Moussaka & Avgolemono soup. (VERY pic heavy)

[A HERETIC I AM]

Last edited Thu Sep 5, 2019, 10:03 PM - Edit history (4)

I have been looking forward to making both of these dishes for quite a while now, and as the polls I put up the other day indicated, there seemed to be a fair amount of interest from you guys in seeing a thread on Moussaka and Avgolemono Soup.

So....ask and you shall receive!

Unlike the Wedding Soup I made the other day, most of the recipes found on the web for these two are fairly similar - not a wide variety of ingredients. It was easy therefore to give you guys a starting point on both.

The recipe I used for the Moussaka can be found HERE, and the recipe for the Avgolemono soup can be found HERE


I started the whole process by peeling and slicing 4 or 5 medium potatoes, rinsing them and into a pot to boil. Juuuust enough to get them to the point where they START to get tender, but not overcooked. I'm going to bake them later and I don't want mashed potatoes! About 10 to 15 minutes on the boil.


THERE BE AUBERGINES HERE!


AND TOMATOES! The recipe calls for tomato puree. Well....I didn't have any. It isn't like I haven't been to the damned store enough over the last few days, either! Well, I looked up how to make my own, seeing as I had a few tomatoes, and it seemed simple enough. Peeled and seeded tomatoes, dash of salt, dash of sugar. Simple.


If you never peeled tomatoes before, here's the simplest way to do it. Cut a cross on the "flower end" (as opposed to the stem end, right?) of the tomato......



and into a pot of gently boiling water.


Watch them close, as it will only take about a minute or so for the skins to start getting wrinkly. As soon as that starts happening, out they come and into an ice bath.


The skins peel off easy peasy tomato squeazy.


Then I cut them in half and seeded them.


In to the food processor (Getting photo bombed by the other countertop appliances!)....


And zing the bloody hell out of them.


Into a pot to cook for about 25 to 30 minutes. I kept a good eye on this as I don't want it to scorch or burn, but I do want it to boil a bit and reduce some of the water away.


It yielded just under 1 3/4 cups. The recipe calls for one cup, but I used it all (hey! I like tomato sauce!).


Now for the eggplant. I started by slicing off both ends....


then using my veggie peeler, peeling them so there were strips of skin left on.....


and they looked like this. Not the prettiest things in the world, but what the hell!


I sliced them a bit fatter than 1/4 inch or so. Time to work quickly so they don't turn brown on me.


I have an over the sink strainer set up. I layered in a few slices, salted liberally then covered those in a paper towel. I repeated that process till they were all in. The point here is to draw a lot of the water out of them. Kinda got my shoulder in the way there, didn't I?


After I got them all in the strainer, I weighed them down with my big ol' commercial steam table rectangular thingamajambus pan filled with water and let them sit there for about an hour.


The potatoes were done by this time, so I drained them, switched them to another bowl and cooled them with water to stop their cooking. Set these aside.


7 eggs, separated. The whites I'm going to use to bread the eggplant and the yolks plus 2 more whole eggs are for the Bechamel later on.


Time to prep the eggplant. I rinse them in cold water two slices at a time and then placed them onto clean towels on the counter at the top of the shot. I've lightly whisked the whites and I have a pan of breadcrumbs waiting.


In to the egg whites, then dredge through the bread crumbs......


and they're ready for the oven. 400 for about 30 minutes, but flipping them over half way through.


And when they were done they looked like this. They could have gone a bit longer to be a bit more brown, but they are certainly done and tasty!


Now for the meat sauce mix. I've got ground lamb and ground chuck, cinnamon, allspice, about 2 tablespoons of tomato paste, a large onion to be diced, garlic, dry red wine and parsley. I only used half of the chuck, so I had 2 pounds of meat that went into the pan. You can use 100% lamb of course, but I think the flavor in this dish is complemented nicely with a 50/50 mix like this.


Start browning it up......


and add the onion. When they got to being cooked, I added the garlic, stirred for a minute then added the wine and let reduce. When a fair amount of the water was gone, I added all the rest of the ingredients and let simmer for about 15 minutes.


And....it looked like this.


Now for the Bechamel. I have 2 sticks of butter (one cup) and one cup of flour for the roux.


When that had cooked a bit, I added 2 cups of milk, whisking as I poured.


It thickens pretty quick, so I have to be diligent. This is the exact same method I used in the Pastitsio, just more of it. It includes the beaten yolks which I tempered before adding so as to avoid them becoming scrambled. Salt and pepper to taste with about a teaspoon of nutmeg. When ready, it looked like this.



Now to assemble the Moussaka. First layer in the potatoes....


then a layer of the eggplant slices.


The first two layers looked like this. I could have crowded more eggplant, but the fact is, I only had room in the oven for the two baking sheets I showed above and I didn't want to bother doing that baking process twice (it's a damned small oven) so I had a limited number of slices to work with.


Spoon on the meat sauce....


and spread it out.


I sprinkled on some grated Parmesan and some crumbled Feta Cheese, then another layer of the eggplant.


The Bechamel on top. I spread it so it would run down the sides as much as possible.


More Parm and Feta on top.....


and into a 350 degree oven for 45 minutes. See my damned tiny oven? You would think it was an RV!




Well....I've got 45 minutes to kill....there was something else I wanted to do...what the hell was that?


OH YEAH! SOUP!

Starting with the quart and a half of chicken stock I have left over. It's been in the fridge for a couple days, so I skimmed off most of the accumulated fat at the top and put it in the pan. Bring it to a boil and add about 1/2 cup of rice. Some recipes call for Orzo Pasta, but I like rice with this one.


Now for the "Lemono" part. I took the zest off of two lemons....


so I had a little pile like this....


and then juiced them both.


When the rice is almost cooked in the broth, I started the lemon/egg mix. The broth is at a gentle boil at this point.
3 more eggs whisked well, then add the lemon juice (in the bowl behind) and most of the zest....


and then slowly pour about a cup or so of the hot broth to temper the eggs.


Then that mix gets whisked into the broth. When I did the chicken stock the other day, I removed all the good meat that was still left on the carcass after I boiled it. I chopped it up pretty small and added it to the soup at this point. Avgolemono is, from what I understand, traditionally served with no meat in it, but I like the chicken meat in it, so I added it! The recipe I gave at the top says this is perfectly fine as well as adding the vegetables back in if you like. It's up to you. I just went with the chicken meat - about 2/3 of a cup I guess.


And here's how it turned out. Nice and creamy without being thick, with rice and chicken. I have to be careful not to let it boil, for fear of the eggs curdling, so I just had it on real low as it thickened. Correct the seasoning and it's done!


The Moussaka out of the oven to cool for about 10 minutes before slicing.


Slice it like Lasagna....


and there it is! Not bad.


Ladle out the soup....


and a bit of the leftover lemon zest on top for garnish.


And there you go! Moussaka and Avgolemono Soup. Serve the Moussaka with extra lemon wedges and squeeze a bit on every bite! YUM!


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The collateral damage! With only about 2/3rds of it cleaned up!


And the leftover soup.



BTW, in case you're interested in how I'm capturing these shots, I bought a mount for my iPad and a tripod. I also downloaded a photo timer app than gives me a countdown of up to 15 seconds before taking the pic.

Here's a shot of the tripod/mount assembly;


I sure hope you found this interesting and give these two dishes a try.

Yassou and may you eat and be well!