I have had several amazing holidays in Greece, it's one of my favourite destinations in Europe, not least because of the food. Here's a recipe for a vegan and gluten-free version of moussaka.
For help with this recipe I turned to my lovely Greek friend Alexandra, who cooks the most amazing Greek dishes. Her top tip is to use good quality aubergines and prepare them by slicing them lengthways, sprinkling them with salt and leaving them for an hour or more. This makes them less bitter.
It makes 3-4 portions.
To make it low-FODMAP you can leave out the onion, use oyster mushrooms instead and make sure the tinned lentils are well rinsed. I used half a tin, which divided into 3 portions is around the safe serve of 46g.
Ingredients
- 1 large aubergine
- 2 medium potatoes
- 1 small onion
- Olive oil for frying
- 200g tin green lentils (half of a standard size tin)
- 400g tinned tomatoes (one tin)
- 50g pecan nuts (or walnuts)
- 5 chesnut mushrooms
- 2 tsp soy sauce
- 1 tbsp nutritional yeast
- 2 tsp sweet paprika
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 tsp allspice powder
- 1 tsp sugar
- Ingredients for the Bechamel Sauce, including the optional vegan cheese.
Method
- Slice the aubergines into long thick slices, sprinkle with salt and leave aside (see tip above).
- Preheat oven to 180C (160C fan).
- Peel and slice the potatoes into 1cm thick slices.
- Bake the aubergines and potatoes in the oven with olive oil and oregano for around 20 minutes.
- Roughly chop the mushrooms and add to a food processor with the nuts. Add the soy sauce and nutitional yeast and pulse.
- Fry the onions, and add the mushroom and nut mixture. Add in the paprika, allspice and pepper.
- Add the tinned tomatoes, along with the bay leaf and sugar and leave to simmer for about 20-30 minutes.
- Meanwhile follow the recipe for dairy-free Bechamel Sauce. When the sauce has thickened add in the vegan cheese.
- Time for the assembly! If you can find it, remove the bay leaf from the sauce.
- Layer into a dish - I like to start with potatoes, then sauce, then aubergine. The number of layers you'll get depends on the size and shape of your dish
- Top with the bechamel sauce and cook in the preheated oven for 30-40 minutes.