Nat’s What I Reckon summer cookbook recipe: Lamb Moussaka Therapy
Imagine a dish as therapeutic to eat as a lasagne, but instead of beef it’s made with lamb and has layers of potato and eggplant as the pasta sheets … Imagine no more, champions!
Every day this summer, we’ll publish an exclusive recipe from a favourite Australian author, dishes made with affection for family, friends or someone special.
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Just imagine a dish as therapeutic to eat as a lasagne, but instead of beef it’s made with lamb and has layers of potato and eggplant as the pasta sheets … Imagine no more, champions!
I have spent a lot of time in therapy in my life. It’s a bloody good thing to have the opportunity to let rip about what’s going on for you in a space that’s dedicated to exactly that.
I find my noggin loves to look for trouble constantly, and if I don’t give it something to do then I will likely find myself in deep trouble. That’s why putting together a good feed is so therapeutic, ’cause it can shut your head up for a second, and lets you enjoy a bit of a breather.
SUMMER COOKBOOK: THE WAY TO THE HEART
Minestrone (Mum’s vegetable soup)
This soup is a message of comfort via comfort food — delicious, nutritious, foolproof, cheap and feeds lots of people.
Tuna with pasta
Maybe I love this dish because it takes me back to when two pots and a black-and-white TV was enough, and there was nothing that could not fixed by a pint and a shared laugh.
Made-in-Minutes Goan Prawn Curry with Spinach
I love curries and this one is simple, with lots of flavour and a wonderful, creamy, coconut base.
Monster mash
My mash consistently makes women moan and gentlemen raise their eyebrows. The secret is simple muscularity.
Slow-cooked rabbit
A couple of decades ago I started to collect rabbit recipes from here and across the world, and ended up with hundreds.
Sri Lankan omelette
This is my favourite meal in the whole world. In particular, Sri Lankan omelette is my go-to comfort food. I can make it quickly and eat it three times a day.
My Humble Pie is the greatest to exit an oven
It may be humble in terms of cost, but it is bold, brash, punchy and delectable with a Stroganoffish zest. It will change your life. Humbly.
Raspberry and elderflower trifle
This dish tells a story of my life. I grew up eating custard, real custard made from cornflour and eggs and milk, along with fools and flummeries.
A roast chicken comfort dish
I love the way the roasting smell fills the house. It reminds me of so many wonderful family dinners.
Beef keema
What I love about keema is how forgiving it is and how easy it is to make. This is the homely dish that introduced my children to their Pakistani side.
Triple ginger bar cake
This is cooked in a loaf tin and is flexible; delicious naked, slathered with butter, or more traditionally iced with a loose glace to become a perfect tea cake.
Peter Craven’s Duck a l’orange
Any kind of duck is grand but duck as the French do it, and especially duck a l’orange, is a joy forever.
Selvie’s chicken curry with curry leaves
When our spice couriers managed to get their contraband through customs, there was much celebrating – usually in the form of Mum’s fragrant chicken curry.
Ice cream with caramel and cherries
And then the dessert comes... It slides into that part of our experience that is pre-politics, pre-speciality, pre-peculiarity and even pre-sophistication.
Lamb scrag end neck chops stew
This is the meal I constantly cook because my husband will live on it quite happily for a week, saving me a lot of bother ... he is not a modern man.
Creme brulee with candied rhubarb
More than 30 years ago, I gave a formal sit-down dinner party for 30 people. Dessert was the piece de resistance, individual creme brulees with candied rhubarb.
Borsch for the busy person
With the right mix of ingredients, borsch is a tangy but sweet and belly warming mouthful of delight.
Virginia Woolf Brittle
The impact of Virginia Woolf Brittle on a current partner or potential mate, particularly when fed by hand and in combination with a reading in the late sun, cannot be overstated.
Wakame beurre blanc
This sauce has become such a staple that I douse all grilled, poached, or pan-fried seafood in it at all times of the year.
Lemon Chicken
When our children were growing and my wife Steph was teaching evening classes, lemon chicken was the go to meal – simple and tasty.
Crispy Latkes
Creamy mashed, crispy smashed, jacket roasted and anointed with butter, pan fried with sliced onions, deep-fried to limpness, over-salted and wrapped in newsprint – however they come, I love potatoes.
Lamb Moussaka Therapy
Imagine a dish as therapeutic to eat as a lasagne, but instead of beef it’s made with lamb and has layers of potato and eggplant as the pasta sheets … Imagine no more, champions!
Odd couple share recipe for great summer reading
They’re one of the less likely duos to be found discussing the filleting of trout or basting of chicken – but Tom Keneally and Nat’s What I Reckon have all bases covered.
Summer Cookbook
Australia’s favourite authors share their most meaningful recipes.
Slower cooks are good for a bit of a well-focused rostered moment off. Take moussaka, for example. It has a lot of parts to it and there is incidentally a lot of care and Lego-style building that goes into it.
By the time you’ve put it all together and marvelled at your creation, let alone about how it tastes … you’ve accidentally kicked a mental health goal between several posts.
Moussaka is such a rock ’n’ roll dish, there are some incredible variations of it across the globe. Mine is based on the more traditional Greek style, as the combination of bechamel sauce and lamb mince suits me down to the ground.
The lamb and spice mix power combo will blow your mind, and it’ll no doubt be making a frequent appearance in your repertoire in no time. It’s worth every bit of effort, I swear. Get down and get with it, champions!
2-3 eggplants (depending on the size)
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, plus extra to drizzle
3 teaspoons dried oregano
Sea salt flakes
700g red/desiree/Dutch cream
potatoes (but any kind are good), peeled and sliced into 1-cm thick slices
2 large onions, peeled and sliced
2 bay leaves
All the garlic on earth (a whole bulb), peeled, smashed and chopped roughly as ya like
⅓ teaspoon ground allspice
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1kg lamb mince
Sprig of rosemary
1 cup red wine
½ cup tomato paste
400g tin peeled whole tomatoes
2 teaspoons brown sugar
500ml beef stock
Freshly ground black pepper
½ cup panko breadcrumbs or regular breadcrumbs
Lemon wedges, to serve
Cheese Bechamel Topping
100g unsalted butter
100g plain flour
750ml milk
100g kefalograviera cheese, grated (or parmesan)
½ teaspoon ground nutmeg (or freshly grated nutmeg for preference)
Sea salt flakes
Freshly ground pepper
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1. Chuck a sick 180C fan-forced (200C conventional) flip of the oven switch and get that heating up straight out of the gates.
2. Two baking trays are gonna need a whack of baking paper over each of them. Grab your eggplants, cut the silly green hats off them and slice into 1.5-cm thin rounds. Lay them on the baking trays. Drizzle over a little oil followed by 1 teaspoon dried oregano and a pinch of salt, then into the oven and we are away to the races.
3. In 15-20 minutes, flip ’em over, treat them to another pinch of salt and belt ’em back in for the same amount of time, until tender. Remove those tender moments from the oven and set aside.
4. Place your potato slices into a saucepan of cold water, please and thanks, and bring to a simmer, cooking until the potato slices are tender (8-10 minutes depending how thick you went/type of potato etc). Try not to boil the potatoes until they are falling apart. Gently drain and set aside.
5. Crank 2 tablespoons of ya oil into a large pan, Sam, over a medium heat, and then chase that with your onions and bay leaves for 3-4 minutes. Then in goes your garlic to cook for another minute, followed by your spices and the remaining oregano and stir together.
6. Crank the heat up a touch and bung in your mince and fry for around 10 minutes or until it has a nice bit of colour to it and any watery nonsense has left the building.
As you near the end of this stage, I like to chuck in a handful of rosemary leaves or even the whole sprig.
In goes the cup of redders, cook the booze off for 2-3 minutes, then follow that with your tomato paste, tinned whole tomatoes, brown sugar and stock. Stir, bring to a simmer, reduce the heat, fang a lid on and cook for 30 minutes.
7. When time’s up, you wanna un-fang the lid to cook the sauce down until a fair bit thicker – you don’t want a super runny watery sauce, but a little wetness is OK. Now is a good time to give it a salting and a peppering to your taste; trust those clever tastebuds of yours and adjust accordingly.
8. Time to get bechamel cheesy peezy. To make this a little easier you can pre-warm (not boil) your milk in its own saucepan. Melt the butter in a separate pan over a medium – high heat, add your flour and stir together gently for a minute until it forms a paste and starts to bubble a bit.
9. Now slowly add your milk and keep stirring. Sometimes I like to use a whisk for this; don’t ask me why, I just do. Try not to be too impatient here and dump all your milk into the pan at once ’cause it can be a punish to get out the annoying lumps you’ve created. Once this has come to a gentle boil, reduce the heat to medium and cook for 3-5 minutes, stirring gently to keep it moving in the pot until it’s thickened up a fair bit.
10. Dump in your cheese and your ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg and stir to combine, then remove from the heat and add a little salt and a crack of pepper – to taste, as they say. Once it’s had a chance to cool a little, it’s a great time to whisk your eggs into the mix.
11. If you forgot to turn your oven off earlier that’s OK ’cause we’re gonna turn it back on to 180C fan-forced (200C conventional). Place around a third of the lamb mixture into a 3.5–4-litre baking dish, removing any bay leaves or rosemary stems if you spot them. Then lay on all your ever-so-tender potatoes to form a layer, and on top of that in goes another third of the lamb mixture.
12. Don’t worry if you can see a little potato peeking through the meat sauce.
It may seem like there isn’t enough sauce, but trust me, it cooks together like a dream.
Now on top of that, hit it with the eggplant; and then again with the remaining lamb sauce.
13. With some kind of appropriately cheesy tunes playing, gently tip over your bechamel. From the bottom of the dish upwards the layers should go a little something like this: sauce-potato-sauce-eggplant-sauce-bechamel. Even the bechamel out across the top and scatter with your breadcrumbs, a little salt and crack of pepper. Bung in the oven for 35–45 mins until golden on top and bubbling about like a tasty champion.
14. Let it rest for a few minutes and slice up some lemons. I like to let things that are covered in melty cheese set for a few minutes when they come out, as it makes serving easier. Serve the moussaka with the lemon wedges and tell me everyone isn’t stoked with that dinner?
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Nat’s What I Reckon is a comedian, rock musician, mental health advocate and award-winning, best-selling author who rocketed to global prominence in early 2020 with his isolation cooking content. Nat has an audience of more than 3.5 million and when he’s not filming, cooking or foraging for rosemary, indulges his love of rock’n’roll and comedy.
Life: What Nat to Do by Nat’s What I Reckon, Random House.