Moussaka: Cook-Off 7

[markovitch]

According to the America's Test Kitchen episode I saw on saturday, Eggplants are actually genderless. Seed size has to do with the relative age of the fruit(?)

[Chris Amirault]

Hmmm... more support for putting the kaibosh on eggplant sex.

At a Turkish cuisine conference a few years ago (the Turks love eggplant), Paula Wolfert, the author of many cookbooks and an expert on Mediterranean cuisine said, in effect, baloney. Others I’ve consulted or read about seem to concur. In “Craig Claiborne’s The New York Times Food Encyclopedia” (Times Books, 1985), the author says he consulted a botanist who pooh poohed the sex theory saying, among other things, that an eggplant has both female and male parts.

In Paula I trust!

[torakris]

What kind of cheese is usually used with moussaka?

The Claudia Roden recipe calls for cheddar.

I can't wait to try this, probably Friday as I will going to Costco on Thursday...

Gorgeous pictures Jason!!

[Rachel Perlow]

Well maybe they're not male and female, but there were definitely two very different looking types of eggplants in that bin at the store. I don't buy the immature theory because the "male" ones were as long or longer than the "female" ones. Or, maybe they are immature, whatever, they were definitely sweeter and less seedy than the larger/rounder eggplants I'd bought in the past, so go for those.

I posted our recipe on RecipeGullet, if anyone wants to check it out, click.

[Jason Perlow]

Kris, tonight we used a very sharp grated hard sheeps milk cheese, which I think offsets the richness of the bechamel nicely. You could use Parmigiano Reggiano or a Grana Padano, Pecorino Romano or any hard sharp grating cheese. A sharp feta would probably be good too.

[Rachel Perlow]

What kind of cheese is usually used with moussaka?

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I used a sharp, peppered sheeps' milk cheese that sat too long and got pretty hard. We ground it up and used it in the breading for the eggplant cutlets, to flavor the white sauce and with bread crumbs on top. Normally, I'd use parmesean or pecorino romano or even feta, but I wanted to use up that cheese we already had -- it was excellent.

[Smithy]

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.

[kanljung]

What kind of cheese is usually used with moussaka?

The Claudia Roden recipe calls for cheddar.

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I have another Claudia Roden recipe that suggests a cheese named kefalotiri. It is apparently a greek hard sheeps milk cheese. I will have a go at finding it, but if I'm unsuccesfull, I will go for pecorino romano.

Rachel, your moussaka looks delicious!

[Carlovski]

I normally make the stuffed aubergine variation myself - making Moussaka for one is a bit of a pain, but the stuffed aubergine is a lot easier. Usually have a load of the meat sauce left (You can't really make small amounts, and Aubergines don't hold THAT much. Good just with pitta bread though (Especially as it is even better the next day)

[Rachel Perlow]

Thanks for the compliments all.

Smithy, I agree with your list about eggplant prep. They're all a PITA, requiring much attention and make the eggplant too oily. The baked cutlet technique makes for crunchy on the outside, creamy on the inside eggplant. I used to not like plain eggplant, but it is hard to not snack on these as they wait to get layered into the casserole.

Another note... Yesterday I used fresh bread crumbs for breading (had some hot dog buns to use up). Interestingly, they did not stick as well to the eggplant compared to plain, dry, store-bought crumbs. So, the eggplant slices weren't as well covered as they usually are, and they browned more too. So, if you make this, don't worry if your's aren't as browned as in my picture. And, they don't have to be totally limp after coming out of the oven. First, they will probably sit for a while until you are ready to assemble the moussaka, then they will be baked again.

Finally, if you haven't started this project yet... When you go to buy your ingredients, get an extra eggplant, especially if you can find some of those smaller ones like we did. If you have extra meat sauce and bechamel after filling your casserole, you'll be glad to have it on hand to make the papoutsakia.

[Susan in FL]

Thanks, Rachel and Jason. It's nice to see what I'll be trying to do!

Thank you too, Chufi, for your as always beautiful and inspiring photos.

[Chufi]

Usually have a load of the meat sauce left (You can't really make small amounts, and Aubergines don't hold THAT much. Good just with pitta bread though (Especially as it is even better the next day)

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I also had meatsauce (and cheesesauce) left, and made a pastagratin with that the next day. I had a bunch of basil in the fridge, chopped that up and mixed it in. Very easy, fast and delicious supper!

[Rachel Perlow]

Just for the heck of it, I costed out my recipe. One lasagna pan of moussaka cost approximately $17.75 and yields 6 servings, for a cost of around $3 per serving. The eggplants are a little expensive in the store right now, at around $2/lb. (I paid $1.79 at an ethnic grocery), the meats averaged around $3/lb at the butcher. If you are able to take advantage of store specials and when eggplant is in season it would come out less per serving.

You know, I want to suggest this to tammylc as one of her Dinner for 40s, but she needs a vegetarian alternative the her meat main course. Does anyone have a suggestion on how to make a vegetarian moussaka or what would be a complimentary vegetarian main course when moussaka is the meat option?

[Jason Perlow]

I'm thinking you could chop up TVP, cook it in the tomato sauce/onion mix, and season it with the same spices, and make the Moussaka as normal.

Also on top of the baked eggplants, you could do the turkish-style eggplant salad, seasoned with the seven spice, instead of a faux-meat layer. Or perhaps zucchini/squash/onion with tomato.

[TofuSal]

With regard to the folks who have had trouble buying fresh lamb mince (though that's not too much of a problem in the UK) when I make Shepherd's Pie, these days I always use lamb left over from a roast chopped into tiny pea-size pieces (more 'bite' than if whizzed in the processor). I got the idea from my adored HFW 'Meat' book and the results have been wonderful, especially if the meat is cooked with a reduction of some stock made from the lamb bone as well as tomato. (We enjoy this left-overs dish more than the roast dinner!) I wonder if this method would work well for Mousakka? Or would it over-power the aubergine?

As for a veggie version, I like to used finely chopped mushrooms (you need LOTS!) combined with a variety of lentils & maybe a minced vegetable like turnip in place of the meat, you need to be quite generous with the seasoning.

[Smithy]

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?

[Jason Perlow]

TVP = Textured Vegatable Protein. Often used as faux meat in vegetarian cooking, especially in asian dishes.

[Jinmyo]

Adzuki beans make a good substitute for ground meat in vegetarian dishes.

[bakezoid]

Made a moussaka last night and refrigerated it. It will be reheated for tonight's dinner.

Rachel, thanks for the Cutlet recipe ; I used it and even thought it's a PITA it's less of a PITA than in a frying pan. Based on your advice I made more than I needed. My 17-year-old son, a self-described "Big eggplant guy", loved them right out of the oven (and so did I).

Wegmans didn't have any ground lamb, so the butcher ground a leg for me and only made me buy the amount that I needed. If you have a Wegmans in your area and don't go there, shame on you! I hope the meat is not too dry. I drained off the fat, put in tomato paste, red wine and cinnamon. Layered it with the eggplant cutlets, thin sliced of potato cooked on a griddle and a bechamel made of the ususal plus some handmade ricotta and kasseri cheeses.

This was a combination of a bunch of ingredients from many of the recipes mentioned on this thread and was new for me since I ususally have no confidence without literally following a recipe. I am eager to get home tonight and try it, and to continue experimentation and learning from all of you with eGulleters.

[Jason Perlow]

Here's a peice of Moussaka after cooling and plating, ready to be reheated:

[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.

Edited April 18, 2005 by Smithy (log)

[Chris Amirault]

No apologies necessary -- that looks great! I like the partial peeling of the eggplant skin, too.

[mizducky]

I am so amazed that the ground lamb is hard for some of you guys to get, when here in  small town Florida where it is often difficult to find certain good ingredients, it's readily available in our Publix.  Any idea why that is?

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Hi Susan--I was going on the informal theory that the low availability/selection of lamb here in San Diego was a combination of relative lack of ethnic groups that are heavily into lamb, and relative lack of interest in, for lack of a better term, "foodie-ism" around here. On the face of it, those theories wouldn't explain the easy availability of ground lamb in small-town FL ... except that I have been the Publix-chain stores down there, and I gotta say they pretty much kick the booty of any of the chains here in SD. Plus ... I dunno, on my few visits to the Daytona Beach area, I got the impression that the small-town Fl matrix around that area had an overlay of retirees from the Northeast--maybe markets down there have gotten a little into catering more to the ethnic-influenced food tastes of these snowbirds? Admittedly I'm now just wildly speculating on little data here...

Well maybe they're not male and female, but there were definitely two very different looking types of eggplants in that bin at the store. I don't buy the immature theory because the "male" ones were as long or longer than the "female" ones. Or, maybe they are immature, whatever, they were definitely sweeter and less seedy than the larger/rounder eggplants I'd bought in the past, so go for those.

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I'm willing to let go of the botanically male/female concept, but agree with Rachel that, for whatever reason, there do seem to be two distinct "looks" to the American-style globe eggplants in the market, including the distinctly different looks of their blossom-end "navels." That said, a couple of what looked to be "male" eggplant I turned into baba ghanouj the other weekend still had an annoying number of seeds. So, once again, I'm clueless ... what's an eggplant "sex" fiend to do anymore?!?

You know, I want to suggest this to tammylc as one of her Dinner for 40s, but she needs a vegetarian alternative the her meat main course. Does anyone have a suggestion on how to make a vegetarian moussaka or what would be a complimentary vegetarian main course when moussaka is the meat option?

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Hi Rachel--This recipe from epicurious.com using portobello mushrooms in place of the meat looks pretty promising, though if I were doing it I'd juice up the spicing a bit with some allspice/nutmeg or the blend you use in the meat-based recipe you posted to RecipeGullet (lovely-sounding and looking recipe, by the way).

Edited April 18, 2005 by mizducky (log)

[Smithy]

I wonder if the lack of availability of lamb in San Diego is a holdover from the old Range Wars. I wouldn't have expected that to apply down there, but I know it was tough to find lamb in central California when I was growing up because of generations-old hard feelings. This may also be a factor in Texas, that staunch cattle-growing state. Fifi, what do you think?

For those of you who don't know, there was quite a prolonged land use argument - I think starting in the late 1800's and going into the early 1900's - between the cattle ranchers and sheep herders of the West. As I understand it, the principle issues were the presence or absence of fences (cattle ranchers didn't want them, sheep ranchers did) and the incompatable grazing methods of the two animals. My grandfather, who never raised either cattle or sheep, nonetheless took the side of the cattle ranchers. To his dying day, he wouldn't eat sheep in any form.

[NulloModo]

So after looking at these photos of Moussaka all day I had to get home and do my own.

I used a blend of the recipes I have seen, and just threw in some touches of my own.

I used ground beef, no lamb, as I couldn't find any and beef was an sale (can't beat $1.75 a lb for ground beef).

I roasted the slices of eggplant in the oven with a little EVOO and salt, and in a pot I fried up an onion, some garlic, 2 lbs of ground beef, the remains of a jar of tomato sauce, a can of black olives (hey, the Greeks love olives, I love olives, seemed like a good addition), and a spice blend of coriander seed, clove, cinnamon, paprika, black pepper, allspice, nutmeg, and lots of oregano.

I layered it up along with lots of mozerella cheese (decided not to go the bechamal route, just layer of eggplant, later of meat, layer of cheese, rinse, repeat, etc). I also topped it off with some parm.