we're going to make less of a Mess by roasting them in the oven you're still going to have all the flavor less clean up and it's going to be way healthier so I'm going to cut my eggplant you want to cut it uh cut one part off so that way um it's easier and it's kind of stable and sturdy and you want to cut into um not too thin and not too thick slices about between half an inch and like 3/4 of an inch not 3/4 of an inch half an inch and a qu to half an inch slices this is what you're looking for because eggplant once it once it roasts in the oven it sort of melts a little bit so you want to have some hearty chunky pieces you don't want it to be melted and disintegrated you want to take a half sheet tray put them on here and we're just going to brush them with some olive oil and season them with salt and pepper anytime you're making a dish that has multiple layers you want to make sure every layer is seasoned properly so that way you have lots of flavor in there and we're going to do both sides olive oil salt and pepper that's it I love roasting them instead of frying them because eggplant is one of those vegetables that's like a sponge it absorbs oil so quickly and I don't know I don't like there's nothing worse than a greasy eggplant so I like roasting them like this healthier and very very very easy so I have my oven preheated I'm going to pop these in the oven while I slice my potatoes so the eggplant is in the oven and now we're just going to do the same thing with the potato we're going to cut it into slices relatively thin slices cuz potato thinner than the eggplant actually because potatoes do hold their shape when they bake so you don't want to get them too fat otherwise they'll take longer and I always roast a few extra because who doesn't like roasted few extra roasted potatoes to munch on so we're going to do the same thing that we did with the eggplant we're going to brush them with some olive oil salt pepper you could even sprinkle some oregano on here if you wanted make sure you do both sides so there's flavor throughout and then we're going to pop these in an oven until they're nice and golden which takes about 15 minutes or so and then we're going to layer it and put it all together that's it put a little bit of oregano on top and I'm going to pop these in my preheated oven okay so it took a little more than 15 minutes strange some somehow how sometimes ovens work sometimes they'll be done in 15 minutes but you're really looking what you're really looking for is never the time it's the color and the texture so you want them to be cooked on the inside and they're kind of soft when they're cooked and you want them to have a beautiful golden color on top that's how you know they're done so now we're going to move on to making the bamal sauce which is really a Savory custard there's egg and there's cheese and there's milk lots of goodness in that that's kind of like the best part of this it brings it all together so we're going to heat up our um pot and I'm going to put some oil in here so you start by making what's known as a rue that's a fancy word word for a thickening agent that's basically um olive oil or butter I'm using olive oil and flour and we're just going to cook it cook the flour until it's nice and toasty to get rid of kind of that like raw flour taste that it has that should just take a couple of minutes and then we're just going to add the milk slowly so that way we can get a beautiful creamy sauce we made the same kind of sauce in the btio episode so make sure you check that out I'll put the link down below once you begin to smell that toasty nutty flavor the flower is good and now we're just going to add the milk a little bit at a time if the milk is warm if you can get a chance to warm the milk before you add it to this the sauce together in no time that's the sound of my oven preheating now we're going to season this with a little bit of salt just a little bit cuz we're going to get lots of saltiness from the cheese little bit of freshly ground black pepper and just a tiny bit of nutmeg like 1/4 teaspoon or so gives it that nice earthiness now we're going to cook this until it thickens and it's going to begin to thicken as soon as it starts to boil then we're going to turn it off and add the rest of the ingredients okay so you know it's ready once it begins to thicken and it'll definitely coat the back of a spoon let me do it with my finger just like that it doesn't combine it stay that line stays separate it's completely ready and you'll feel it you'll feel it and your whisk get really nice and thick and it's going to continue to cook in the oven so you don't want to overcook it at this point what we're going to do is we're going to turn off the heat and we're going to temper our eggs and that just means we're going to raise the temperature by adding a little bit of this hot cream mixture into our eggs and over here I have two eggs two whole eggs and two egg yolks just give them a nice whisk and then we'll add a few spoonfuls of our hot cream in here and just mix it up and you add it to their whisking quickly and this is all off the off the fire the fire is completely turned off and then we're going to add a generous cup full of shredded parmesan that is beautiful this sauce is ready now we're just going to put it all together all right so you're going to need a big lasagna pan mine is oval shaped but you can use a traditional rectangular shape 9x13 deep dish uh pan that'll be fine what we're going to do is we're going to begin with our potatoes the first layer is going to be the potatoes the roasted potatoes and I just loosen them from the tray if you wait for them to cool down a bit then they won't you won't have to fight with them as much as I did then they just like come right off they detach from the tray on their own just like that now between each layer we're going to put grated cheese so we're doing just one layer of potato and now we're moving on to the eggplant if you have picky eaters in your home and sometimes kids they don't like eggplant you can definitely do it all potato you can do layers of all potato or you can do zucchini do the same thing as as we did the eggplant you would just brush it with olive oil after you slice it and put in the oven until it turns golden brown and that would be a fabulous option another layer of cheese and now we're going to add the meat sauce now you can make the meat sauce a day before and keep it in the refrigerator you don't even have to reheat it when you add it to the dish so it's a great make aead and you can I'm going to put the link down below for this meat sauce and all the recipes are on our website Deitra dishes.com as always and now we're going to do the FI final layer of eggplant on top layer of cheese and now our creamy Vel sauce on top to just pour it up on there and if you have any leftover cheese just sprinkle that on top so now we're going to put it in our oven and we're going to let it bake for uh 45 minutes to an hour at 375° and it'll be nice and beautiful and golden brown on top so once the musaka comes out of the oven you want to let it rest for at least 45 minutes to an hour before you cut into it so that way it kind of firms up and sets and the first piece is kind of messy so it's always for the cook look at that juicy perfectly cooked creamy cheesy everything you want in all in one dish and it feeds a big crb I'm going to take a taste of [Music] this Perfection this was my favorite dish growing up as a kid and it still is I just love it it's so good the potato is perfectly cooked the eggplant is also it adds a nice level of hardiness the meat mixture is just so good the meat sauce and the vegl nice and creamy the way it should be leave your comments down below let me know what you think let me know what else you'd like to learn how to cook the the recipe with exact measurements is always on my website www.dr dishes.com make this and let me know what everybody thinks of it and I will see you guys next time bye everyone

Channel: Dimitra's Dishes

Views: 54,006

Keywords: cooking show, greek food, greek recipes, Dimitra Khan, euro bakery and cafe, easy recipes, mussaka, musakas, eggplant, casseroles, potato, bechamel, moussaka recipe

Id: bjYsCRu5hRQ

Length: 11min 42sec (702 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 07 2016