Beef Moussaka(Paleoish)

Beef Moussaka

Here’s the recipe:
Ingredients:
• 2 lb Ground Beef.
• 3 Eggplants, partially peeled in stripes and sliced.
• 3 Onions, cut in half then sliced.
• 4 cloves of Garlic, minced.
• 2 cups Puréed Tomatoes.
• Olive Oil.
• Chopped Parsley.
• Dried Oregano.
• Salt and crushed Black Pepper.
•1 cup Smetana (Creme Fraiche would also work).use organic or homemade
• High fat Cream.(organic)
• 6 oz flavorful hard Cheese, grated.(goats)
• 2 Egg Yolks.

Instructions:

Preparation:
About 40 minutes prior to when you plan to start cooking, put the eggplant slices in a colander and salt generously between each layer. Then place a plate upside-down on top of them, with a heavy jar as a weight on top of the plate.
This will pull the water out from the eggplants, so you might want to put the colander in a tray of some kind, then place it in the fridge for an hour.
-
Set oven to 400F.

Heat up a little bit of olive oil in a large pot or deep skillet.
Fry the onions over high heat until they’re soft and starts to get some color, then add the garlic.
Fry for another minute or so before adding the ground beef.
Also add some salt, and a generous amount of black pepper, oregano and parsley.
Fry until most liquid is gone, and then stir in the puréed tomatoes.

Let simmer on medium heat without lid for about 20 minutes, allowing it to reduce.
Now you should be able to take out the eggplants from the fridge. Rinse the slices thoroughly under running water, and pat them dry using paper towels.

Fry them in batches in a pan until they get nicely colored.
While frying, put the smetana in a bowl and stir in cream until it has a nice, thick sauce texture. Then stir in the egg yolks and grated cheese.

Alternate layers of eggplant and the meat sauce (I got 3 layers of each, starting with eggplants and ending with meat) in a ceramic/glass oven tray, then pour the cheese/cream mixture on top of it spreading it even.
Cook it in the oven for about 30 minutes, then enjoy your meal