Blog

Feb 25, 2024

Everything you need to know about moussaka, the classic Greek dish

It may be an icon of Greek cuisine, but this hearty layered dish hails from beyond the country’s borders — and its present form is a relatively recent innovation. You’ll find moussaka, with its chunky

It may be an icon of Greek cuisine, but this hearty layered dish hails from beyond the country’s borders — and its present form is a relatively recent innovation.

You’ll find moussaka, with its chunky layers of deeply savoury, sweetly spiced meat, silky aubergines and creamy bechamel sauce, on the menu at every whitewashed tourist taverna. No surprise, then, that it’s perceived by many visitors as Greece’s national dish. Some in the Greek diaspora, however, seem less convinced, with chef Peter Conistis telling listeners to the Ouzo Talk podcast that, “You might hate me but… it started as a Turkish dish”.

In reality, moussaka’s true origins may lie even further afield. In Kitab al-Tabikh, a 13th-century manuscript referred to in English as A Baghdad Cookery Book, there’s a recipe for ‘maghmuma’, or ‘muqatta’a’, consisting of alternating strata of aubergine and onions, spiced meat and fat, soaked in a vinegar-spiked gravy. And according to Charles Perry, an expert on medieval Arabic cuisine, the word ‘moussaka’ comes from the Arabic ‘musaqqâ’ (‘moistened’). It’s an etymology that aptly sums up the attraction of a dish sauced with olive oil, tomatoes and meat juices, all topped with a generous slick of bechamel — and that’s just the modern Greek iteration. In fact, versions of moussaka can be found throughout the Middle Eastern, North African and Balkan worlds under an array of different names.

Food and travel writer Ghillie Başan writes that ‘the word [musakka in Turkish] simply denotes a dish of fried vegetables with minced meat’, which is what, it’s generally agreed, would have passed for moussaka in Greece, too, until Nicholas Tselementes arrived on the scene. Born on the island of Sifnos in 1878, Tselementes grew up in Athens and seems to have trained in classical French techniques in Vienna at the turn of the 20th century before returning to Greece, where he began publishing a cookery magazine in 1910. A book of recipes and household advice followed and proved such a success that his name quickly became synonymous with Greek cuisine; even today, almost a century after Odigos Mageirikis (‘Cookery Guide’) first appeared on the market, ‘tselemente’ remains a generic Greek term for a cookbook.

The Greek food writer and journalist Aglaia Kremezi, who’s written extensively on Tselementes, notes that, despite taking the credit for publishing the first comprehensive Greek recipe book, the chef doesn’t appear to have been particularly keen on traditional cooking, describing it as ‘greasy, over-spiced and unappealing’ — deficiencies he blamed on the ‘influence and contamination’ of the Ottoman occupation, which lasted from the mid-15th century until 1821. Olive oil, garlic, herbs and lemon were anathema to his taste buds, according to Kremezi, who concludes that Tselementes ‘favoured sweet and very mild foods, and this partly explains his adoration for bechamel sauce’, which is made, of course, with butter and milk rather than oil.

Prior to the publication of Odigos Mageirikis, Kremezi claims, ‘there was no moussaka as we know it today. Just layers of fried aubergine, topped with meat and tomato sauce with, maybe, some cheese at the top’. This was the version her own grandmother used to cook. The dish we now recognise as moussaka seems to have come into being in the pages of Tselementes’s book. He devoted an entire chapter to the subject, providing six different recipes, mostly involving swapping the aubergines for other vegetables and almost all involving his signature blanket of white sauce.

It’s this topping that now sets a Greek moussaka apart from its many cousins around the region — as Conistis concedes on Ouzo Talk: “In history, it starts off as a Turkish dish, but it’s definitely Greek, with a lot of thanks to the French for the bechamel”. In other words, a dish that those of us outside the region think of as quintessentially Greek is, historically speaking, far more complex— indeed, the food writer Nikos Stavroulakis calls Tselementes’s obsession with French ingredients and techniques ‘the biggest tragedy in Greek cuisine’.

Just as the vegan chickpea and aubergine stew that passes as a moussaka, or maghmour, in Lebanon is very different from Albanian musaka — involving yoghurt-topped pork and potato — there’s also huge variation between recipes and no single ‘right’ way to make moussaka, even within Greece. The basics of the dish tend to stay the same: layers of aubergine and minced meat are finished with a creamy topping. The finer details, however are fiercely contested. Athens-born Rena Salaman informs readers of her classic collection, Greek Food, that lamb is more ‘authentic’ than beef, while Greek celebrity chef Akis Petretzikis recommends the latter. Food writer Georgina Hayden’s Greek Cypriot family recipe uses a mixture of beef and pork, and the late Evdokia Antginas, a home cook and cookbook author from the Peloponnese, favoured a mixture of veal, pork and lamb.

The choice of vegetables used is equally up for debate. Potatoes, according to Salaman, are an addition from the Greek region of Macedonia, while Athens-born-and-bred food writer Carolina Doriti includes them in the recipe in her recent book Salt of the Earth. They ‘create a more stable foundation and help the dish keep its shape better’ she writes, adding, ‘they also add flavour and starchiness, which is always comforting’. The courgettes, meanwhile, are her mum’s addition, but in the Cycladic islands, she reports, artichokes often feature instead.

The Orthodox fasting calendar means meat-free versions aren’t uncommon either — Tselementes had a vegan recipe using minced aubergines, tomatoes and breadcrumbs. Traditionally fried in copious amounts of olive oil, the vegetable element these days is just as likely to be either baked or cooked on a griddle to make the dish lighter. The bechamel sauce, meanwhile, might be replaced with yoghurt or whipped feta or enriched with egg yolks.

Chefs around the world have played with the form in numerous other ways, too, creating recipes for ‘moussaka’ made with everything from lobster (New York’s Konstantinos Troumouhis) to butter chicken (Australian chef George Calombaris). Koukoumavlos, in Santorini, reimagined the dish as a souffle; Dubai’s Eat Greek Kouzina chain served it in a burger; The Zillers, in Athens, added it as a pizza topping; and London’s Kalimera once deconstructed it entirely. The fact that none of these variants are still on offer at the establishments concerned might suggest that, actually, some things are better left alone — although, for the adventurous, a scallop and taramasalata moussaka remains on the menu at Sydney’s Alpha.

Both Salaman and Doriti decry what the latter describes as the ‘heavy, oily’ versions of moussaka, found in more tourist-orientated restaurants in Greece. Doriti writes that she hardly ever orders it when eating out, saying, ‘Like many other Greeks I know, moussaka is a dish I mostly enjoy cooking and eating at home’. Moreover, making it for oneself gives the cook licence to tweak it to their own tastes, whether that means leaving out the meat or adding copious amounts of olive oil and garlic in defiance of Tselementes’s fussy palate.

However you like your moussaka, though, Greek cookery teacher Elisavet Sotiriadou advises exercising patience once it’s cooked, explaining the dish needs time to set to allow the flavours to “bloom”. She recalls being at restaurants in Greece where chefs have refused to serve the moussaka as it needed time to rest. True as this may be, resisting the temptation to dive straight in might prove a challenge.

Greek moussaka is always layered and baked in the oven. A base of sliced potatoes helps keep the shape better and works as a great flavour combination, too. To make the dish lighter, you can roast the vegetables instead of frying them, as described here. I use an oval-shaped dish approximately 30cm x 35cm x 7cm.

Serves: 8-10Takes: 1hr 30 mins

For the meat sauce2 tbsp olive oil650g minced beef (ideally chuck and blade/shoulder)1 large onion, chopped2 garlic cloves, chopped2 bay leaves1 cinnamon stick170ml dry red wine600g tomatoes, peeled and pureed in a blender or canned chopped tomatoes (with the juices)1 tsp tomato puree ½ tsp dried oregano1½ tbsp chopped parsleypinch of sugar (optional)For the vegetables2-3 medium aubergines, cut lengthways into 1cm sliceslight olive oil, for frying3 potatoes, peeled and cut lengthways into 1cm slices3 large courgettes, cut lengthways into 1cm slicesFor the bechamel 1.5 litres whole milk150g butter150g plain flourpinch of freshly grated nutmeg200g kefalotyri or pecorino cheese, grated

Taken from Salt of the Earth, by Carolina Doriti (£27, Quadrille). Food stylist: Amy Stephenson. Prop stylist: Vivi Garcia.