Eggplant Casserole “Moussaka” Recipe
Hey! Guys welcome back to Dede’s Mediterranean kitchen. Today, I’m going to be making a dish that’s truly Mediterranean called Moussaka. The word Moussaka is actually an Arabic word that means chilled or cooled. It’s a very popular dish. It’s made in Greece. It’s made in Turkey. It’s made in Lebanon. It’s made all over the Mediterranean. There are a lot of variations of the dish but Stan would be making a vegetarian version that’s really good, really simple, and really fast.
Remember, if you want the written out recipe for this video, go to www.dedemed.com. While you’re there, you can also join my social network and chat with other viewers who share their comments and share their views of all kinds of recipes. Now, let’s get started.
What we’re going to start off with are the eggplants. I have about 10 Italian eggplants that I sliced up into three pieces each, three slivers. I tossed them with a little bit of olive oil, some salt. I roasted them in the oven at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes until they’re nice and tender and had a little bit of brown color.
I have about five Roma tomatoes. I like using the Roma tomatoes because they have less juice and less seeds. I have some fresh parsley. I have a Serrano chili. I have some sliced up garlic. I have some sliced up onions. I have some seasoned bread crumbs, some Romano cheese, chickpeas, tomato sauce, salt and pepper and we’re going to put this together.
I have a pan on medium high heat. I’m going to put about three tablespoons of olive oil. And then in this, I’m going to put the onions and the garlic until they’re nice and tender. And then I’m going to add the chickpeas or garbanzo beans. Let this go for about five minutes and we’re going to add the garbanzo beans.
The onions have become a little bit more tender and they’re actually picking up some color. And you could smell the wonderful smell of the garlic and the onions. I’m going to add the chickpeas. And then let this go for another five minutes. Our onions and our garlic are all tender and our garbanzo beans are cooked now. We’re going to assemble the dish.
So we sauted everything. I just want to chop up the fresh parsley. It has a lot of great flavor to the dish. Now Moussaka, some people make it with a tomato meat sauce and a bechamel sauce which is like a white sauce. There’s a lot of different variations on it. Some people like to add some zucchini. The basic ingredients are the tomatoes and the eggplant. And then you can add all kinds of stuff to it. If you want, you can add peppers, you can add mushrooms, zucchini, there you go. If you want a nice and big dish so when you layer it, you’re can be able to see the nice layers. I want to put some of the bread crumbs on the bottom.
So you remember that I did put salt on the eggplant. So I want to add too much salt to the dish. Just layer the eggplant just like that. I want to do a couple of layers. About two layers probably, just like that. I’m going to get the tomatoes. A little bit of the parsley, a little bit of pepper. Put a little bit of salt, just a sprinkle. Some of the chickpeas and the onions. Chickpeas have proteins. So if you’re not going to use a meat, it’s good to have a chickpeas in there. Just like that. We’ll put some of the tomato sauce on top. This is just a 15 ounce can of plain tomato sauce.
And then we’re going to do the layers again. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees and we’re going to cook this for about 35 minutes until all the ingredients and all the flavors blend up nicely. Just fit all your eggplant in there. I love eggplant. It’s a healthy dish. And if you have friends coming over, you can prepare ahead of time because again the name is Moussaka. So it can be served chilled. I’m going to put some of our parsley just like that, a little bit of salt. A little bit of pepper. Put the rest of our chickpeas and onions, and garlic.
If you don’t like Romano cheese then you can use any kind of cheese that you like. I like using Romano cheese. You can use Parmesan. I have the bread crumbs here. I’m going to add the cheese to it and I like to add the Serrano chilis. Now if you don’t like any spiciness or hotness, you don’t have to add any. I remove the seeds because that makes it a little bit less hot and spicy or if you like, you can just add more.
I’m going to mix the bread crumbs and the cheese up just like that and we’re going to top it. I like to layer with this and then I’m going to put some of the tomato sauce. Keep the bread crumbs moist and I’m going to put a little bit more of bread crumbs on top of that. I’m going to finish this up, put it in the oven and I’ll see you in a second.
Our Moussaka is done. I took it out of the oven and I let it sit for about 15 minutes before I cut. I want you to look at it and how pretty is. The bread crumbs got nice and toasty on top. Just like that. I want to cut it up. It really doesn’t keep as warm. There’s really no form to it. So if your pieces aren’t perfect, it’s okay. It doesn’t matter. I can smell the chili that’s in there.
If you don’t like spicy food again, you don’t have to put spicy, anything spicy in here. I’m going to clean it up in a nice dish. It’s really colorful so if you use a white dish, you can see the layers in there. And all the juices got absorbed by the bread crumbs but I want you to see this. Look at that. You can see the layers of the eggplant, the parsley. It’s really pretty. I’m going to grab a fork, now I taste this. It’s kind of still hot but I want to give a little bit of taste. You can just serve this by yourself. If you want, you make some chicken breast with it or some steak even. You’re really going to like this. I promise you, it’s great, it’s wonderful. Give it a try. I can taste the chili, the spiciness, it’s great.
Try it, e-mail me, let me know if you have any questions. If you want this recipe, go to my website, www.dedemed.com and join me again.
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