Bob’s at Chive Blossom Café this week. Joining Bob is guest chef Andreann Geise from My Big Fat Greek Kitchen in Myrtle Beach with a great recipe. She’ll be preparing a Greek dish called Moussaka but substituting the eggplant with certified SC-grown green tomatoes.
Full Transcript
[Announcer] The Sportsman’s Table is brought to you by The South Carolina Department of Agriculture. Whether you live in South Carolina or out of state, be sure to buy South Carolina-grown meats, vegetables, and fruits. Make sure your food is South Carolina-certified. It’s a matter of taste.
Welcome to Chive Blossom Café on The Sportsman’s Table this week, and joining me is my guest chef Andreann Geise with My Big Fat Greek Kitchen here in Myrtle Beach, and she’s got a great recipe for us. It’s got some fresh green tomatoes, certified SC-grown. Okay, Andreann. Well, I tell you what. I’m gonna let you tell everybody what you’re building here, okay? Because I love green tomatoes.
I’m baking a Greek dish called moussaka and I’m substituting the eggplant with green tomatoes. They’re a wonderful substitution for it, and they’re fresh, local tomatoes.
Oh, that’s great. Well, what’s the first step?
So, the first step in the dish is you’re gonna cook off some potatoes, and you’re gonna put them in a pan. They’re layered into a pan, and they’re just fork-tender.
[Bob] You want me to help you here a little bit?
Yeah, I’m gonna lay this over here. The green tomatoes were lightly floured and salted and sautéed up, and they’re just gonna be layered right on top of that.
Oh wow.
So you’re basically just squeezing in there. The flour that I coated them with helps it make a nice sauce and thicken up while it cooks.
[Bob] And folks, if you want a copy of her recipe, just log onto bobredfern.com. Go to The Sportsman’s Table and it’ll be right there.
The next layer is gonna be meat sauce, and let me put this to the side. I browned some ground beef. You could do pork, you could do whatever, deer meat, if you want to. I browned it off, putting it back in a hot pan with a little bit of olive oil. Oops!
[Bob] There we go.
[Andreann] It’s decided to jump on me. There we go. Told you, everything’s so fresh, it’s alive here.
[Bob] Yeah, man, I’m helping you. I’m trying to get my certified flipping. Okay, there we go.
[Andreann] I’ve also sautéed some onions with a little bit of garlic, salt, and pepper.
[Bob] Am I shaking it right?
You’re shaking it right.
Okay.
I’m gonna mix that up a little bit. And now this is my own spice blend that I’m putting in there.
Okay.
It will be listed on your website, so I’m gonna give away my secrets.
Yeah, there you go.
And I like to make my own tomato sauce and I jar it, but you can buy whatever garden tomato sauce you like or your favorite tomato sauce, and that gets poured in.
[Bob] Wow.
Once the sauce has simmered a little bit and the flavors melded together, you pour the sauce on top, and you want a nice thick layer. The potatoes on the bottom are gonna drink a lot of this sauce. So you just pour it on there, get it pretty even. It doesn’t have to be exact.
[Bob] Oh yeah.
And we’re gonna press it down a little bit. We want it nice and flat because we have the last layer going on, which is a Béchamel sauce, but I wanted to add a little South to it, so I added some stone-ground grits to my Béchamel.
Oh, wow. Now, how long is this gonna have to cook for?
It’s gonna cook at 375 for about 35 to 40 minutes until you get a nice brown topping. Let me lay this over to the side here. And in this pan, I’ve got… Thank you.
I’m helping.
I appreciate it.
I’m your sous chef today, how ’bout that?
Well, you’re a wonderful sous chef.
Thank you.
So, I’ve got the Béchamel cooking. As you can see, it’s… It’s kind of like a real–
Really thick.
Yeah, it’s thin for grits but thick for a Béchamel, but it’s gonna bake and it’s gonna fluff up. Okay, so we pour that on top. And it’s not gonna puff too much, so you want it pretty much almost to the top of the pan, but not quite, and you just kinda spread it even.
[Bob] Okay, that’s easy.
Yeah, it’s a quick dish, and it’s all in one. You pretty much have everything you need in one dish. You got grits. You got potatoes, You got a nice meat sauce.
You do, here, let me help you with that.
Okay, put that to the side. So, this’ll go in the oven.
Okay.
And we’ll put that in the oven and when it’s done, it’ll look like this.
[Bob] That is awesome. Look at that, mm. Got a little bit of salad on top there.
Yes, I do a little fresh salad. It’s got parsley, tomato, onions, a little bit of cucumber, and it gives it a little bit of color. It’s a little brightness to the dish.
There you go. Thank you so much for being our guest chef today.
I appreciate it.
Folks, listen, if you would like more great recipes just like you saw today on The Sportsman’s Table, you can also log on to certifiedscgrown.com and see what’s fresh on your menu, as well as the next time you’re in Myrtle Beach, come on down to The Chive Blossom Cafe, Pawleys Island, or contact My Big Fat Greek Kitchen and you could have Andreann, well, she could prepare a meal just for you at home. That’s all we got time for this week. We’ll be right back next week with another great recipe, right here on The Sportsman’s Table.
[Announcer] To find out more information on food that’s fresher and tastier, go online at certifiedscgrown.com. Buy certified South Carolina-grown products. It’s a matter of taste.