Greek mousaka!

 In this entry, I will write the most famous recipee of any greek food: mousaka. It is not particularly difficult as a recipee, but what makes it complicated and hard to cook is the time it requires. Too much time and too many kitchenware! This means that it also leads to a really messy kitchen afterwards. However, if erasmus students in Athens want to prepare a mousaka instead of just tasting it in a restaurant or tavern, I would advice them to gather in a house -the one with the biggest kitchen and the most fully equiped one- and make a day out of it: someone can be in charge of chopping the vegetables, another one in charge of frying stuff etc. This way, it won't be as tiring as it will for just one of you to try and you can also hang out as the food is being prepared -just like we did with the paella in my group of friends during my erasmus in Valencia. At the end of the day, you will enjoy a meal that will have been made by each and every one of you: your energy, your creativity and your laughs in between baking and frying. This way you will enjoy the food even more. So, here is the recipee for you to have this special mousaka-day!

Ingredients for the bechamel sauce:

• 150 grams of flour

• 1 ½ litre of fresh milk

• 150 grams of butter

• 2 eggs

• nutmeg

• a small onion

• 2 cloves

• salt

• white pepper

Ingredients for the rest of the recipee:

• 2 kilos of aubergines

• 1 teacup of grated cheese (If you are in Greece, go buy some “kefalotiri” -if you aren't, then just use some parmesan, or any grated cheese, but keep in mind that it won't be the same as the original. Anyway, choose a cheese that goes well with a bolognese spaghetti recipee, since this cheese will also be mixed with minced meat, so this should be your guide to choosing!)

• Half a teacup of toast (in crumbs, of course)

• 750 grams of minced meat -preferrably, beef.

• 800 grams of finely chopped tomatoes

• one chopped onion

• two cloves of garlic

• salt

• pepper

• a cinnamon stick

• one bay leaf

• ¼ of a teacup of olive oil

• 1/3 of a teacup of brandy

You heat the olive oil in a really wide pot and then put the minced meat in it, spreading it. Be careful: do not stir it constantly! You let it be cooked from both sides and, after eight minutes you add the chopped onion, as well as the garlic. You keep the hot plate on for five more minutes. Then you put the brandy and afterwards the bay leaf, the cinnamon stick, the tomatoes and, in the end, salt and pepper. After five more minutes, you take away the cinnamon stick. The minced meat should be cooked for approximately 25 minutes, until the liquids are absorbed by it.

In between this process, you should prepare the aubergines: you wash them, you take away their stipe and you slice them to pieces. A slice should be around 1cm wide -but in any case, make sure that they are even to each other, because if not they will not be cooked at the same time and some of them will remain raw while others will get burned! You put salt and a bit of olive oil to the aubergines and then put them in the oven (which should be pre-heated) and bake them for 15 minutes in 180oC. This is how my mother does it, because this way the aubergine is not too greasy and full of oil. Most people, though, are used to frying the aubergines -if you like fried food more, you should do the same thing. In that case, let me tell you that you should put some flour all over the aubergine and then fry it in really hot oil in the frying pan. A trick, so that they don't come out too greasy, is to put an absorbing paper towel in a plate or tray and then put them on it after they are ready. Still, if you can't put up with the taste of fried oil in this food, I highly recommend you to bake them in the oven.

Now, it is time for the bechamel sauce: Heat the milk in a small pot and after it has gotten warm, add the onion as a whole, without chopping it. Also, add the two cloves. Be careful that the milk doesn't boil -it should just get warm. At the same time, heat the butter until it melts and add to it the flour, stirring it the whole time. This will take you 3 minutes maximum. Then, take away the onion and the cloves out of the milk and put the milk to the butter-flour mix. Afterwards, put the rest of the ingredients (nutmeg, salt and white pepper) but not the eggs quite yet. Keep stirring from time to time and keep the mix to a medium temperature until it gets creamy. When you see it is ready (creamy, but not burned! You will be sure it's ready when it's no longer liquid, but it's steady as a cream!) you should take it away from the fire. Then, add the two eggs and mix it up with rapid moves for a whole minute, until it is even. Your bechamel is now ready as well!

Now, it is time to put some oil to a baking pan and put the crumbled toast on its bottom. Then we put have the aubergines in the first layer and half of the cheese on the second. The third layer has half of the minced meat sauce on it. The fourth layer is the rest of the aubergines, the fifth is the rest of the cheese and the sixth the rest of the minced meat sauce. We put the bechamel on top of it and we put the mousaka in the oven for approximately 50 minutes in a temperature of 180oC. We let it coolen a bit, so that we will be able to cut proper pieces, and then serve it.

Enjoy!