Tuesday 12 January 2010

Veggie Moussaka. (Recommended for students - lots of health and cheap)

Steal Quorn mince from your father's freezer at the end of a day writing (and joining a club devoted to stationery and making a paperclip necklace for it).

Go to Somerfield's, realise they have neither aubergine (eggplant to non-English-types) nor courgettes. They are rubbish. Although I like them more now that they've merged (or been taken over by?) the Cooperative. Even though I lost my Cooperative membership card with my wallet in Copenhagen. Anyway, head to onions, then to veg/salad area. pick up the following:

2x red onions (of which you will use 1 1/2 later)
1x garlic bulb (of which you will use 2 cloves later)
3x carrots (1 of which you will use later as it's pretty long)
bag of white potatoes (er, maybe 5 or 6 you will use later)
2x those long thin peppers (you know the sweet red pointy ones)
a handful of bog standard mushrooms (of which you will use 4 large ones, maybe 6)
bag of spinach (you'll use most of it saving a little for side salad)
quite a few tomatoes (all of them)

waltz over to the bit where the spices are. Buy ground cinnamon and if you don't have any either nutmeg or cumin (in this case nutmeg, realise you never needed cumin anyway)
pick up a tube of tomato puree.
Think hard about what you're missing... Wine! Spend 2.99 on cheap, exceedingly shit red (vino da tavolo, or 'table wine' to you and I will do just fine but make sure you have a decent corkscrew as the cheap corks are a bitch to get out).

Insist that you DO NOT need a plastic bag at the checkout and hastily stuff veg into rucksack lamenting bag of potatoes. carry pre-bagged stuff that won't fit in hands.

Triumphantly gallop (or gambol) home over slushy ground.

Get one fuck-off (large) pan, one medium and one small.

Whack oil in monster pan. Dice onion, crush garlic, chuck in when oil is hot (turn on hob first obs) dice peppers while singing along loudly to the Moulin Rouge soundtrack for the first time in years. Wonder when music cuts out, whether neighbours have burrowed into your internet and pulled a connection somewhere to shut you up.
chuck in peppers and mince. desperately try to ease cork from cheap red. In a panic throw in one of those chicken stock pots from that sell out chef. Realise this is no longer a veggie moussaka anymore but tell veggies to just substitute with veggie stock pot if they're listening.
Ask sister to help get cork out, yell that mince is going to dry out any minute. Have tug-of-war with bottle and corkscrew like the Giant Turnip tale. Give up, take out corkscrew, pull out cork with bare teeth. Consider how long it's been since last dentist visit. Remember that you owe money and that's why you've not been back.

Pour half the bottle (that's right, half) into the pan. Stir. Put more pepper than salt in (use common sense here, a pinch if you're too stupid).

chop tomatoes and mushrooms roughly. Chuck in. get pinch of nutmeg and pinch cinnamon. Chuck in. Stir. Squeeze about 1/4 tube tomato puree in. Rinse spinach. Chuck in. Wait for spinach to 'deflate.'

Cover pan and simmer while you finely slice the potatoes and put in medium pan with boiling water and a little pinch of salt.

Get what's left in the butter dish (a knob, ha ha ha) and put in small pan. Add flour to make a ghee. Slowly add milk. Realise you didn't have enough ghee, add cream. Realise it's still too thin. Add flour several times over. Add 2 eggs. Get handheld whisk. Advise everyone the country over to purchase electric whisk. Wonder why the top always ends up as plain cheese sauce rather than the fluffy deep top it's supposed to. Probably you need to use just the egg white. After ages get sister to whisk and thicken while you strain the cooked potatoes.. Transfer mince-y bit to ceramic-dish-for-ovens. Grandpa calls. Just as brother is talking to him, say 'FUCK!' really loudly in the background as you realise you have the wrong dish. Cover mouth and raise eyebrows and hope Grandpa didn't hear. He's old, he probably didn't. Transfer into Mega-ceramic-dish-for-ovens, take slices of potato and carefully create potato blanket over mince-y bit. 'Yey,' sister announces to suggest bechamel type sauce is thick enough now. Grab pan, swish sauce over potato, grab cheese sister kindly grated and whack on top. Shove whole thing in oven for about twenty minutes, glad mother is late home from writing-classy-thing.
Serve to family. Observe wondrous silence of everyone enjoying meal (other than brother's 'no points for presentation' and 'more potato than I had in mind' (he doesn't like potatoes))

Title dish: Mussange, Messaka or Shepherd's Mussange (mother thinks a cross between moussaka, Shepherd's pie and lasagna).

FIN

P.S sorry about lack of pictures, left SD card at makeshift office.

TTFN.

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