Secret to a tip-top moussaka

[muddlingthrou]

One of my absolute favourite foods in the world is moussaka - I adore it! But despite being a decent cook, I'm yet to nail a home made one. What am I doing wrong?

Please give me your tips for the best ever moussaka. I'm not particularly interested in making it healthy, so willing to throw whatever at it! My main complaints with my efforts are that the whole thing is a bit bland, the potatoes are either undercooked or crumbly, and the aubergines don't have that melty texture I love. Tell me the secret!

Fry the aubergines and potatoes first.

At least a bottle of red wine.

A good load of dried mint, cinnamon stick, couple of bay leaves.

Cook the ragu down, if it's too wet the whole thing will be sloppy.

@idontlikealdi - thank you for your response! Please could you be more specific about the potatoes and aubergines - how long do you fry them for? Shallow fry I presume?

Felicity Cloake has a write up on moussaka. I love her articles because you can read though her learning and take what you think sounds good from all the recipes she tries. I’ve made it before with lentils (and a few other things to add a savoury flavour to the lentils) and it was very good.

The thing with aubergines, in order to cook them properly they take a lot of oil. I mean a LOT of oil

The average British home cook cant comprehend of that amount of oil.

But its the only way Ive managed to get them how Ive found them abroad and in restaurants

@toastofthetown - thank you, I'm also a fan of Felicity, but didn't think of searching her past articles. I'll look it up.

@soupfiend - ok, I suspected there might be a gallon of oil involved. Hm, I might be willing to try a no holds barred aubergine frying session to see if it gives me my dream results.

Its the silkiness that just cant be created without cooking like that

However, I am still on a mission to work through a number of different methods to test them all out (I love aubergines)

So options are

• brushing with oil and baking in the oven
• deeper amount of oil and baking in the oven
• brushing with oil and slow frying in a pan with the lid on to speed cooking
• steaming the slices
• boiling the slices

So far I have done fairly deepish frying, not too high a heat, so soft and silky, not crispy, not too brown. Then I did a batch of slices which had been tossed around a bowl with a lot of oil, with a bit of oil in the pan, they crisped up too much on the edges and thats not what Im looking for

This is with a view to the perfect aubergine parmigiana (not always made with cheese by the way)

No way would I steam or boil aubergine. They're like sponges and you'll end up with a very soggy mess!

Well thats what I thought but Ive seen it and read it so many times time on various cooking shows/cook books that Im going to give it a go and see what happens.

You need this Hairy Bikers recipe it never fails
me https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/moussaka_01004

I honestly think you can make a good moussaka without the oil

My rule is a slow cooked ragu and make it the day before for the flavours to develop

I do my aubergine slices in the air fryer on roast. Sliced, lightly sprayed with oil, in they go. When tossing or turning I toss in a large bowl lightly sprayed with oil and seasoned - it does work , takes a bit longer to get a good browning but you get there . When softened I put on to max crisp to get the colour - and hence flavour

I dry fry/pan roast the aubergine in slices or chunks depending on recipe. They brown nicely in a dry pan

@suki1964 - I've just got an air fryer this week, so this is good timing!

@WithIcePlease - super intrigued by the idea of dry frying the aubergines. I do this with courgettes and they go lovely and charred, but have never tried it with aubergine. I guess my concern is they'd go tough (my husband calls it 'elephant skin') rather than all melty. Do you cut the aubergine into thin slices?

Depends on the recipe - sometimes in big strips for moussak

Posted by accident
...and in cubes or chunks for a stove top moussaka