Smithy

Now, for a different take on moussaka, here's what I did yesterday. I started with these ingredients, plus a few I forgot to include in the photo: 2 eggplants, a quart of canned diced tomatoes (approximately 5 tomatoes' worth), 2 onions (no reason for mixed colors - it's just what I had around), nutmeg, salt, pepper, allspice, paprika, ground coriander, and chili flakes. Not in the photo, or added later for sauce adjustments: 1-1/2 lbs ground beef, a small (14-1/2 oz) can of diced tomatoes to balance out all that meat later, and a tube of concentrated tomato paste. I think I ended up using about 2 tbsp of tomato paste concentrate to get the color I wanted. I ended up adding a pinch of cinnamon to the sauce, too, for just that right sweet note. I didn't bother taking photos of the bechamel - ingredients or cooking. I think someone upthread already said this, but I'll stress it again: moussaka isn't really all that mysterious; it's just a layered dish. You can make the layers ahead and assemble it later. When I finally saw a recipe that laid it out that way, a little light bulb went on in my head, and it all became easy. I won't bore the entire readership with the detailed photos, but if anyone wants to see more, take a look at my User album, Cooking Moussaka & Developing my Recipe. Everything has captions if you want to try following step-by-step. I hope this doesn't seem silly, putting in all this detail. Such level of detail has helped me in the past when I wasn't sure what I was trying to do. Cook the eggplant: I like the peel on eggplant, but I often find that it gets tough during cooking and tends to come out of the dish in rings. To get around that I peel the eggplant in stripes. As far as cooking the eggplant goes, see notes above. I fried mine, and the photos show the process. I think Rachel's method looks better, although mine does taste pretty good. I think my oil was a mix of canola, grapeseed, and a bit of olive oil for the flavor. I strain the oil and reuse it on other eggplant dishes, so it isn't wasted. Cook the sauce: I'm really pleased with the way mine came out. I chopped the onions fairly finely, and browned them somewhat in olive and canola oil, then added the meat and let it all brown, stirring as needed. When the meat was nearly done I drained off the excess fat, then added the seasonings and adjusted until I got the right combination of spice and heat. I think I ended up with about 1-1/2 tsp each of allspice, salt, pepper, and paprika; 3/4 tsp ground coriander, a dash of ground cinnamon and a pinch of chili flakes. Then I pitched in the quart of tomatoes (juice and all) and let it start cooking down. At some point I realized I had far more meat than necessary, and added a small can of tomatoes. Then came the tomato paste to get a more reddish color. Finally, as it all simmered, I added about 1 tbsp parsley flakes. (Fresh might be better, but I didn't have any.) I let that all sit and simmer until it was fairly thick. It had a nice heat, some definite sweet/savory spice, but wasn't overly sweet. The cinnamon is easy to overdo, IMO, but just a small shake from the spice jar added the right, er, je ne sais quoi. Make the bechamel: Any standard recipe will do. I used one that called for 4tbsp each of butter and flour, 2-1/2c hot milk, 2 beaten eggs and 1/2c grated cheese (I think I used more like a cup). That made double the amount I needed because of the pots I used, so I could have cut this in half. I'd have needed it all for a 9x13 pan, though. Assemble the dish: Start with a layer of tomato/meat sauce in the bottom, then add a layer of eggplant next. Note, these are my standard moussaka pots because they're the Egyptian moussaka tagine, but they aren't necessary for this dish. A round flat-bottomed casserole dish will work. A 9x13 baking pan will work. Individual bowls or Grab-It™ pots will work. Keep adding layers until you run out of space or layers. I like to finish with the meat sauce on top, and I think that's how it's presented in Egypt where they don't use bechamel. Some of my recipe books call for finishing with eggplant on top, and I see that's what Rachel did. I don't know how much it matters. My meat and eggplant came out exactly right for these, despite my sputterings over too much meat in the sauce. Top with the bechamel. Make a good seal with the edge of the pot. Put the dish on a drip pan before placing in the oven. Bake uncovered at 400F for around 50 minutes, until the topping is golden brown. Let it rest a bit before cutting, if you can, but serve it hot. It does make mean leftovers, and it reheats beautifully. Someday I'll get this photo adjustment business worked out. Sorry some of the photos are a bit faded. Edited to add a small step I'd forgotten.

I too was going to suggest mushrooms for the vegetarian version. My Egyptian cookbook has one stovetop moussaka recipe that doesn't use meat but does have lots of onions, pine nuts and raisins in the sauce. I haven't tried that one yet but I may before this is all done. I have my doubts about the raisins, but I think chopped nuts would do wonderfully. What is TVP?

Rachel, that looks lovely. I've been experimenting with various ways to cook the eggplant for moussaka, but your way is new to me. Here are the ways I've cooked it before: Maybe do a salt treatment, or maybe not: a. Salt the slices, let them sit in a colander for at least a half hour, then rinse and drain; or b. Soak all in a bowl of salted water, at least 1/2 hour, or a day if I'm busy and distracted; or c. Neither of the above, no salting beforehand. I've read that it isn't necessary to salt eggplant if it's going to be roasted or grilled (high-temperature treatment) but that it is necessary to salt and/or soak it to remove bitterness if it's going to be baked, as in moussaka. I haven't tested enough to agree or disagree. I've also read that salting and soaking the eggplant in water prevents it from soaking up as much oil if you choose to fry it. That does seem to work. Then cook: 1. (the low-fat way): lay the rounds on a baking sheet, brush with olive oil, and broil. This goes very, very quickly and requires rapt attention lest you burn it, but it meters the fat in a properly miserly fashion. 2. (the oilier way): fry the eggplant in 1" deep oil. I use a combination of canola and grapeseed oil, the point being to have a high smoke point. I've discovered that if the oil is hot enough the final product isn't really oily. 2a. (an Egyptian modification) my cookbook says to fry the eggplant as above, then rinse it in running water to wash off the excess oil. I haven't tried this method yet. 3. (the oiliest way): barely coat the bottom of a pan with oil, and try to saute the eggplant in it. This is the recommended method from something like The Silver Palate, because they say that eggplant is spongy so you have to be sparing with the oil, but I've never had much success with this. The eggplant always soaks up the oil, and I'm left with a choice between adding more (against recommendations) or cooking the eggplant in a dry skillet. Until recently I used method 1, broiling, but lately I've taken to doing method 2 (frying in 1" of oil), then placing the cooked eggplant between paper towels to soak up excess oil. The eggplant slices are definitely oilier than by the broiling method, but they're pretty good. I'm going to try the cutlets soon. That method sounds really good. Torakris, you can pretty much use your choice of cheeses. Tonight I mixed cheddar and kasseri because I needed to get rid of the kasseri. The kasseri is a sheepy cheese that, by itself, is a bit too sharp for my tastes, but in this sauce, with the rest of the layers, it really does well. I have a note in my cookbook where I mixed cheddar and fontina, most definitely a non-traditional mix, and I loved it. Photos and recipe to come after I have everything uploaded.

Add me to the list of people thinking, "No, really, we're reading, we just don't know what to ask or say!" Even praise along the lines of "you're awesome" or "I'm stunned" is nice to hear/read, but it doesn't necessarily generate discussion. Thanks for showing the petit fours en masse trick. I'm just a home cook with little chance of needing that, but I fantasize about making something, say, for a bake sale. That's a great trick. How do you get the layers of your cakes so incredibly thin? The joconde comes to mind, but the petit fours have multiple thin layers too. I suppose you bake them separately. How do you transfer them without breakage?

She also said clove, but it was clear she didn't want to tell us all of them. I think I detect nutmeg. Basically it is a sweet spice blend, powdered. ~~~ Thanks Smithy, great timing. It smells like the Arabian blend, but that's only five, so I'll guess it also has the cardamom and coriander seeds, I don't detect any cumin, paprika or pepper. Shout out to the Jews: It smells like the spices in the scent box at havdalah. ← I don't know the scent box at havdalah, but oh, how I love spice markets! At last, some of the grocery stores around here have little stands with packets of spices in small cellophane bags. The smell is wonderful. I think that bodes ill for the longevity of storage in those packages, but I sure do love to stand and sniff. Hmm, you think no cumin, paprika or pepper, and Jason cited a link listing all three. Looks like you two have some testing and discussion ahead!

My Egyptian cookbook doesn't list a 7-spice mixture, as such, but lists a number of typical combinations for bohar or boharaat, the spice mixture generally used in meat dishes. The author notes that the combination is as individual as the person selling it. Here are a few: "Boharat" 2T pepper, 1T coriander (seeds), 1T ground cloves, 2T cumin, 1/2t ground cardamom, 1 nutmeg grated, pinch of cinnamon; "Arabian" 2T allspice, 1T cinnamon, 2t nutmeg, 2t cloves, 1t ginger (optional) "Kuwaiti" 4t pepper, and 1t each of paprika, coriander, cumin, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, ginger, & cardamom Do those spices sound more or less like what you have, Jason?

Jackal10, those look like ramps to me. Lucky you! Edited to remove sniveling.

I am continually fascinated with the role of serendipity in science. Thanks for posting that link, Scott. It is indeed an informative and entertaining article.

I hope there's no such thing as a spitting slug! It's bad enough to lie out, listening to those things chewing dry leaves, without worrying about their spitting on me! :laugh:

Lovely, Rachel. Absolutely lovely memories, and writing about them. Maybe I'll get around to posting photos of some of my treasures. I have a few from my grandmother, and as of the last year a lot from my parents as they downsized. I'm not sure which are the absolute favorites, but here are the three that come to mind: The Wearever lemon squeezer that Mom rescued from a Navy bride about to ship back to the States. She didn't know what a treasure she had, but Mom knew a good deal when she saw one. Even though she was an Army Air Corps bride, she rescued that USN juicer. We made a lot of lemon juice and lemon meringue pies when I was growing up, and it's in almost constant use around my house now. My grandmother's Wearever aluminum pot set. It has two cookpots that mate together to make a roaster, a lid that fits either pot, and a flat steamer insert that will fit either pot or fit between the two if they're mated. The bottom of one pot pooches up in the middle so it doesn't sit level, and water put into it tends toward the outside; the bottom of the other pot pooches out so the pot rocks on the burner. But that set cooked green beans of proper southern style - breaking every rule in the current cookbooks (except perhaps Southern cookbooks) by cooking too long, turning the beans army drab, and so forth - and the beans were meltingly tender, unctuous, and good. My cousin-by-marriage followed Nana around the kitchen more than once, taking notes, trying to work out how to cook those beans. I asked for, and got, the pot set after Nana passed on to Heaven's Kitchen, hoping the pots were somehow the secret. Nobody has managed the trick. A few years ago, Mom and Dad were visiting me here in Minnesota, and I pulled out the pot set to start dinner. Dad looked at the pot and said, "I remember when Mom got those." They were the hostess gift Nana had received for throwing a Wear-ever party - forerunner to the Tupperware parties of later years. Dad was 10 at the time. That makes these pots 75 years old. I cherish them. The Ovenshire pot set that my grandparents gave my parents some decades back. Until recently I thought it had been a wedding present, but Mom has corrected me on that; it only dates back to the late 1940's or early-to-mid 1950's. It's pretty heavy. My sister thinks it's cast aluminum. There are some photos of it in action in the braising labs. The lid doubles as a skillet. Neither the pot nor its skillet lid has a handle; what they have instead is a spot to insert the handle, so both the pot and skillet-lid are oven proof. The handle is made of bakelite and metal. You'd swear that squiggly thing couldn't manage to hold onto the pot in question, but in all these years I've only dropped something once. That set was the main cooking utensil in our house for years, until Mom got an electric skillet and, eventually, "better" cookware. Then the set went into the camp kit, where it served us well for more years. When I moved out, Mom gave it to me, where I used it until I hooked up for far too long with a snooty boyfriend who didn't like that beat-up set. (That should have been a big clue to me, but I was younger and dumber then.) By that time Mom and Dad were seeing the continent in a travel trailer, so they took the set back. Recently I reclaimed it yet again when they downsized and sold the trailer. I don't know how old it is for sure, but I'm quite sure it dates back to the mid-1950's at the latest. I have higher-tech cookware, and it serves its purpose well, but this is the stuff with memories.

I am absolutely gobsmacked by all this. It's so beautiful, and so detailed, and I keep thinking how long it takes me to assemble a simple casserole, much less make it look pretty. Do you know, if I were confronted with that wonderful mosaic of pastries, I'd dither in indecision until either (a) I died of starvation or (b) someone in line behind me throttled me. Which one to take? They all look so good! But how can I break any of those lines and wreck the mosaic??? Ah, me, it's beautiful stuff. OK, enough praise. Now for a practical question from a non-professional: what's in those joconde-wrapped minis? More specifically, what's joconde?

That's kinda the feeling I had about the recommendation, but I wanted to hear more from a local. Thanks.

I'll play. Here are my guesses: Djeghlelou bsal Tomatiche: Escargot with onions and tomatoes, tomatoes making the main sauce constituent. Djeghelou b'zaatar: Escargot with zaatar as the main seasoning - I suppose in a lemony or buttery sauce? At first I thought boudjeghelou bel qedid would be escargot with flour, i.e. coated and fried, but now I've remembered that flour is daqiq - consonants reversed. New escargot?? No clue here. I'm still trying to get my throat wrapped around 'djeghlelou'. It's something to practice while I'm driving, so nobody has to listen to me. Competent Arabic speakers may feel free to laugh at my guesses. This is fun, even as I blush. Edited when I remembered the word for 'flour'.

I wonder if this is what my husband and I encountered recently, even though we didn't think of burnt rubber. We tried a bottle of Long Neck red of some sort - Shiraz, I think - and it was so incredibly bad I took it back to the store. The replacement bottle was just as bad, so I got my money back. The smell reminded me of stale cigarette smoke, and the flavor had the same thing, but far more strongly. I imagine that if you were to douse a bunch of burning cigarettes in water, then pour that water into your wine and drink it, you'd have the flavor. Russ said it tasted like the janitor was leaving the winery anyway and decided to empty the spittoon into the vat. It was nasty, totally undrinkable stuff. Granted, Long Neck is an inexpensive wine, but I'll never try their stuff again. Does it sound like this is the same South African thing y'all are talking about?

It's the same in Levantine Arabic. Cute, I never thought of that. ← In Egypt, I've learned that "silk" means "wire". Wouldn't that be confusing in the souk?

Mussaka is also made in Egypt. It doesn't include potatoes or bechamel sauce, although I usually add the bechamel anyway. Thanks, Chris! I think this changes my cooking plans for the weekend.

A friend recommended Durgin Park in the Quincy Marketplace to me today. He says it will be a "memorable experience" more for the atmosphere (crotchety old waiters and a 200-year-old tradition) than for the food, but that the food is decent for a reasonable price. Sounds amusing if I had longer to stay, maybe, but I might be reading too much into it. He used the words "legendary" and "must go". Opinions, anyone?

Yes, dramatically more than 'normal'. But I didn't want to whine about considering where most of you are. cg ps my husband and I secretly dream of farming in the northern prarie so we would REALLY get 4-5 months off every year. We harvest and sell 52 weeks a year. ← BWAAHAHAHA! Go say that on the Heartland forum or the gardening forum. I dare you! Up here, seed catalogs generate more panting desire than Victoria's Secret and Playboy/girl combined. But seriously, I understand. Dad grew oranges (and for a while, grapes) in Central California. Vacations had to be planned carefully, and with the help of good friends to cover for each other during absences.

More or less the same here in Rhode Island. My thyme is getting going, but my two rosemary bushes seem to be kaput.... ← I've managed to keep one thyme and one rosemary alive this winter, despite the best predations of my cats. The rosemary is spindly from lack of light, despite being in a south-facing window with a grow light, and the thyme is spindly from lack of soil because the cats keep playing in it (they killed the larger one, sleeping atop that wonderful-smelling greenery) but by golly, they survived. I figure in another month I'll be able to move them outside again. I just remembered that the burnet outside is sprouting - not ready for harvest, but I can tell it's going. I'm still waiting to see whether the sorrel made it another winter. I can hardly wait for sorrel again!

Dishwashers are wonderful things. I will say, however, that most of those prep bowls get rinsed and set on a rack - or a kitchen towel when I'm really lazy - to drain until dry. It's not much of a cleanup problem.

You've had too much rain, haven't you?

Assuming that that is not a rhetorical question -- and of course it should not be! -- the answer is that one can never have enough 1 c containers with lids that snap shut. Think of the uses! Which is to say, ought you not collect both yogurt cups and cute little ramekins? Yogurt cups for daily use, and ramekins for company! ← I like the way you think. If I could figure out a good hiding place for the yogurt cups that might work, but right now there's no place for them without dislodging the ramekins from their hiding spot. Our usual plastic reusable container cupboard is already overflowing with the larger, generally more useful sized containers. Throwing out the occasional yogurt cup seems a small price to pay for domestic tranquility. I should add that the brand of yogurt I generally has a flimsy lid that falls apart at the drop of a lemon, so they aren't that great for refrigerator and freezer storage. I learned this the hard way.

Yeah, when I first started getting serious about my mise-en-place, back when I was first teaching myself how to do a proper stir-fry, having a flotilla of little bowls became key. Those itty bitty Pyrex bowls, the ones my mom used for instant pudding when I was a kid, are just perfect for most small items like yer garlic and other aromatics. For the larger-volume items, I wind up pressing into service all sorts of random bowls and containers, so that eventually my flotilla looks pretty motley--especially when I start creatively stacking some of the bowls because I'm running out of counter space. ← That sounds a lot like me. The little glass bowls - bless my sister for starting me on these - work really well. I usually end up breaking out the soup bowls, mixing bowls, everything else as well. For a time I saved those little plastic cups that yogurt comes in. They were perfect, but as the population of plastic containers boomed in our household they had to go. I see Chris has weighed in while I was writing. OK, I confess, needing an excuse at the yard sales and cool kitchen shops was the other reason I stopped saving yogurt cups. Why save plastic yogurt cups when you've always wanted an excuse for cute little ramekins?

I am a horribly, terribly disorganized cook. With few exceptions, the only way I can pull a dish together - especially if I'm working from a cookbook - is to have everything out, diligently chopped and measured, and ready to go. I *know* I should be able to mince the garlic while I'm sweating the onions. But if I count on doing that, something will come up: the dog will decide he has to go out now (which means the cats have to come in), or I'll realize that I forgot to cut the basil and have to go outside to get it just when the sauce is thickening, or I'll get to the "add broth" stage and realize it's still in the freezer. Even with the advance prep, I manage somehow to take up every square inch of counter space and then some, with chopped prepped things mixed up among the stuff waiting to be prepped, and a jar of spice toppled over into the sink. I've been thinking I need to start a thread titled "how can I use my space more efficiently?" but I'm still working on an adequate description of my kitchen flailings so it could be useful for critique. It's worst when I'm trying to follow a recipe I've never made. Let me hear a piece of music only a few times, and I can play it for you. Let me read a recipe a dozen times, and I'll still have to read it, step by painful step, ingredient by ingredient, when I actually make it the first (and maybe second) time. "Let's see...3 cloves minced garlic, 1 tbsp cumin, 1 tsp salt, pinch of pepper..." <starts mincing> <walks back over to the cookbook> "Was that 1 tsp salt or 1 tbsp salt?" <measures> <walks back to the cookbook> "Gaah. Was that 1/4 tsp pepper or a pinch of cayenne?" It's mayhem even with the prep. Without the prep we'd advance to full-blown bedlam.

I'm in northern Minnesota, quite close to Lake Superior, and our temperatures are still often below freezing at night. The snow is finally gone in most places, but there's still a lot of ice on the lakes. My grass is only beginning to think about turning green. The buds on the birches and maples will do their magic act and unfurl into leaves in about a month. The only thing I have sprouting so far is my chives...but they're coming up! Yahoo! Our farmer's markets also don't open until May sometime, and there won't be much worth eating there until June.