Serves: 4-6
Approx cost: €7.50
Approx calories (per serving): ~500
Approx preparation and cooking time: 60 minutes
I’ve never done much cooking with lamb – in fact it’s one of the things which I’ve really started using within the past 7 years so, since I’ve been living in France. Minced lamb is next to impossible to find in France so it was with no small amount of happiness that I placed an order for a whole kilo of the stuff from an English store online. So there I was with a rather large bag of lamb mince, and no specific plan for it.
Moussaka, I thought, would be a good idea and then I had the realisation that I still don’t have a functioning oven – grr! Well, they say that necessity is the mother of all invention so I found a way around this little obstacle, though I’ve written the recipe below assuming that you have an oven… or at the very least a grill. Much like a lasagna, but with aubergine instead of pasta, the moussaka has plenty of opportunities to be unhealthy – piled high with cheese, drenched in oil – I’ve done my best to make this as “light” as possible and the final calorific content is actually pretty low! Enjoy 🙂
Ingredients
For the meat sauce
– 500g Minced Lamb
– 1 large Onion
– 5 or 6 cloves of Garlic
– 2 x 400g tins of crushed Tomatoes
– 2 tbsps Tomato Concentrate
– 1 tsp Olive Oil
– 2 tsps ground Cinnamon
– 2 tsps ground Coriander
– 1 tsp ground Cumin
– 1 tsp Cayenne Pepper
– 1 tsp dried Thyme
– Salt
– Pepper
For the béchamel sauce
– 25g Butter
– 2-3 tbsps Plain Flour
– 3-4 decilitres Milk
You’ll also need
– 3 x Aubergines
– 3 tbsps Olive Oil
– 120g Cheese, such as cheddar or comté
Instructions
- Start off by slicing the aubergines into slices about 1 cm thick. Drizzle or brush with the 3 tbsps of olive oil and place under the grill. Grill each side for about 15 minutes, until golden brown and the sizes are glossy.
- While the aubergine is grilling, peel and finely chop the onion and mince the garlic. Heat the 1 tsp of Olive Oil in a large pan and add in the onion and garlic. Cook for a couple of minutes until the onion has softened and then add in the minced lamb. Cook through, stirring well, until the lamb is cooked.
- Add in the cinnamon, cumin, coriander, thyme and cayenne pepper, as well as about 1 tsp each of Salt and Pepper to the meat and stir well. Add in the tinned tomatoes and the tomato concentrate as well and mix well with the meat. Lower the heat and simmer, stirring regularly, until the sauce has reduced and thickened – around 15-20 minutes.
- Set aside and in a new pan, melt the butter for the béchamel sauce. When completely melted, whisk in the plain flour, and then slowly, add the milk, a little bit at a time, whisking between each new addition, waiting for the sauce to thicken before adding more milk. Keep adding milk until the sauce is starting to take a good consistency. You don’t want the sauce to thick, but equally you don’t want something which is more similar to water than a sauce.
- Add half the meat sauce mixture into the bottom of a large roasting pan or oven-safe dish. Layer the top with half of the aubergines before adding the remainder of the meat sauce and the remainder of the aubergines. Pour on the béchamel sauce over the top layer of aubergines and then grate the cheese and sprinkle over the béchamel sauce.
- Bake in the oven, around 160 degrees Celsius, for about 30 minutes, until the cheese on top is golden brown and bubbling. Remove and cut into pieces and serve! Enjoy with a baked potato, or just a fresh side salad.
Charles, I would have never guessed you made it without the oven! You are so inventive (and I am repeating myself, but I often think about the popular saying that necessity is the mother of invention). I have never made moussaka, but now, looking at your wonderful result, I am sure I shall make it soon! Congratulations! It's incredible how you managed it without the obvious appliance.
Ok, now I must tell something: I think you must find YOUR butcher. The big choice of butchers is one of the luxuries France offers, so profit from it while you live there. My butcher (or butchers) will grind any meat I want. Sometimes in front of me, sometimes for the following day.
Thanks Sissi. I didn't have the best of experiences with butchers in France. I found them rather arrogant so far. I wanted to buy a joint of pork one day to make pulled pork, slow cooking it for about 10 hours – they looked at me like I was some sort of insane Brit, with no idea about how to prepare food. They told me that "one cannot cook pork for 10 hours". Surprise, jerks – half the world disagrees with you :p
I am sorry… You really must have found the arrogant ones… All the butchers I saw in my life in France were nice and smiling and never asked stupid questions 🙂 Maybe it's the question of region. You shouldn't be discouraged! Maybe there are some butchers on the farmers markets? These are usually even more open and merrier! Many people I know in France never buy meat at supermarkets, so I think this is the reason why certain cuts are never sold because they are rarely cooked.
I look once more at your moussaka and I think I have to make it!!! (I still haven't had my breakfast 😉 )
Could well be – I find quite a lot of people in the Paris region can be quite rude, while others in more countryside parts are really good. This guy I knew obviously knows quite some stuff about his job, but the fact that he states that a famous, common dish (pulled pork) doesn't exist because "cooking a piece of pork for 8 hours will just destroy it" made me really annoyed :p
Wow! This looks INCREDIBLE! How on earth did you do this without an oven?! Yum! Yum! Yum! Look at that cheesy goodness…and the eggplants! This is right up my alley.
Grills (or broilers as I think they're called in the US) really are your friend in these cases. The recipe actually saw us through for 4 days worth of lunches, for two people, so well worth it! Love eggplant too… Once it's mixed in with akk the tomato sauce…, just incredible!
I've actually never cooked with lamb, so I guess I beat ya there! I love eggplant though, and this combo sounds delicious. I'm pretty impressed you cooked this without an oven too!
Some people really hate lamb – they say it tastes of wool, lol 😀
If you never cooked with lamb I'd really recommend starting with some lovely cutlets and grilling them, and move on from there. Sooooo good! Hope you're having a good day Caroline. Did you get your Facebook Like box working in the end?
Your picture is killing me and I just finished lunch. Why have I never made this? It's on my to do soon list.
Thanks Greg. In retrospect I'm thinking some fresh basil and mint leaves inside would have been wonderful. Maybe something you can try if you make it yourself?!
DId you use the neighbors instead? 😛
Ive seen people using stuff like dutch ovens putting hot coals on the lid once closed, but I doubt you did that inside the apartment.
Haha, no no. Luckily my grill still worked, as did the fan in the oven. I could heat the element and then blow the hot air around using the fan, then switch back to grill mode again, repeat like that until ready. Crude but effective 😉
Wow… This puts me in the mind of eggplant parm. This just looks amazing.
Thanks BG – now you made me revisit the recipe and I want to eat it again myself! lol