Yes, the recipe for moussaka has 25 ingredients. No, I never run recipes that long, because who has the time? _ To be honest, when I decided to write about the food of Greece I wasn't even thinking of including a recipe for moussaka, because it is too obvious a choice. Most everyone who wants to make moussaka already has a recipe for it. _ But then I saw that the recipe came from Molyvos, a restaurant in New York City. And suddenly I could not wait to try it.
Greek food is one of the world's great cuisines, and no wonder. The civilization has been around for thousands of years, and for all of that time they have been perfecting ways to cook with the wonderful, fresh ingredients they have on hand: fish, lamb, olives, lemons, cinnamon, garlic, honey, goat cheese, yogurt and oregano.
And wine, too. Don't forget, the ancient Greeks had a god of wine, Dionysus.
Of all the great and memorable Greek meals I have had in my life, the best and most memorable was at Molyvos. The restaurant is smack-dab in the middle of midtown Manhattan, and we found it the last time we were in the city. We had a plane to catch, so we had an early dinner that was more of a very late lunch.
I ordered the grilled octopus. It was tender, surprisingly tender for octopus, and delicately sweet, with just the right amount of char to add a faint counterbalance of bitterness and a light crunch. Dionysus would have approved.
So for my culinary tour of Greece, the birthplace of democracy, I determined to make the Molyvos recipe for moussaka _ even though it has 25 ingredients. But it could be worse. I could have gone for the grilled octopus.
Moussaka is essentially a layered casserole, with slices of potato on the bottom topped with slices of eggplant. This being a restaurant recipe, the potatoes and eggplant are both fried before layered. You could save calories by baking them (though that would take time) or sauteing them (though that would save fewer calories), but if this is the first time you make the recipe, try frying them. You won't regret it.
The next layer is ground lamb spiced with cinnamon, ginger and allspice cooked in a flavorful tomato sauce. Think of it as a sloppy joe, only exponentially better and considerably less sloppy.
The top layer, and this is where restaurant cooking really comes into play, is a ridiculously rich bechamel sauce. Bechamel is a thick white sauce made from butter, flour and milk, but this version dials up the amplitude by adding egg yolks and Greek yogurt.
The result is pure ambrosia, to use a Greek term. It's definitely Molyvosian.
A much easier dish, and very nearly as good, is Shrimp With Feta and Tomato, or garides saganaki. At first, this seems like a typical dish of shrimp in a tomato sauce _ and you can never go wrong with shrimp in a tomato sauce _ but it has two distinctions that make it better than the others.
The first distinction is the onions. Rather than using yellow or white onions to deepen the taste of the tomato sauce, this recipe uses green onions. Their taste is sharper but also milder, which gives the sauce a bright flavor without dominating it.
The second distinction is the feta cheese, which lends a nice briny counterpoint to the earthier tomato sauce. Softened slightly, the cheese also studs the sauce with occasional bits of chewy texture.
I also made a true Greek salad, which is to say the way they make it in Greece, not America. In Greece, the traditional salad called horiatiki does not have lettuce. At all.
It's practically the law: In Greece, what we think of as a Greek salad consists only of tomatoes, onions, cucumber, parsley, olives and feta cheese, topped with oil, red wine vinegar and dried oregano, plus salt and pepper. Sliced green pepper is optional.
Put it all together _ at the last minute, please _ and it is an incredibly fresh dish, bursting with well-balanced flavors and wholly satisfying.
For dessert, I thought that because I had already made moussaka, I may as well make baklava. In for a drachma, in for a euro, as they say.
Like moussaka, baklava takes some time to make (though not as much). Like moussaka, the result is worth it.
Baklava, of course, is the irresistible dessert made of layers upon layers of thin and crispy phyllo dough, stuffed with lightly sweetened (and cinnamoned) chopped nuts and doused in a sweet syrup. In Greece, the syrup uses honey; other Mediterranean countries with their own versions use just sugar or sugar flavored with rose water.
But the key ingredient of baklava is butter. Each fragile, individual sheet of phyllo must be brushed with melted butter, which is why it takes a while to make. If you have never worked with phyllo before, it can be a little tricky, because the thin dough tends to tear.
But there is one simple trick to solve that problem: Use a pastry brush with soft bristles. A silicone brush will just leave you with an ugly, tangled mess.
Baklava is a perfect dessert to share with others, but don't forget to save a few pieces for yourself. Some things are just worth it.
