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Moussaka - How One Of Greece's Most Traditional Dishes Is Made
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Moussaka – How One Of Greece’s Most Traditional Dishes Is Made



If you’ve ever been to Greece, you’ve likely sampled the most Greek of all dishes – moussaka! It’s traditionally made with eggplant, potatoes, ground beef, and béchamel sauce. A cornerstone of Greek cuisine, it’s as popular with visitors as it is with the locals.

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Report: Theodora Mavropoulos
Camera & Edit: Raphael Kominis

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25 Comments

  12. Georgios Nikolopoulos

    3:22 Yeah, ok, and the potatoes were deep fried in unknown vegetable oil. Oh, and use zucchini over the meat. That is from the botton of the pan, potatoes, egplant, meat zucchini, bechamel sauce.

  15. Dinos

    Hi, Greek here. For God's shake moussaka is not a traditional dish. It was indeed based on a traditional recipe but the dish commonly known as moussaka was a "nouveau cuisine", a fusion cuisine recipe of the early 20th century, invented by a world-acclaimed Greek chef and cuisine author, Nikolaos Tselementes. Tselementes had studied in France and was a lover of the French cuisine. Influenced by the French recipe Hachis Parmentier he introduced bechamel (a non-existing recipe-item in original traditional Greek cuisine – neither creme is used, almost non-existent as well) and combined it with an aubergines dish called "moussaka" more akin to the recipe known as "papoutsakia" (or in Minor Asia as "imam baildi" in turkish) to eventually produce "moussaka". And I think in the same line it was him who invented "pastitsio". Since Tselementes was the first Greek chef to write books, his recipes became best sellers and every single housewife had at least one of his books inside so that by post-war, these recipes were popularised all over the country to the point that when tourism hit hard in Greece in the 1960s tourists thought these were "traditional Greek recipes". Since tourists liked these recipes, Greeks offered them in restaurants and thus it somehow stuck that "moussaka" and "pastitsio" are traditional Greek recipes. They are not. They are "fusion cuisine" rather than traditional Greek one. Yet they are nice recipes, if you have the time and patience to do them, certainly not for novices.

  16. Porn05Mouth

    I came here looking for the recipe after eating it in Athens, and OMG, this is the restaurant where I first had it! What luck!

  18. TantiManti

    This version of mussaka is very delicious. For those who belive moussaka is not Greek, you are right. Turks/ Otomans come to Thracia and balkans after 1400 year, when there was no potatoes,tomatos, corn e.t. The potato's comes after 1596-1600 probably later from Inkas in south America, eggplant come from China in 8-12 AD to Balkans, introduced by Arabs. But the Greeks made this delicious recepies grom all that ingredients. I personally don't use eggplant in mussaka.

  20. Sherry Titus

    Could you supply recipe as to amounts of flour, oil, etc for bechamel sauce. I would like to replace potatoes with turnips as it fits better in my diabetes diet. Thanks for approximate recipe.

  21. comet315

    Real traditional.moussakas has only 3 parts – aubergine, mince and bechamel. No potatoes, courgettes, carrots etc which are used by most restaurants as cheap fillers/substitutes.

  24. Rochdi Tidjani

    This is not a step by step way to make a traditional Moussaka. This is just an overall way to show how this traditional dish is made.

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