Turkish Musakka Recipe - A Dish For All Seasons
This Turkish musakka recipe is light & healthy and fits the bill in both summer and winter.
Servings 4
Calories 440kcal
Ingredients
- 500 grams minced beef
- 4 large aubergines
- 2 large tomatoes finely chopped (or 1x400 gram tin)
- 1 large onion peeled & finely chopped
- 1 green capsicum pepper deseeded & finely chopped
- 3 cloves garlic peeled & crushed or grated
- ½ bunch parsley chopped
- 1 tablespoon tomato puree tomato puree
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 teaspoon sweet paprika
- 1 teaspoon thyme
- salt & pepper to season
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 220 degrees celsius.
- Remove the stalks from your aubergines and slice lengthways - around 1 cm thick.
- Lay your aubergine slices onto an oven tray and lightly drizzle with olive oil.
- Bake in the oven for approx 15 minutes until the aubergines are softening and have taken on colour. Remove from the oven and allow to cool.
- Meanwhile, heat a dash of olive oil over a medium heat in a frying pan.
- Add your onion & peppers and sauté gently until the onions start to sweat.
- Now add your meat & garlic and stir in.
- Sauté until your meat browns and starts to release its juices.
- Now you can add your kekik (thyme or oregon) & paprika and mix.
- Add your chopped tomatoes, stir and cook for 5 minutes until your tomatoes start to soften.
- Pour in around 50 millilitres warm water & add your salça (tomato puree) and mix.
- Simmer for 5 minutes, do a taste test and season to taste with salt & pepper.
- Add more water if you want a thinner sauce and simmer for 15-20 minutes until you have a rich tomato sauce.
- Now return to your aubergines. Remove from your baking tray and cut each length into about 4 pieces.
- Now take an oven proof dish and lay your aubergines over the base.
- Pour the meat mixture over the top along with a cup of hot water.
- Place in the centre of your oven at around 200 degrees celsius.
- Cook for 20 minutes until youır sauce is bubbling.
- Remove from the oven and leave to stand to cool a little before garnishing with fresh chopped parsley.
- Serve on its own or with a side of rice or mashed potato.
Notes
- As with all our recipes, calories per serving is an approximate guide.
- For our Turkish musakka recipe, we use minced beef from our local butcher and this contains fat. If you buy lean minced beef, the calorie count will be much lower.
- If you're in Turkey and using the long thin green peppers (sivri biber), we use three of these rather than one large capsicum.
- We have said our Turkish musakka is 4 servings. If you are serving it with other side dishes, it will easily serve 6 to 8 people.
- We divide our musakka between two oven dishes so that we can eat some the following day.