Recipe: Moussaka

Thought it was about time I added a few of my own recipes to this food blog, in addition to the restaurant reviews and to document some of my favourite creations.

This recipe was originally taken from Rick Stein's book "Food Heroes", but I have fiddled with it and adapted it enough to now consider it my own.  So initial credit should go to him, although (if I say so myself) I think my version is better.

Please note that in the list below, more often than not I don't provide amounts or weights.  I'm very much a "by feel" cook - apart from when it comes to baking, of course, when amounts have to be precise - so if following this recipe, a little intuition is needed.

Moussaka

I have been making this dish for many years, but only in the last few have perfected it.  Although it's a Greek dish, and indeed I have had the real thing a couple of times in Greece to great success, many of the ingredients below are not Greek.  I don't think it matters.  The following recipe makes easily enough for 4 people, probably 6.

For the ragu:
Extra-virgin olive oil
1 aubergine - sliced lengthwise into 5-6 slices.  Alternatively, 2 courgettes - likewise sliced
500 g mince (preferably lamb, but beef will do as well)
1 onion - finely chopped
Garlic (lots, at least 3-4 cloves) - finely chopped
Tin of chopped tomatoes
Oregano (preferably fresh, but dried will do)
Cinnamon stick
Red wine (roughly half a glass)
Salt and black pepper, to taste

For the sauce:
Butter
Plain flour
Milk
Double cream
Cheese - a soft creamy cheese (e.g. Brie or Camembert), a soft blue cheese (e.g. Gorgonzola or Bleu d'Auvergne), and a grated cheese (preferably Parmesan, but Cheddar will do)
Black pepper
Mustard powder

1) Lightly salt the aubergine (or courgettes) and leave to sit for roughly 10 minutes, then rinse

2) Heat a generous amount of the oil in a large frying pan, and fry the sliced aubergine (or courgettes) until lightly brown.  Transfer to an oven dish

3) In the same frying pan (with more oil added if needs be), fry the onion and garlic until softened.  If using dried oregano, add a generous amount (at least 2 teaspoons) at this stage.

4) Add the mince (broken up) and cinnamon stick, and fry until the mince is brown

5) Add the tin of chopped tomatoes, the wine, and the fresh oregano if using.  Season with salt and pepper.  Bring to a gentle boil, then simmer for at least 30-40 minutes.  If it starts to dry out, add more wine or water.  The consistency at the end should be much thicker and reduced compared to the beginning, but not dry

6) Meanwhile, make the sauce.  Make a roux with the butter and flour (roughly 2 tablespoons of flour).  Cook for a minute, then slowly add the milk, whisking all the time.  Continue adding milk until the sauce is thick, then switch to cream (roughly a tablespoon).  Once the sauce has thinned slightly (though not runny), add the soft cheese and the blue cheese, as well a large pinch of mustard powder and generous black pepper.  Stir until fully melted

7) Once the ragu is ready, remove the cinnamon stick and pour over the sliced aubergine (or courgettes).  Smooth it down.  Pour over the sauce so that everything is covered, and shake the oven dish gently to smooth.  Cover with a generous layer of grated Parmesan, then bake in a preheated oven (at 180°C) for roughly 30-40 minutes

8) Serve with a selection of green vegetables and potatoes, done to your liking.

Weekends in France and Italy

Hello again foodies.

Having recently had two gastronomic weekends in Paris and Bologna, I thought it would be interesting to document some of the excellent food experienced in both.  For more details on the actual trips, see my personal blog - http://cjrwilliams.blogspot.co.uk/.

A quick word of apology.  I fully realise that a food blog is made much more interesting if filled with photos of the nice food in question.  I am, however, a bit of a beginner, and we are notoriously bad at remembering to photograph our dishes.  You will therefore just have to imagine what follows…

Paris weekend, October 2013
As I said in my other blog, this weekend was in aid of my friend's 25th birthday.  As I said to her at the time, big birthdays get less frequent from now on so each one ought to be celebrated well.

The food on the Eurostar, despite travelling First Class, was not particularly memorable - understandably, it is all cold, but was nevertheless fairly interesting.  We were given a small dish of grilled chicken on cous-cous, accompanied by a small quiche.  Not bad, and the wine was surprisingly good as well.

The main treat, however, was that evening, when we had dinner at Le Moulin de la Galette - one of the oldest places in Montmatre, which used to be one of the original windmills.  I had heard about it after reading numerous reviews of numerous places in the area, and that seemed to be the most positive.  We started with the Fois Gras for me and the home-made French Onion Soup for my companion, both of which were excellent.  For a main course, I had the lightly poached salmon - which I thought was amazing, but might not be for everyone as it was rare to the extreme.  I like my salmon rare, but this was almost flapping around on the plate.  My companion went for her favourite of Steak Frites, which again was superb - and was again properly rare despite asking for A Point, as only the French can do.  I would imagine that if she had asked for Bleu, it would have still been mooing.  We were too full for deserts on this occasion, but it was an excellent meal - I think we accompanied it with a bottle of Chablis, but can't quite remember!

As I said in my other blog, probably the lowest point of the weekend was breakfast at the hotel.  It was a very comfortable room, but fairly basic and we never expected much for breakfast.  We did, however, expect more than a couple of pieces of stale baguette and only a couple of stale croissants - there wasn't even any jam.  Worst of all, and surprising for France (let alone Paris), the coffee was cold and really not very nice.  Never mind…

I won't say much about the rest of the food that weekend, as although it was nice it wasn't particularly memorable.  Lunch on the Sunday was in a little cafe overlooking Le Louvre, and I had a fairly standard galette - nothing to write home about.  The meal on the Eurostar on the way home was again good, but nothing special.

So, overall, the evening meal on the Saturday was the gastronomic highlight!

Bologna weekend, November 2013
As explained in my other blog, this long weekend was a belated birthday present to me from my parents, for a weekend with them and my friend to Bologna, Italy.  We have some family friends living there, and although I have been before, I was 3 at the time so don't remember the experience and certainly wasn't as much of a foodie as now.

The first gastronomic experience of the weekend, which was not a particularly good one, was on the plane.  We didn't expect much for a two-hour flight, but the BLT wrap was a little disappointing.  Particularly as we learnt that those in Business Class were given something hot for lunch!  The wine, however, wasn't bad - and to be honest, given my nerves by this point (because of the flying), anything alcoholic would have been welcomed.

The proper gastronomy, however, began nicely once we had landed in Bologna.  For the first evening, our Italian friends cooked for us at their home and, unsurprisingly, it was a wonderful traditional Italian meal.  We began with a paté or mousse made from mortadella, which is a Bolognese sausage or cured ham, served on biscuits.  We then moved onto the pasta course, which was my first experience of proper Bolognese tortellini.  As I (now) understand it, there is a clear distinction between tortellini and tortelloni, although both are from the Emilia region and in particular Bologna - tortellini are small ring-shaped pasta (resembling to my mind a napkin ring) often stuffed with meat such as mortadella or prosciutto and served in a broth, whereas tortelloni are similar in shape but larger and more usually stuffed with ricotta and/or spinach.  We had the former, and it was superb.  We then moved onto the meat course, which was some sort of poultry - although our Italian friends speak superb English, the exact word for what we were given was lost.  We think, after much discussion, it was a capon - certainly smaller than a chicken, but not Guinea fowl or grouse.  Whatever it was, it was amazing, served simply with spinach.  Finally, the meal was rounded off with some truly excellent Italian ice cream from their local deli - something which I had heard about a lot, and it was indeed very good.  So an excellent meal, and we returned to our hotel thoroughly stuffed.

The next day, after a long morning seeing the sights, we were taken to another favourite deli for a so-called "free" lunch.  As I said in my other blog, everything we were given to eat was indeed free - and they were certainly not stingy - but then you felt obliged to buy stuff afterwards, which we of course did.  We were given a selection of meats, mostly pork, in little toasted bread rolls.  This was followed by a selection of cheeses, some sheep and some cow, again in little bread rolls.  We were also able to taste a selection of Parma hams which, for reasons we could never ascertain, were far superior to anything we can get at home.  Personally, I don't like Parma ham at home, as it is often very chewy.  This stuff, however, wasn't at all and was amazing.  It was all washed down by some of their local lightly sparkling wine, which again was very good.  So a very good lunch…

That night, after more wandering of the city, our Italian friends had arranged a winetasting for us at a local restaurant, followed by a meal.  The winetasting was very interesting, and we tried two of the local wines - a likely sparkling white, and a rich full-bodied red.  The restaurant owner was clearly very keen to tell us all about them, but unfortunately he spoke no English so our friends were translating all the way through - some things may have been lost in translation!  The meal afterwards, however, was not lost on us - I had a superb dish of tagliatelle with deer and my friend had the pappardelle with wild mushrooms.  I believe my mother had the same as me, and my father couldn't resist the tagliatelle Bolognese (which I thought didn't exist in Bologna, under that name at least, but clearly does).  All were excellent.

The following day was mostly spent wandering the city again, but we had an excellent lunch in a delightful little place down a side alley in the city centre.  My friend went for the tortellini again, and I tried the home-made lasagna - which, perhaps unsurprisingly, was better than anything we get at home.

So, all in all, a very two good weekends for The Peripatetic Foodie…