Moussaka: Cook-Off 7

[Mabelline]

I am just knocked out by the beauty of everybody's efforts. I am definitely going with Rachel's method of treating the eggplant cutlet-style --it's apparent that no joke, you'd want to knosh those straight from the oven. Smithy, those pics are beautiful, and I adore those casseroles. Nullo's looks like it's very " happy tummy stuff"! I am glad I made mine, as well. DH took the leftovers with him for the other guys at the station tonight; we have 6-12" of snow coming in fast, and that always makes for busy time. The venison mixed with some pork sausage worked well.

It's quite funny about the cattle-sheep thing; I reckon what goes around, comes around--for these days, many cattle ranchers run sheep as well--to clear an alien invasive plant called leafy spurge--sheep can and will clear it up; cattle hate it for it burns their mouth (s?).

I used venison basically because I am needing to make freezer room for a piggy we are welcoming the end of this month--should be right about breakin' the Q- fasting time.Happy dance

Edited April 18, 2005 by Mabelline (log)

[Susan in FL]

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... 

Thanks for the mini-side-discussion! You could very well be right about Publix, and possibly attempts to cater to the food tastes of the snowbirds. Maybe sometimes I don't give enough credit to Publix, where it is due. It really is a good chain. Not only do they carry lamb in various cuts including ground, but they carry duck, goose, and quail! It's better than grocery shopping was for us in Delaware.

Speaking of Delaware, wow NulloModo, that looks GOOD!

[Smithy]

Mabelline, did you manage to take photos before the leftovers went away? I'm really enjoying seeing everyone's photos. I've decided not to bother with the stovetop moussaka I was going to make with my other eggplants; they're just begging to be made into Rachel's cutlets.

I've been thinking venison would work well here too, but I was too lazy to grind any.

Edited to add: Mabelline, if it isn't too far off-topic, can you tell me how the ranchers are keeping the sheep together? I thought that was the reason for the fencing.

Edited April 19, 2005 by Smithy (log)

[Mabelline]

Smithy, I have still not figured my little digital camera out yet in order to post photos, but it's funny, the other day I determined to seriously apply myself to read up and try all the advice from the eG tutorial about photos (where is the ashamed hang your head-down emoticon when you need it?). But I shall have some photo montages when I gather up all my ducks and get them goose-stepping.

No, I sure didn't take pictures of my effort, but it was mostly because I am staying off my leg.

You were pretty much right on about your perception about the old days and sheepraising. A lot of the animosity had deeper underlying causes, such as the 'bobwire', sectioning off open-range, land-grabbing by the bigtime outfits, small landholders trying to raise something the bigtime outfits bruited as range destroyers--browse feeders versus grazers.

Nowadays, for the most part, most of the land's spoken for, or leased, and if not actually fenced, you are in deep trouble if you attempt to use anyone's without paying in one of several ways. Trying to not go severely offtopic and although my answer is simplistic...the folks I spoke about will run sheep and cattle in different areas at different times. There is no longer an onus attached to raisin' woolies.

I'll pm you if you want me to. Oh, one last question: are your casseroles old ? They are beauties.

[fifi]

Heh heh. The lamb problem. I ran into that with the other cook-off. I really want to do this one but will probably go for a beef substitute. It might be a cultural bias. Not so many years ago the monastery near the country place ran some sheep as well as the cattle. When we would go visit (they were all friends) my dad would mutter under his breath "(expletive deleted) prairie maggots."

It is only in the past few years that finding lamb here was possible at all, except for a few specialty shops. I remember that my dad wouldn't let it in the house. A lot of his buddies that also served in the South Pacific during WWII got fed a lot of mutton. He never touched anything that ever went BAAAA again. Then we started seeing more immigrants that have lamb as part of their cooking heritage. I only ran into moussaka at the one Greek restaurant here (then) about 20 years ago.

Now, this is not a dish I eat that often but I don't recall ever having it with potatoes in it. Odd.

[Jason Perlow]

Now, this is not a dish I eat that often but I don't recall ever having it with potatoes in it. Odd.

Virtually all of the Greek restaurants and Greek diners in the NY Tri-state area serve it with potatoes in it. It might be a New York thing, but its definitely authentic to several parts of Greece including Macedonia.

[Dejah]

I made my moussaka for our supper tonight. Instead of salting and frying up the sliced eggplant, I followed Rachel's recipe for eggplant cutlets. I will echo the fact that it is hard not to gobble them up as they wait to be put into the moussaka.

I wanted to use ground bison, but the family wanted lamb as is our tradition. Couldn't find any ground lamb so I used 8 shoulder llamb chops, trimed and ground it myself. I used 2 large tomatoes, chopped red onion, parsley, and garlic, tomato sauce, red wine, nutmeg, cinnamon, ground coriander, cumin salt and pepper.

The filling was really good! I used a combination of grated parmesan and leftover feta in the cheese layer. The bechamel sauce had butter, milk, cream and 3 egg yolks.

The house smelled pretty good while it was baking! I kept peeking to make sure the top was browning.

As sides, I cut up some turnip into thin slices, doused them with evoo, some salt, Cajun seasoning and baked them along with the moussaka. We pretended they were fries. Also had some asparagus and a salad with feta and balsamic dressing.

Here is a close up of the moussaka. I think it could have used a little more sauce, but the flavour was great! I am happy that I made the eggplant cutlets.

The recipe was a combination of suggestions here, an old book called Eastern Mediterranean Cooking by Roger Basque, and a book called Winners by a group of bridge players in Calgary, Alberta. And, because I love mint with lamb, I had lots of fresh mint with mine!

Thanks for jogging my memory to make this dish again!

[lovebenton0]

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.

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well, not fifi here but as another Texan i can say we have a lot of lamb available in the Austin area, all year round. legs, shoulders occasionally (which are a damn good deal, last one i got was .99/lb), chops and frenched. used to be more imported NZ lamb, but the TX lamb has taken over the majority of the market in the last year or so in this area.

for ground lamb, personally i prefer to buy a leg o' lamb, or a half leg, and grind it myself in food processor. but then i've started doing that with all meat i want ground and have to say we really appreciate the difference.

now i just have to get a little leg to use for some moussaka. so hungry for it after reading through this cook-off.

[fifi]

The fact that it is more generally available in Austin is really interesting, Judith. But then, Austin is a "whole 'nother country." I have yet to find shoulder here even in the well stocked groceries like a big HEB. I suppose I could go into the city to a Whole Foods or Central Market but that is a bit of a trek.

I am sold on the eggplant cutlets a la Rachel. I may do that just to eat the cutlets and skip the moussaka altogether. It kind of reminds me of my recipe for oven fried eggplant. The stuff is worse than potato chips.

Currently I am suffering from cheese confusion. Help.

[TongoRad]

OK, I'm a little late to the party but I'm here!

I'm definitely going to make the version I alluded to in my earlier post but I just managed to borrow a mandoline yesterday. I've got all of the ingredients ready and will do it tonight or tomorrow.

I have been thinking about possible problems with this method and have come to the conclusion to take my cue directly from what I remember having at the restaurant. Translation: "that's really good, but kinda skimpy". I think that if I pile the veggies, meat mixture, and then bechamel too high the vegetables may not cook the way I want them to (which is just beyond al dente, but still with some texture) or it will take too long and start to burn around the edges. So smaller layers will probably work in my favor.

I'll keep you posted...

[Smithy]

.... Oh, one last question: are your casseroles old ? They are beauties.

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Thanks. They aren't old at all; I bought them in Luxor, Egypt sometime in the last 5 years. I think they're an old tradition, though. More than once, my husband has gotten excited about finding old broken pots out in the desert, taken detailed notes on them, only to find the exact pots (unbroken) in the souks in town! (Potsherds are not his area of expertise.)

It's really fun to see all the different takes on moussaka in this cook-off, and they all look delicious. Even this early in the morning, I'm thinking about getting into my leftovers.

Fifi, with regard to the cheese, I think it's as personal as the cook. I don't recall ever having something as tangy as feta with the moussaka I had in Greece, long long ago, nor in Greek restaurants since. In Egypt they don't use cheese at all. I've been happiest with a combination of cheddar and fontina (most untraditional) in my bechamel sauce. I've never heard of parmesan in moussaka before now either, but with my fontina I'm hardly going to knock it. We know parmesan cheese and eggplant go well together. I think you need to pick what you like and call it "Texas-style Moussaka".

Edited to add: I just checked my old copy of "Classic Greek Cooking" (1974, Nitty Gritty Productions) and it lists parmesan cheese for its sauce. So much for my memory! They use these proportions in their moussaka sauce: 1/4c. butter, 2T flour, 2c. milk, 4 eggs, 1/2c. Parmesan cheese, 1/2 tsp salt, dash of pepper.

They also puts eggs in their meat sauce.

Edited April 19, 2005 by Smithy (log)

[NulloModo]

I still have lot of leftovers from my first round of Moussaka, but I am already thinking about a potential second batch.

'The Smoked Joint', a BBQ place in Philly which has been gettings lots of attention on the local eG board lately, serves up a smoked eggplant babbaganoush as one of their apps. I'm wondering if I could do a smokey Moussaka somehow.

I could toss a small pork shoulder and the eggplant slices into the smoker, and maybe use a dry rub with some of the moussaka spices on the pork, the cinnamon, coriander, oregano, etc. I could always use smoked gouda for cheese, but that might just be smoke overload, perhaps something really tangy to cut the smoke flavor might be good for the cheese there. Then again, maybe the whole idea is too bizarre.

[TongoRad]

NulloModo:

Your idea sounds interesting but there may be a couple of hurdles for you to overcome. The first is getting any smoke character into the eggplant slices via the smoker- they probably won't be in there too long before getting too mushy, and there is no fat (I find that lean meats or non-oily fish don't smoke up too well.) Maybe you could poke the slices with a fork and rub some olive oil onto them, penetrating the holes.

I've been trying to perfect my babaghanous recipe over the past few months and I'll tell you that you don't need a smoker to get a really smoky characteristic into the eggplant. But you also wind up with an amorphous blob when you're done, not suitable for a casserole. You may have to settle for slightly smoky slices, and derive a lot of that flavor from the pork.

Also- make sure your cheese is genuinely smoked. Some brands just take regular cheese and apply liquid smoke to the outside, which could lend a bit of harshness.

Other than that, go for it- and good luck!

[Tepee]

Here's mine. I had a feeling that this will not be well-received. DH hated the cheese (Romano...coz the only cheese he'll take is cheddar and cream cheese). DD#2 doesn't dig the eggplants. Sigh. Made with beef. I salted and drained the eggplants, then pan-fried. Personally, I thought it was good.

[NulloModo]

Doesn't like Romano? What's wrong with him?

It looks pretty darn tasty to me.

[Tepee]

I kid you not! He says it smells like puke!

[ellencho]

Some aged cheeses like romano, or parm have sort of a vomity smell. I've noticed that the smell comes out even stronger when the cheese has been heated up in some sort of sauce.

[dant]

I won't have time to make this till the weekend either. The best Moussaka I've had was round the corner from where I live in London, a Greek Cypriot place called Tziakos (pronounced Chackos) It used to be run by a couple of old ladies and had decades of nic-nacs, farm implements, tobacco smoke festooned around the walls and ceiling. The thing to have was mixed metzes for about £8 ($12) There were umpteen delicious courses. The final course was a large piece of kleftico lamb which was usually impossible to actually eat. They were very good about putting it in a take-away container for you to have the next day. Among all these courses was moussaka. It was very solid with straight sides. I don't think there was any cheese in the bechemel sauce. I don't remember potato, just thick cut aubergine that left that metalic colour that aubergine imparts on the bechemel sauce. They didn't make it with raw minced lamb they used cooked lamb chopped up. Probably from all the klefticos people didn't eat.

Once they served one that was a tiny bit mouldy, but it was so damn tasty I just cut the mould off and ate the rest!

Anyway, that's what I'm going to try and reproduce, but without the mould.

[Smithy]

Dant, now you've got me cracking open my Greek cookbook and drooling, and wondering when I can cook some of its other recipes. Your description sounds delicious, so don't disappoint us! My cookbook, by the way, is "Classic Greek Cooking", 1974, and it lists three recipes for moussaka: Eggplant Moussaka, Zucchini Moussaka (just a variation on the eggplant) and Beef and Potato Moussaka. I have to wonder why it took me so darned long to clue in that moussaka is just a layered baked dish.

I noted in an edit to a previous post, but I'll say it again here, that this book calls for Parmesan cheese in its moussaka sauces. I hadn't remembered that. I wonder why my other cookbooks call for cheddar? I still think it's pretty much up to the cook.

[dant]

Quick question??? How many of youall slice, salt, then rise and drain your eggies?

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... I also only buy what I've been told were male eggplants (no indentation at the base) bc they supposedly have fewer seeds. Anecdotal evidence, always tricky, bears out the effectiveness of these two techniques, but I'd be interested to know what people think.

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Shouldn't male aubergines contain NO seeds??

[mizducky]

The quest for ground lamb continues. I came close two different times today, but as they say, "close" only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. At least I'm getting to explore some interesting stores I had not checked out previously. Rather than burden this topic with the details of these slightly off-topic adventures, I think I'll start a whole other topic in the California forum or something. But suffice it to say here: one of the shops actually yielded up a packet of that seven-spice mixture featured in Rachel Perlow's recipe; and the other place, a for-reals butcher shop, said they'd have some freshly-ground lamb in tomorrow. So I am closing in on my prey ...

Yeah, I know I can make this dish with ground beef. But where's the fun in that? Besides, by this point my Quest for Lamb has taken on the aura of a Sacred Food-Geek Mission! I shall not be denied!! I shall yet succeed in making my neighborhood safe for lovers of fresh-ground lamb everywhere!!!

[Susan in FL]

The quest for ground lamb continues. I came close two different times today, but as they say, "close" only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. At least I'm getting to explore some interesting stores I had not checked out previously. Rather than burden this topic with the details of these slightly off-topic adventures, I think I'll start a whole other topic in the California forum or something. But suffice it to say here: one of the shops actually yielded up a packet of that seven-spice mixture featured in Rachel Perlow's recipe; and the other place, a for-reals butcher shop, said they'd have some freshly-ground lamb in tomorrow. So I am closing in on my prey ...

Yeah, I know I can make this dish with ground beef. But where's the fun in that? Besides, by this point my Quest for Lamb has taken on the aura of a Sacred Food-Geek Mission! I shall not be denied!! I shall yet succeed in making my neighborhood safe for lovers of fresh-ground lamb everywhere!!!

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You go girl, we are behind you all the way!

(I love your attitude!)

[purplewiz]

'The Smoked Joint', a BBQ place in Philly which has been gettings lots of attention on the local eG board lately, serves up a smoked eggplant babbaganoush as one of their apps.  I'm wondering if I could do a smokey Moussaka somehow.

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When I'm doing moussaka or "eggplant lasagna", I tend to lightly oil my eggplant and then cook them outside on the grill. While it doesn't have that true smoked flavor of smoked meats, it does pick up that unmistakable grilled/smoked flavor. It's my favorite way of precooking eggplant, and if I get my act together and join in this cookoff, it's how I'm going to be doing the eggplant.

Marcia.

[suzilightning]

moussaka for dinner tonight - and john enjoyed it.

a mix of the Recipezaar and rosemary barron recipes heavily modified since johnnybird will not eat lamb and i don't care for aubergines.

2 small zucchini sliced on the bias

2 russet potatoes boiled with the skins on

meat layer

olive oil

1 chopped onion

4 cloves garlic sliced

1 lb ground buffalo

1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp allspice

1 1/2 Tbsp oregano

1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley

1/4 cup tomato paste

1 tomato peeled and chopped

1 1/2 cups beef broth

salt and pepper

topping

2 1/3 Tbsp butter

2 1/3 Tbsp flour

1 cup milk

1 tsp grated nutmeg

1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

2 eggs, lightly beaten

white pepper

scrub the potatoes and then boil for 30 minutes in the jackets. drain, run under cold water then set aside.

saute the onions in the olive oil. add garlic then meat. cook till no longer red

add the spices and cook about 1 minute. add tomato paste, beef broth, tomato and salt and pepper. bring to a boil then turn down and simmer for 30-45 minutes.

turn oven to 350F.

grease a casserole dish. peel potatoes and thinly slice. place in casserole dish. sprinkle lightly with salt. top with meat layer. top with the zucchini.

make bechemel by melting butter, add flour and cook, stirring for one minute. stir milkin and cook on medium until thick. add nutmeg. remove from heat and stir in eggs then cheese. add white pepper to taste.

bake for one hour, rotating halfway through.

we served with a radish and cucumber salad

[suzilightning]

The quest for ground lamb continues. I came close two different times today, but as they say, "close" only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. At least I'm getting to explore some interesting stores I had not checked out previously. Rather than burden this topic with the details of these slightly off-topic adventures, I think I'll start a whole other topic in the California forum or something. But suffice it to say here: one of the shops actually yielded up a packet of that seven-spice mixture featured in Rachel Perlow's recipe; and the other place, a for-reals butcher shop, said they'd have some freshly-ground lamb in tomorrow. So I am closing in on my prey ...

Yeah, I know I can make this dish with ground beef. But where's the fun in that? Besides, by this point my Quest for Lamb has taken on the aura of a Sacred Food-Geek Mission! I shall not be denied!! I shall yet succeed in making my neighborhood safe for lovers of fresh-ground lamb everywhere!!!

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miz- wish i could send you some(especially since the johnnybird won't eat it and he's around for a bit now ). i'm lucky to have a local butcher (open weds-sat to the public) who will freshly grind whatever lamb i need - happily and with a big smile.... guess that makes up for the freakin traffic around here - and trying to get in or out of their parking lot.