Secret to a tip-top moussaka | Mumsnet (2024)

Fry the aubergines and potatoes first.

At least a bottle of red wine.

A good load of dried mint, cinnamon stick, couple of bay leaves.

Cook the ragu down, if it's too wet the whole thing will be sloppy.

The thing with aubergines, in order to cook them properly they take a lot of oil. I mean a LOT of oil

The average British home cook cant comprehend of that amount of oil.

But its the only way Ive managed to get them how Ive found them abroad and in restaurants

@toastofthetown - thank you, I'm also a fan of Felicity, but didn't think of searching her past articles. I'll look it up.

@soupfiend - ok, I suspected there might be a gallon of oil involved. Hm, I might be willing to try a no holds barred aubergine frying session to see if it gives me my dream results.

Its the silkiness that just cant be created without cooking like that

However, I am still on a mission to work through a number of different methods to test them all out (I love aubergines)

So options are

• brushing with oil and baking in the oven
• deeper amount of oil and baking in the oven
• brushing with oil and slow frying in a pan with the lid on to speed cooking
• steaming the slices
• boiling the slices

So far I have done fairly deepish frying, not too high a heat, so soft and silky, not crispy, not too brown. Then I did a batch of slices which had been tossed around a bowl with a lot of oil, with a bit of oil in the pan, they crisped up too much on the edges and thats not what Im looking for

This is with a view to the perfect aubergine parmigiana (not always made with cheese by the way)

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I honestly think you can make a good moussaka without the oil

My rule is a slow cooked ragu and make it the day before for the flavours to develop

I do my aubergine slices in the air fryer on roast. Sliced, lightly sprayed with oil, in they go. When tossing or turning I toss in a large bowl lightly sprayed with oil and seasoned - it does work , takes a bit longer to get a good browning but you get there . When softened I put on to max crisp to get the colour - and hence flavour

@suki1964 - I've just got an air fryer this week, so this is good timing!

@WithIcePlease - super intrigued by the idea of dry frying the aubergines. I do this with courgettes and they go lovely and charred, but have never tried it with aubergine. I guess my concern is they'd go tough (my husband calls it 'elephant skin') rather than all melty. Do you cut the aubergine into thin slices?