How To Make Greek MoussakaAkis Petretzikis

Yes Food Tuber's. My name is Akis. This is my first video on Food Tube and I hope you enjoy it. So I'm from warm sunny Greece, and I think the most appropriate recipe that I could choose to introduce myself to
you with is one of the more well known Greek dishes moussaka.

It's not moussaka, it's moussaka. It's baked in the oven and consists of layers of healthy vegetables, aromatic ground beef, and topped with a creamy bechamel sauce. There is no question as to why to this so famous. It's a truly delicious dish and I've made it easier to cook, and healthier to eat, just for you.

In the original recipe the vegetables are fried so they soak up a lot of oil. I decided to bake them instead which make the dish healthier and less
time-consuming. So let's begin by preheating our oven to two hundred degrees Celsius. Set to fan.

Here we have a 25cm by 30cm baking pan. That I'm going to brush with some olive oil. Now, thinly slice two potatoes and an onion. We put them in the bowl.

Drizzle with some olive oil. Salt, pepper, and thyme. We mix them and spread them in a thin layer on the bottom of the
baking pan. Now we're gonna bake them for 20 minutes until they soften slightly and turn a little golden.

And the potatoes are ready. Now thinly slice an aubergine, or egg plant. You need thin slices for your vegetables to cook correctly in the oven. I added two to our bowl.

Drizzle with olive oil, season
with salt, pepper and thyme. Spread the eggplant slices over the potato slices, at this point if you see the egg plant a little bit dry, you can add a little bit more olive oil. It's gonna be okay. And bake for 20 more minutes.

The egg plant is ready, and our final ingredient will be: kolokithia in Greek, or zucchini in American and courgette for the UK. I will cut into thin slices and guess what, we're going to add some olive oil, salt, pepper and thyme. Spread them over the egg plant, and bake for another 20 minutes. Our vegetables are ready.

So lets continue with the next layer. We need the pan add some olive oil, mince some onion, add it to the pan, and caramelized over high heat. Mince a clove of garlic. Add it to your pan, and give it a mix.

Now lets add the spices. Half a teaspoon of cinnamon, and a pinch of ground clove. Mix and saute. It makes a huge
difference when you put the spices on their own
before adding the meat.

Add one tablespoon of tomato paste, and put the ground meat into the pan. I'm using this. Use a wooden spoon to break it up into small pieces, salt and pepper. Add a jar of chopped tomatoes and simmer for five to ten minutes or until most of the liquid evaporates.

Imagine how surprised your friends will be when they come to your house and find a nice moussaka to eat. They gonna love you. The mix should be quite dry, and our ground meat is ready. Set aside, and lets start our bechamel sauce.

Place a medium-sized sauce pan over medium heat. Add butter. As soon as the butter starts to melt, melt, not burn, we can add the flour. And start to whisk.

Now this is an important thing to
remember. Always add the milk in slowly, and in batches. If we add it all at once, the flour won't dissolve in the meat properly and lumps will form. This is definitely something you don't want.

Each time we add the milk you have to
wait for it to get absorbed into the flour, and then add the next batch of milk. You
also have to remember to whisk constantly during this whole
process. You might have to do this up to ten times, but it's worth it because in the end you will have the best bechamel sauce in the World. I promise.

When the sauce finally start to bubble, you will know it's ready. It should be smooth, creamy and delicious. Oh! It's starting to bubble. Now lets remove this from the
heat and add some freshly ground pepper, some ground nutmeg, but no salt, because we will be adding some grated Parmesan.

And whisk. For a final touch I'm adding 3 egg yolks. Give it a stir, and it's ready. Now one third of this creamy bechamel sauce right into the ground meat.

Mix together. We are creating a sticky feeling. So that the dish will hold together when serving and eating. If we had a very juicy or saucy filling it would all fall apart.

Now spread the filling over the vegetables and to complete the moussaka, I'm going to use a spatula to get all the bechamel sauce out of the pan, and spread it over the ground meat. Smooth the top to make it look nice. Finally, sprinkle with
some grated Parmesan and back into the oven for 25 to 30 minutes, or until it looks golden brown and bubbly. Here it is.

I wish you could smell this. Before cutting the moussaka allow it to cool for at least one hour because it needs time to set. Cut into pieces. Layers of tasty vegetables.

Aromatic and delicious ground meat, and even more delicious: bechamel sauce. If you want to make more of my recipes
visit akispetretzikis.Com and subscribe
to my YouTube channel, Akis Petretzikis Official. Try making this great dish guys, moussaka, you will love it. Healthy, quick, and mouth-wateringly good.

This thing guys is amazing. I hope to see you again
soon. Yassas..