Moussaka
Aubergines roasted rather than fried, and a béchamel thickened with egg yolk so it sets into a custard you can slice rather than a sauce that runs.
- Prep
- 40 min
- Cook
- 1 hr 45 min
- Resting
- 30 min
- Total
- 2 hr 55 min
- Serves
- 6
- Revisions
- 1
Allergens
- Cereals containing gluten
- Eggs
- Milk
- Sulphites
Named from the ingredients as written, including those carried in from sub-recipes. This is not a guarantee — check the labels on what you actually buy, and note that a product’s recipe can change.
Ingredients
Serves
Aubergines
Meat sauce
Béchamel
Method
Aubergines
Heat the oven to 220C fan. Brush the aubergine slices on both sides with the oil, lay them on two trays in single layers and season.
Roast for 25 minutes, turning once, until deep gold and completely collapsed.
Roasted, not fried. Aubergine is a sponge and will absorb almost any quantity of oil you give it in a pan — brushing and roasting uses about a fifth as much and gives a better texture, dry and concentrated rather than greasy.
Meat sauce
Brown the lamb hard in two batches in a wide pan and lift it out.
Pour off all but two tablespoons of the fat, then cook the onions for 10 minutes until soft.
Add the garlic, tomato purée, ground cinnamon and allspice and stir for 2 minutes.
The warm spices are what make this Greek rather than Italian. Cinnamon and allspice in a meat sauce are the signature of the eastern Mediterranean and leaving them out gives you a bolognese under custard.
Return the lamb with the wine and let it bubble away, then add the tomatoes, cinnamon stick, oregano and salt.
Simmer uncovered for 35 minutes, until very thick with no free liquid at all. Fish out the cinnamon stick.
Béchamel
Melt the butter, stir in the flour and cook for 2 minutes.
Off the heat, beat in the warm milk a third at a time, then cook, stirring, for 10 minutes until very thick.
Take it off the heat and stir in the nutmeg, salt and half the cheese, then let it cool for 5 minutes.
Beat the egg yolks in one at a time, working quickly.
The yolks are what make this a moussaka rather than a lasagne. They set the béchamel into a firm pale custard in the oven, so the finished dish slices cleanly and holds a cut edge — a plain béchamel stays a sauce and runs across the plate.
Let the béchamel cool for 5 minutes first, or the yolks scramble in it. If it looks grainy, it was too hot.
Layer in a deep dish: half the aubergine, all the meat, the rest of the aubergine, then the béchamel spread level.
Scatter over the remaining cheese and bake at 180C fan for 45 minutes, until deep golden and set.
Rest for at least 30 minutes before cutting. Straight from the oven it will not hold a slice, and this is the one dish here where the rest is longer than the resting of anything else.
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What to expect
- Taste
Rich and warmly spiced, with cinnamon and allspice giving a sweetness that surprises anyone expecting an Italian bake. The béchamel is mild and nutmeggy and the cheese on top gives the salt.
- Aroma
Cinnamon and lamb, which together are the smell that distinguishes this from every similar-looking dish.
- Texture
Soft collapsed aubergine, coarse meat sauce, and a firm sliceable custard over the top. Three textures and the top one is the least expected.
- Sound
None.
- How the flavour moves
Cheese and custard first, then the sweet warm spice, then a long lamb finish.
- Serve it
Warm rather than scalding, which is how it is usually served in Greece and is correct — it holds together better and tastes of more.
- Goes with
A Greek salad, bread, and a robust red. Nothing else is needed.
Cook's notes
- Difficulty
Moderate. Nothing is difficult and there are three components.
- Cost
Mid.
- Equipment
Two baking trays, a wide pan, and a deep baking dish.
- When to make it
A weekend, and better made the day before.
- Best season
Late summer, when aubergines are cheap and at their best.
- You know it is done when
The top deep golden and puffed slightly, and firm to a light press rather than wobbling like a sauce.
- And it feels like
The béchamel should be a set custard you can cut cleanly, not a sauce.
- Food safety
The egg yolks are cooked through in the 45-minute bake. Cool leftovers within two hours in a shallow container rather than leaving a deep dish out, which takes hours to lose its heat.
- Where it goes wrong
- Frying the aubergines, which makes the whole dish greasy.
- A wet meat sauce, which floods the layers.
- Adding the yolks to a hot béchamel, which scrambles them.
- Leaving the yolks out entirely, which gives a lasagne with a sauce on top.
- Cutting it straight from the oven, when it slumps.
- Leaving out the cinnamon and allspice, which is what makes it Greek.
- If it does go wrong
Greasy: the aubergines were fried. Runny: the meat was too wet or it was cut too soon. Grainy top: the béchamel was too hot for the yolks. Bland: salt, and check the warm spices went in.
- Making it ahead
Genuinely better made a day ahead and reheated, and it freezes.
- Keeping it
Three days in the fridge, and it slices better cold than hot.
- Reheating
Covered at 170C fan for 30 minutes.
- Freezing
Freezes well assembled and unbaked for three months. Bake from thawed.
- Leftovers
Better on day two, and good at room temperature.
- Scaling it
Doubles into two dishes rather than one deeper one.
- Substitutions
Beef instead of lamb, which is milder and less traditional. Kefalotyri is a hard salty Greek sheep's cheese; Parmesan or pecorino stand in perfectly well.
- Dietary swaps
Contains milk, gluten and eggs, all three structurally in the béchamel, plus sulphites from the wine. Gluten-free flour makes an acceptable béchamel. There is no useful dairy-free version — the custard top is the dish.
- Shopping for it
Kefalotyri from a Greek or Turkish grocer if you can; Parmesan otherwise.
- Keeping the cost down
Beef instead of lamb saves a good deal. Aubergines are cheapest in late summer.
- Sustainability
Lamb's footprint per kilogram is in the same range as beef's and by some measures higher, so it is the heaviest thing here — but this dish is more than half aubergine by weight, which is unusual for a meat bake and is already a good ratio. Going to 600g of lamb with an extra aubergine is barely detectable. Aubergines grown outdoors in season around the Mediterranean carry a fraction of the footprint of heated-greenhouse ones, so late summer is both the cheapest and the lightest time to make it.
- Nutrition
Rich. Lamb, butter, milk and cheese, though there is a great deal of aubergine in it.
- Worth it?
Roast the aubergines and put the yolks in. One saves the texture and the other makes it the dish.
Where it comes from
- Origin
Greece, in this form; the wider family is Arab and Ottoman.
- Also called
Mousakas.
- Said out loud
moo-sa-KAS, with the stress on the last syllable.
- What the name means
From the Arabic musaqqa'a, meaning chilled or moistened, which refers to a cold aubergine dish and travelled with the word.
- History
Layered aubergine dishes are old and widespread across the Arab world, Turkey and the Balkans, and most of them have no béchamel at all. The thick French-style white sauce on top of the Greek version is credited to Nikolaos Tselementes, whose cookbooks in the 1920s and 30s set out to modernise and Frenchify Greek cooking — a project that was influential, was controversial at the time, and gave Greece one of its most recognisable dishes. The dish is therefore genuinely iconic and less than a hundred years old in this form, which are both true at once.
- Why it matters
One of the two or three dishes that represent Greece abroad, and a Sunday and celebration dish at home.
- When it is eaten
A weekend, a family gathering, and food for a crowd.
- The traditional way
Layering, and a béchamel enriched with egg yolk to set it.
- How it changed
Tselementes added the béchamel. Before that, Greek layered aubergine dishes were closer to their Turkish and Arab relatives.
- Regional variations
Turkish musakka is not layered or baked at all, but a sautéed dish of aubergine and mince. Balkan versions often use potato and a lighter egg custard.
- How this version differs
The aubergines are roasted rather than fried, which is the single biggest practical improvement available, and the egg yolks are explained rather than just listed.
- Sources and credit
Nikolaos Tselementes for the béchamel version.
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