Homemade Moussaka

The first time I tried moussaka I had just finished high school and was visiting my sister at university for the weekend.

She made the Greek dish from scratch and even though it was delicious, in those days I wasn’t a big fan of aubergines, so the taste slightly put me off. Fast forward to today and I am a big advocate of aubergines; I think it was the cooking class I took in Vietnam which heightened my appreciation for them. Having said that, I had still to make moussaka myself and see how much I would enjoy it these days. What better time to try than at the housesit in Amsterdam where I had a fully-equipped kitchen at my disposal? I found a great, easy-looking recipe on the Good Food website and set to work.

Moussaka is a Mediterranean dish which is layered like a lasagna, but sliced potatoes take the place of pasta. The layers usually consist of minced meat cooked with tomatoes and spices, potatoes, aubergines and a creamy top layer of white sauce and sometimes cheese.

As a sidenote, I feel I should add here that due to a language error at the Dutch supermarket, I actually bought pork mince instead of lamb mince but it still tasted absolutely delicious. Of course, to fully appreciate the recipe I’ll have to try it again with the proper ingredients (ahem) but at least I know how good it can taste with pork!

I’ll let the photos do the talking and you can judge the end result for yourselves. Have you ever tried moussaka or would like to try it?