Moussaka and tzatziki are both Greek culinary trademarks. Moussaka is an eggplant – potato based dish. A beloved recipe with multi versions. My favorite is a vegetarian recipe without ground meat and light custard cream. The most famous version of the dish today appeared in the 1920’s with the publishing of Nikolaos Tselemente’s, the first culinary book in Greece.
GREEK VEGETARIAN MOUSSAKA
KALI OREXI! ENJOY! BON APPETIT! GUTEN APPETIT! ХОРОШИЙ АППЕТИТ! 好的应用
INGREDIENTS
FOR 6-8 PEOPLEFor vegetables
- 1 ½ kg eggplant
- 4 ripe tomatoes
- 4 potatoes
- ½ cup of fresh mint leaves chopped
- ½ cup of olive oil
For cream
- 1 lt fresh milk
- 150g fine semolina
- 150gr grated Greek gruyere
- 2 organic eggs
- 2 t.s.of bread crumbs
- Salt
- Pepper
IMPLEMENTATION
Preparation Time: 1h - Cooking Difficulty: DifficultFor cream
In a saucepan, warm the milk to low heat.As soon as it boils, add semolina, stirring constantly until the cream starts to thicken.
Mix the eggs and add grated cheese. Remove the mixture of milk from the fire and add the mixture of eggs and cheese stirring constantly. Add pepper and salt.
For vegetables
Cut the eggplants to slices of a thickness 1 cm, salt them and leave them for 20′-30 ‘on a strainer. Rinse them thoroughly, drain them out of the water and wipe them with a cloth to let the moisture go.
Grease a pan with olive oil and put the eggplant slices in a single layer.Grease lightly the eggplant and salt them. Bake them in the oven grill for 10 minutes.Remove them from the oven and let them cool.
Cut potatoes in slices and fry them. Put them in a tray with absorbent paper to drain the oil.Cut the tomatoes into thin circular slices.
Grease a baking pan, put a layer of potatoes, continue with a layer of eggplant and over a layer of tomato. Sprinkle chopped mint and repeat the process with eggplant, tomato and mint. The last layer of moussaka must be eggplant.
Add the cream over the eggplants and sprinkle with bread crumbs.Bake in a preheated oven at 200 ° C for 20 -25 minutes until the surface of our cream gets colored .
Tip
Salting helps the eggplants to be less bitter and not absorb oil during cooking.
Andriana’s wine proposal
TSIGELLO FROM ROUVALIS WINERYMavrodaphne means “Black laurel” and Tsigello is the most qualitative clone of variety.
Mavrodaphne is an indigenous old variety, which used to grow in the northwestern Peloponnese. I propose a dry version, that earned a score of 92/100 from Decanter Magazine.
This wine has a vibrant violet color and a full red fruits, laurel and greek herbs aromatic profile.
It matches perfectly with eggplants and tomato sauces.
DELVE INTO THE TASTE OF GREEK GASTRONOMY
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