Moussaka style, stuffed eggplant.
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I'm browning in this pan, some ground beef.
And in that pan some ground lamb.
The first thing I did,
because they have to be cool enough to handle, is this.
I took some eggplants, cut them in half.
I cross hatched them.
I salt them, and turn them over.
You drain them, for at least 30 minutes.
And I left mine there for a good hour.
And then you roast them.
And then you just scrap out the cross hatch into the bowl.
I'm going to add about half of our onion
and let that start cooking out in the juices,
while the lamb is lightly browning.
Don't take it too far, you don't want it dry and crumbly.
You still want a little bit of action going on.
So those juices help cook down the onion quickly for you.
So, now we're going to add some garlic.
Once we have enough liquid and meat juice in the pan
to make sure that we're not going to singe our garlic.
And now we have all the juice coming out the onion too.
Back and forth, two cloves in each pan.
A little red pepper flake.
Or this is finely ground red pepper, pepperoncini.
Red pepper.
Oregano, aka, Joy of the Mountain.
Good fat pinch.
About a teaspoon in each pan of that.
About a half a teaspoon in each pan of the spicy pepper.
And then either or, or a pinch of both.
I have cinnamon.
I actually used smoked cinnamon in my dish.
And a little ground allspice.
So, up to you.
One or the other will get the job done.
I like to put a pinch of each in.
Okay, now to each pan, we're going to add
half of our roast eggplant.
'Cause I'm making two different fillings here.
So, we add our eggplant to each pan.
And now we need a little tomato.
Now, for the tomato,
we can use any canned tomato product you have.
Little canned cherry tomatoes, crushed tomatoes, whatever.
I'm going to use a squirt of tomato paste in each pan.
Oh, about, you know, tablespoon, tablespoon and a half.
And that'll help the meat and eggplant thicken up
and become cohesive.
And I want a little bit of brightness,
so I'm going to use a couple of cherry tomatoes.
A little fresh tomato in each pan.
And then we're going to let that all cook down
with some stock, of any kind.
Chicken, beef, it doesn't matter.
Then we're gonna stuff all
of these shells with
that meat and eggplant mixture.
And we're going to top it with white sauce, bechamel.
Which I'm going to reheat right now.
Equal amounts of flour and butter.
Three tablespoons of each.
Three cups of milk.
Three, three, three.
Three butter, three flour, let it bubble,
whisk in the milk.
After we do that it gets nice and thick like this.
It'll loosen up again once we add the heat to it.
But see this is it in its thickened state.
What we're going to do now is add some egg yolk to it.
This is just egg yolk.
It'll help it get really brown and be very firm
to, kind of, keep the dish together when we serve.
Now, we're going to temper the egg yolks
that we're adding to our white sauce.
Which was the flour, the butter, thickened milk,
salt and white pepper.
This means we're keeping the egg from turning into
scrambled eggs, right.
Just like when we make carbonara
and we use the starchy cooking water.
Here, we use the hot white sauce
to bring the temperature of the egg yolk up
so that when we add it,
it just becomes a smooth, thick, rich sauce.
What I like to do is, kind of, work as patiently
as someone like me can.
And kind of, hold it in the palm of my hand
so I can,
see how I'm kind of shaping it,
into a boat as I fill.
As I kind of over fill.
I take that silky sauce, with now the egg yolk in it too,
and just pour that down over the top.
And we're going to put it back in that 425 oven
to brown, of course.
And then we top that with the grated cheese
of your choice.
Or the little feta crumbles.
We're using kefalotyri.
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And then we just top with a sprinkle
of the mint and parsley.
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