Tag Archives: Savoury

Challenge No. 14 – Moussaka

Posted on by
5

This recipe was suggested by my friend Kate.  I’ve never made moussaka before and I’ve only eaten it a handful of times, without really knowing what was in it.  When Kate suggested this recipe, she delighted in telling me that her dad makes the BEST moussaka. So I knew I had a challenge ahead and a tall order to live up to.

Before we get started, My Gastro Adventure has hit a little milestone this week and the website has now had over 1,000 views and reached a total of 31 subscribed follows!! I therefore wanted to say a massive thank you to everyone who has viewed the site, liked the posts and opted to follow the blog 🙂

Also, for those of you who are following the blog by e-mail, you may have received a strange “Test” post update earlier this week – this was my attempt to set up My Gastro Adventure on bloglovin, which I finally successfully managed to do.  Sorry if it caused you any confusion and thank you again for choosing to follow me on my adventures!

Anyway, on with the moussaka. I did some searching and found this recipe by Antony Worrall Thompson.

The recipe calls for the following ingredients:-

  • For the filling
    • 75ml/6fl oz olive oil
    • 1 large onion, finely chopped
    • 675g/1½lb lamb mince
    • 3 cloves garlic, chopped
    • 1.25ml/¼tsp cinnamon
    • 1.25ml/¼tsp allspice
    • 2 x 400g/14oz tin of chopped tomatoes
    • 1 tbsp fresh oregano, chopped*
    • 2 bay leaves
    • 1 tsp fresh, soft thyme leaves
    • 175ml/6fl oz white wine
    • 4 medium aubergines, cut into 1cm/½in slices
    • Salt and freshly ground black pepper
    • Plain flour, for dusting
  • For the topping
    • 85g/3oz unsalted butter
    • 85g/3oz plain flour
    • 900ml/1½pt milk
    • 85g/3oz parmesan, grated
    • 115g/4oz gruyère, grated
    • 2 free-range egg yolks
    • 1 free-range egg

Edited - ingredients

*I couldn’t get hold of fresh oregano so I just used dried oregano (1tsp dried is the equivalent of 1tbs fresh).

I started by chopping my onion finely and added it to my casserole dish with the heated oil. The recipe says to cook the onion for about 10 minutes until soft and then to brown the lamb in a separate frying pan.  I however didn’t wait for the onion to finish softening and popped about half of the lamb into my frying pan to get started whilst the onions cooked.

Edited - browed lamb

When the first half of the lamb was browned, I added it to the softened onions, along with the garlic. I used a wooden spoon to try and break the mince down as much as possible.  I then set about browning the second half of my lamb.

Now those eagled eyed amongst you may have noticed something strange about my ingredients picture above.  I didn’t notice it myself until I opened the second pack of lamb to brown and when I added it to my pan it looked a bit odd. I double checked the packaging…yep, it was beef! Whoops! I clearly should have checked the pack a bit more carefully in the supermarket. Anyway, I’d previously read you can make moussaka with lamb, beef or even a beef/pork mix so I just carried on with the lamb/beef combination 🙂

Next, I added the cinnamon, allspice, chopped tomatoes, oregano, bay leaves and thyme into the casserole dish.  I then added the remainder of the browned meat, deglazed the frying pan with the wine and added this to the casserole dish.  I reduced the heat and left it to simmer for 1 hour.

Edited - Casserole dish

Practical tip: don’t measure your spices out over the pot of onion/garlic/mince.  Perhaps an unnecessary tip but one I’m including out of an experience with this challenge. I tried to measure out the 1/4 tsp of cinnamon over the casserole dish, however, the cinnamon wasn’t coming out and then suddenly the powder shifted, filled the measuring spoon and (quite) a bit extra went straight into the pan.  Luckily, it wasn’t too much extra so as to affect the flavour but it was a close shave!  Lesson learned 🙂

I then set about slicing the aubergines.  I didn’t know whether I needed to peel the vegetable first – this may be a simple thing which most people would know but I’ve never cooked with aubergines before and so I wasn’t too sure.  I did a quick search and found another moussaka recipe which specifically stated to leave the skin on and so I decided to do this.

Edited - aubergine slices

I put the aubergines slices into a colander and sprinkled salt on them – I don’t actually have a colander and I just used the top parts of my steaming pans!  I gave the aubergines a good toss to make sure all slices had come into contact with the salt and then I popped the ‘colander’ on top of a plate, leaving them for 30 minutes.

Edited - salted slices

Practical tip: don’t skip the salting stage.  This is done to take away the bitterness of the aubergine.  The salt draws out some of the liquid from the sliced aubergine and when you lift the colander at the end there will be quite a lot of brown liquid on the plate.  This is an important step and should not be missed.

Now I was making this on Saturday afternoon with plenty of time before Kate and her boyfriend were due to arrive for dinner. One of the great things about the recipe is that it can be made ahead of time! This meant, I wasn’t too stretched for time and so instead of getting straight on with the béchamel sauce, I had a quick tidy up of the kitchen.

With a few of the pots washed and the sides cleared, I cracked on with the sauce.  I was a bit nervous about this bit.  I’ve tried to make béchamel sauce before and it just ended up tasting of flour. It was absolutely disgusting! This time round I was making it for guests and it is such a key part of the moussaka I was really hoping things would go to plan.

I melted the butter in my saucepan and then added the flour, giving it a good mix.  I left it on the heat for a minute.  I’ve read somewhere that you have to cook off the flour when making sauces and I think this may have been part of the problem last time.

Edited - butter in pan Edited - flour and butter mixed

I then took the pan off the heat and started adding the milk a little at a time, giving it a good stir in between each addition.  Once all the milk was added, I put the pan back on the heat and kept stirring, waiting for the mixture to thicken.  This is when I realised I probably should have started the sauce a bit sooner! It took about 30 or 40 minutes before it had thickened properly.  Talk about an achy arm with all that stirring!

Edited - thickened sauce

In between all the stirring of the yet to thicken sauce, I removed the casserole dish from the heat and rinsed my aubergine slices.  I put them on some kitchen roll to dry and carried on stirring the béchamel sauce.

Once it was finally thickened, I let the sauce simmer for 7 minutes and then removed it from the heat.  I added 55g each of the gruyere and parmesan cheese and seasoned the sauce with a bit of salt and pepper.

Edited - cheese to sauce

The next step was to brown the aubergines.  I patted the slices dry, coated them in flour (by shaking them in a sandwich bag) and then fried them in batches.  This seemed to take forever to do.  It was only about 8 minutes per batch but because there were so many slices, it took ages.

Edited - browned aubergines

Once the aubergines were all cooked, I added the egg to the cooled béchamel sauce and finally I had all the component parts of the moussaka ready. 

It was time to start layering up.  First, I put 1/3 of the mince mixture into my dish and before topping with the aubergines, I cracked some pepper on top.  I hadn’t seasoned the mince whilst cooking and when I tasted it, I thought it could do with some black pepper.  I then covered the mince with a layer of the aubergines.

Edited - mince layer Edited - aubergine layer

I added the next layer of mince, some more aubergines and then the final layer of mince.  I topped it all off with the béchamel sauce and the left over grated cheese.  I didn’t actually use the full amount of gruyere, only because there was so much and it just didn’t seem necessary. I used all the parmesan and about 40g of gruyere.  

Edited - oven ready

I put the dish to one side whilst I got started on pudding – make sure you come back again soon to read about my passionfruit cream profiteroles and hot chocolate fudge sauce.

Anyway, Kate and her boyfriend arrived just as it was time to put the moussaka in the oven for 60 minutes.  We had some warm pitta bread with humous and fried halloumi to start whilst the main event cooked away in the oven.

When the timer went off, I took the moussaka out the oven and patiently waited for 5 minutes just like the recipe said.  I then served up and we all tucked in with some crusty bread and a Greek salad (cucumber, tomato, olives, red onion and feta, drizzled in Greek olive oil).

Edited - cookedEdited - served up

So, with such a high standard set by Kate’s dad, I had a lot to live up to. Whilst everyone agreed it was nice (even Dave who ate round the aubergines!), when I asked Kate and her boyfriend for their verdicts the answer was “it’s good…but the problem is Kate’s dad makes the BEST moussaka”.  So I didn’t quite hit the bar that Kate’s dad set but still it was very enjoyable. 

The best bit for me was the fact that the béchamel sauce worked! It was the right texture and tasted yummy 🙂 I did however feel the dish took quite a long time to make because of all the messing around with the aubergines! I’ve read another recipe which recommends simply baking the aubergine slices for around 25 minutes at 180 degrees celcius.  I’m definitely going to try this next time rather than frying them. 

Overall, I was pleased with how this challenge turned out and will be adding moussaka to my recipe arsenal for the future.

Coming up next week, an Easter treat for Challenge No. 15 – simnel cake! Hope to see you then.

Challenge No. 12 – Fish and Chips

Posted on by
4

This dish was suggested by my boyfriend, Dave.  When Dave first met my parents (more than a whooping 6 years ago!), every time we went out for dinner he ended up ordering fish and chips.  After about 6 months, my mum actually had to ask if he ate anything else! He does of course, but there is no denying he really enjoys a bit of traditional fish and chips.

I’ve only ever cooked fish by poaching smoked haddock in the oven to have with a mushroom risotto.  I don’t know why but I have always been a bit reluctant to try new things with fish.  I’m happy to try different things when someone else is cooking but I’ve been nervous about cooking it myself.  This couldn’t stop me now – the whole point of Challenge 52 is to take me out of comfort zone and so I embraced the challenge here.

I did a quick search and found a really nice looking fish recipe by The Hairy Bikers.  You can find the recipe here. For the chips, I have been trying a few new methods in recent weeks and below I have described the method I used this time.

The dish requires the following ingredients:-

  • For the batter
    • 75g/2½oz cornflour
    • 200g/7¼oz plain flour
    • 1 tsp fine sea salt
    • 330ml/11½fl oz real ale
    • 2 tbsp white wine vinegar
  • For the fish
    • sunflower oil, for deep frying
    • 4 tbsp plain flour
    • ½ tsp fine sea salt
    • 4 x 200g/7¼oz thick white fish fillets, such as haddock or whiting*
  • For the chips
    • 2 medium to large potatoes
    • Salt
    • sunflower oil, for deep frying

*I let Dave decide which type of fish he wanted and there wasn’t even a contest – it had to be cod. I had tried suggesting we have a different type of fish to help with sustainability and the problem of over-fishing the more common types, but nope, Dave said it had to be cod.

Edited - ingredients

I started by preparing my chips.  I’ve recently tried using the multi-cook approach to chips and this involves blanching them in water, cooking them in the fryer on a low temperature and then once cooled finishing them off in the fryer on a high temperature.

I peeled and chopped the potatoes.  I tried my best to keep them evenly sized but I’ve not quite got the hang of this and to be honest, I think they look more rustic with a bit of variation 🙂

Edited - chips cut

Once they were chopped I washed them in cold water to remove as much of the starch as possible.  I then popped them in a pan of salted water which I bought to the boil and I cooked them until they were soft but still holding their shape, this took around 8 minutes.  I then drained and put the potatoes onto some kitchen roll to remove as much of the water as possible.

Edited - blanching Edited - blanched

I heated up my deep fat fryer to 140 degrees celsius and cooked the chips for another 8 minutes.  I then put them on a tray lined with kitchen paper to drain and cool down.

Practical tip: because of the various stages involved, you can blanch and initially fry the chips and then leave them to one side to cool whilst you get everything else done. 

Edited - chips fry 1

Whilst the chips were cooling I got on with the fish.  I prepared my batter by mixing the cornflour, plain flour and salt in a bowl.  I made a well and then poured in the ale and vinegar.  The recipe specially instructs to beat the mix with a large metal whisk.  I don’t know why it has to be a metal whisk but I don’t have one of these – mine is plastic! So I simply beat it with my plastic whisk until I had a smooth batter and this seemed to work well enough.

Edited - dry and wet Edited - batter

With the batter ready, I turned up the temperature on my fryer to give it time to reach the required 180 degrees celsius.  I then moved onto the next stage of the recipe – putting the flour and salt in the food bag to coat the fish.  Uh-oh, I had ran out of food bags! I’m going to blame Dave and say he used the last one without telling me 😉  Anyway, without any food bags available, I decided to use a plastic bowl and simply covered it with cling film to toss the fish.  It definitely wasn’t as good as using a food bag but it got the job done.

Edited - floured fish

So everything was ready to go! I dipped my floured fish in the batter and popped it into the fryer.  The recipe itself says to lower the fish into the oil using tongs and Dave’s mum confirmed I shouldn’t use a basket. I therefore didn’t use the frying basket (or tongs as mine are plastic!) and just carefully dropped the fish straight into the oil.  Once in the oil, I prodded the fish with a metal spatula (borrowed from Dave’s mum as again, mine is plastic) and it floated to the top of the oil and bobbed away in the bubbling oil.  I made sure to turn the fish a couple of times and the batter was soon a lovely golden brown.   

Edited - fish cooking

I did try to take a better photo of the fish in the oil but it spat at me and the hot oil just missed my eye so this is as good as you’re going to get on the photo front!

I decided to fry my fish in two batches and just put the first lot in the oven whilst the second ones cooked.

With the fish done, I turned the fryer up to 190 degrees celsius and popped my chips back into the oil for around 4 minutes.  I drained them on some kitchen roll, tossed them in salt and served up.

Edited - served up 2

The final dish was yummy, chips, fish and all.  The batter was nice a crispy and the fish was perfectly cooked. The chips were one of the best I’ve done so far, still not quite how I like them but definitely getting there. 

Overall, our fish and chips were lovely and I’m sure Dave will soon be pestering me to make it again.

Coming up next week, Challenge No. 13 – candy floss cupcakes.

Challenge No. 10 – Currywurst

Posted on by
4

This recipe was suggested by my friend Jenni and is a fast food dish originating from Germany. I’ve never tried currywurst and was at first a little apprehensive.  I had flashbacks to a show and tell presentation whilst at primary school where I took in another common German dish, sauerkraut.  I have absolutely no idea why I was presenting this, of all things, but I do remember I did not like it one bit!  And so, when Jenni suggested currywurst, I immediately googled it to make sure it wasn’t related in any way to sauerkraut.  Thank goodness it wasn’t.  It is basically a german sausage smothered in a curried tomato sauce and it is often served with chips and/or a crunchy bread roll.

I set of in search of a suitable recipe and decided to use this one.  The recipe calls for the following ingredients:-

  • 2 Tbsp canola oil
  • 1 large onion, chopped
  • 2 Tbsp curry powder
  • 1 Tbsp paprika powder
  • 15 oz can tomato sauce
  • ½ cup (100g) sugar
  • ¼ cup (60ml) red wine vinegar
  • salt to taste
  • 2 bratwurst sausages
  • dinner rolls for serving

Those of you who have been following my posts will know that I always include a photo of the ingredients.  I started this recipe in the same way as all the others, by setting out my ingredients ready for their photo.  However, in doing this, I realised I had made a mistake with my prep!

Before I went shopping for the ingredients, I read through and mentally crossed off anything I already had in the cupboard, which included the curry powder.  However, when I went to get out my curry powder, I realised I had got it wrong! In my head I had thought of the chilli powder sat in the cupboard and mistakenly checked of one of the most vital ingredient! Face-palm moment – who thinks they can made currywurst without the curry?!  Anyway, after a quick emergency trip to the supermarket at 8.30 on a Saturday night, I was all ready to go.

Edited - ingredients

I started by chopping the onions and popping them in the saucepan to soften. 

Practical tip: don’t worry about chopping the onions too small – they get taken out of the sauce before you serve up and are merely there to add flavour.

Edited - onions in pan

Once the onions were soft, I added the curry powder and paprika.  I let this cook for around a minute and then added the remaining ingredients.  Personally, I didn’t add any salt as I didn’t think it needed it but obviously this comes down to personal preference.

Edited - onion and powders Edited - bubbling sauce

I then let the sauce simmer away for around 20 minutes and got started on the bratwurst.  I opted to cook 3 bratwursts for 2 of us and this worked out to be the perfect serving size.  I heated a little oil in my frying pan and put the sausages in.

I turned the sausages regularly trying to brown all sides.

 Edited - sausage panEdited - cooked sausage

With everything nearly done, I pushed the sauce through my sieve to remove all the lumpy bits of onions and was left with a lovely silky smooth sauce.  I popped this back in the pan and on the heat until ready to serve.

I cut up the sausages and spooned the sauce over the top.  I was a bit reserved with the sauce at first and ended up going back for more because it was just so delicious.  I served up with some slices of crunchy baguette and some yummy curly fries. 

Edited - served up

The verdict – currywurst is absolutely delicious! Whilst we were eating it my boyfriend revealed he was really not looking forward to having this but was surprised at how nice it was.  We did however both agree it was a little sweet and if we have it again (which we will do!), I will put a little less sugar in and probably a little more curry powder. 

One of the best things about this dish was it’s simplicity.  Whilst I cooked it on a Saturday night, it would be a really good mid-week treat and is definitely one I will be doing again!

Coming up next week, Challenge No. 11 – chocolate ganache & cherry tart. 🙂 Hope to see you then.