Moussaka for Buka..

There's always more food in our home during Ramadan. That's somewhat an irony since we only eat two times, during sahur and buka. But mom always makes excuses, saying that this is such a special month and this is her way of showing her love for the family. Well, not a big trouble since we all eat a lot.. ^_^

Today, mom had to go to teach (she's a part time lecturer) and left the cooking task to me. I obeyed since I had nothing to do.
*Yeah, my report and my paper can wait until tomorrow..*

Mom asked me to make use the stuffs in the fridge. I found some eggplants, tempe, minced meat, and funny-smelling cheese (blame dad for putting the jackfruit in the fridge again!), and decided to make Moussaka. It's middle-eastern food (Greek), consisting layers of eggplant, meat, and white sauce.

I've been wanting to make this since I discovered my liking for eggplant a few years back. Before that, I did not consider eggplant as food, mainly because it's so Barney-looking (read: purple) and spongy. I actually asked my cousin when I saw him ate eggplant with sambal, "Do you really eat those thing?"
"Yeah, it's good.." he answered while giving me a funny look. Then I found that eggplant is used in one of the recipe in Harvest Moon games; and fried eggplant is one of Archie Andrew's favorites in Archie Comics. So I thought, "It can't be that bad.." and gave it a try. I like eggplant since then..

Here's the picture of my first Moussaka:


I couldn't find my cookbook so the recipe's been altered so much. I used tempe as an addition to the meat since my parents are cutting down their meat consumption.

First, slice the eggplants (I use 3 medium eggplants) about 3/4 cm thick. Heat some butter in the skillet and fry the eggplant until tender (try to do this altogether since eggplant absorb the grease very quickly and you wouldn't want some piece so oily while the others so dry). Set aside.
Heat some butter in the skillet, cook chopped onion until fragrant and tender. Add minced meat and cook until brown. Add chopped tempe and chopped tomatoes, tomato ketchup, oregano, a dash of salt and pepper. Set aside.
Heat some butter in a pan. Add flour and stir until smooth. Add milk while stirring continuously until it become a smooth paste. Remove from heat and let it cool. Add grated cheese and an egg and stir until smooth.
Arrange the eggplant on the pan, layer with meat and white sauce. The last layer should be the eggplant and white sauce. Sprinkle with grated cheese and bake for 30 minutes with 180'C temperature.

It was good, my mom and dad love it, but my sister said that the eggplant tastes weird. She said I should have used mushroom instead. But if I used mushroom, it wouldn't be a moussaka. Just like if I used pasta, then it would become lasagna.. Well, can't please everyone..

So for today's buka, we had moussaka, leftovers from sahur (clear mushroom&chicken soup and roasted chicken), green cincau jelly (made from cincau leaves), and brownies (a present from a friend). Nice... ^_^