Lamb And Mushroom Moussaka

Comfort food doesn't get any better than a traditional moussaka. I love it because it's laid with loads of vegetables, like potatoes, eggplant and capsicum, with a delicious, rich sauce in the centre and then cheesy bechamel on the top. So what I've done is just cut some potatoes about 1cm thick and I've roasted them with some salt and pepper in the oven for about 15 minutes or until they're caramelised and soft. And that also goes for our eggplant and capsicum. Roast them for 15 minutes. Now let's get on to the sauce. We're going to turn a large saute pan on a medium heat. Add a good glug of extra virgin olive oil into a big saute pan. I'll add some onion, so one large onion. And we just want to sweat that off along with some garlic, so two to three cloves of garlic. And just to ensure that doesn't burn, I like to add a good pinch of salt too. OK. Alright, we don't want too much colour on that. We just want that to soften up. OK, while they're cooking, let's chop up some mushrooms. Now, usually this recipe would call for about a kilo of meat, but I actually like to use less meat for this. So this is 500g of lamb mince and I'm going to add the same amount, about 500g of mushrooms. So what I like to do is chop the mushrooms in a food processor. It's just so much easier. So I'll just grab a knife and cut them in half. And then they go in. And what I'm looking for is the same consistency as the mincemeat because, essentially, we're making a mushroom and lamb blend. So we'll cut them in half and then I'm just going to pulse this three or four times until it's finely chopped. Of course, you can just do this by hand with the knife. It's just going to take a little longer. OK, mushrooms are ready. See how we've got a mince-like consistency? That's what I'm after. And you'll see there's still a few little chunks in there. Totally fine. It all cooks down together. Now, the onions are cooked, so we're going to add our lamb mince to start with. A nice, fatty lamb mince for this. And, like I said, you only need 500g of the mince. To this, we'll also add our mushroom blend. And we're going to combine that together. And just with a spoon or a fork, you just want to break up the lumps of meat and separate the mushrooms. I'll also season this with a pinch of salt. And you want to sauté this off for about five to six minutes or until we get some nice colour on the mince and also the mushrooms. What will happen is some of the liquid is going to come out of the mushrooms and also the lamb mince, so allow that to evaporate. And once that dries up, we can start adding the rest of the ingredients. Now, while that cooks away, we can start with our delicious bechamel sauce. So, in a pot, I'll add about 50g of butter. I'll allow that to melt. Just swirl the pot. To this, I'll add the same amount of flour, so 50g of that butter to 50g of plain flour. Now, once you've added that flour, don't add the milk straightaway. You just want to give it a stir. It'll form a roux, which is that combination of flour and butter. And cook this off for about 30 seconds to a minute. If you add the milk straightaway, you'll get a raw flour taste, and we don't want that, so just toast that off. And little by little, I'll add my milk. So you don't want to add it all at once, cos we'll get clumped. So, a splash of milk. Give that a stir. And then some more milk. It'll thicken up. Then I like to transfer over to a whisk and give it a really good whisk. And as you start to whisk this, you'll see all of those lumps start to smooth out, just like this, and that's a good sign to add some more milk. And then, as you whisk, you can slowly add the rest of that milk. Great. Now, you do want to keep an eye on this because you don't want it to catch on the base, so just have a whisk on standby. Constantly whisk this until it boils. And when it boils, again, just keep whisking it until we've got a smooth, thick sauce. So, while that's cooking away, let's go back to our meat. See how a lot of that liquid has evaporated? That's what we're after. And it's a lovely caramelised colour. It smells fantastic. Now it's time to add our spices. So, we have some clove, about half a teaspoon of clove, and some cinnamon. We'll just stir that through, along with some dried oregano. And that is just smelling really good. These spices are key in a traditional moussaka. OK, now for some tomatoes. I've got two cans of whole tomatoes. I have removed some of the liquid. This is not like a bolognese that's super sauce. You do want it to be quite dry, so just remove some of the liquid. And then we're going to break up these tomatoes. The lid goes on, and we're going to cook this until it's thick and rich. OK, this bechamel is thick. That's exactly how we want it. I haven't seasoned it yet, so a small pinch of salt. And then the cheese. Now, this is kaflo graviera. It's really hard to say. It's a Greek sheep's milk. It's a hard cheese, and it is so delicious in this recipe. I'm going to add a majority of it and just leave one handful for the top. Now, if you can't find this cheese, don't worry. You could just use a cheddar cheese, a parmesan, or even better, a pecorino would work nicely. So, we're just going to mix that in, and it melts away in that gorgeous, hot white sauce. Now, as you can see, I'm just trying to whisk this as fast as I can just to knock away some of that heat. I don't want this to be too hot because the next thing that I'm going to add is two egg yolks. And the reason I add the egg yolks is to ensure we get a lovely set bechamel on the top of our moussaka. So, continually whisk and add two egg yolks. And just quickly whisk that in just so it melts in as opposed to scrambles. And you can see that's worked out really well. And that's done. We'll pop that to the side. Let's have a look at our mushroom and lamb blend. This sauce is thick and rich, exactly how we wanted it. It cooked for 20 minutes, and you can see it's not too wet. It's slightly dry. I can smell those spices. It's just right. OK, I'm using about a 3-litre capacity dish. We're going to add some oil, just some more olive oil on the base. So nothing sticks. And I'll just use my hands just to spread that on the base and then up the sides. And then we're going to start with the potatoes. I'm going to add all of the potatoes. If you wanted to make it a bigger-style dish, you could double the potatoes and have a layer of the potatoes on the top too, but I'm just happy with them on the base. To that, I'm going to add half of the eggplant and half of the capsicum. The rest is going to go on the top. So just fill in the gaps with our eggplant. That's looking good. Now for the capsicum, and I'm just going to tear half of these apart and then again just evenly distribute them along the base of our dish. Excellent. Now for our lovely mushroom and lamb blend. I'm going to pour that over, scrape down our sauté pan, and then just use the back of your wooden spoon to evenly distribute that. OK. Next stage, we're going to add our remaining vegetables and just ripping them just so we can spread them out. It's just an extra addition. The capsicum, we're just going to break up and evenly distribute them. Right, the final layer is our gorgeous sauce. Just give that one more mix. And it seems like a lot of sauce, but this is my favourite part of the moussaka. We'll pour that over. Oh, wow. Look at that. And we'll just spread that out with a spoon. Just being really careful, we just don't want to blend it with the meat sauce. We want that nice white topping. Finally, the rest of that cheese, we'll just sprinkle over the top. And we are ready to bake this in the oven. So I've got an oven on at 180 degrees, and this is going to cook for about 40 to 50 minutes or until we've got a nice, deep colour on the top. Well, doesn't this look perfect? I like how deep the colour is on top. That's how it should be. And again, let that sit for about 40 minutes, even an hour. It'll still stay hot because you can see how large a quantity we have here. OK, let's plate up a slice. My favourite part, of course, is the end part, where it's extra crispy. And you'll see how that topping has set nicely. And then just scoop that out. Ooh, moussaka. Place that onto a plate. And you want to eat that just as is, maybe with a simple Greek salad on the side. I really want to have a taste of this so I can taste the blend of the lamb and the mushrooms. Mmm. Honestly, the addition of the mushrooms almost makes that meat mixture juicy. If you want to add extra veggies into your diet, then this is a fantastic way to do it. It's also economical because we're reducing the amount of meat. It's a win-win. But most importantly, it tastes really, really good. Mmm. Fantastic.