Baked goodness- recipe #2

One's first love is always perfect until one meets one's second love

Elizabeth Aston, The Exploits & Adventures of Miss Alethea Darcy, 2005

This is certainly true of this recipe here- it was absolutely easy to make yet it tasted as though I spent hours making it! Thanks to Sanjeev Kapoor for this wonderful recipe- I am posting my slightly modified version here,

Ingredients

8-10 slices Wheat bread      

2 tbsp butter (I used smart balance)

2 cloves

I medium onion, chopped

2 bay leaves

3 tbsp all purpose flour

3 cups milk

a pinch of grated nutmeg

3/4 cup grated cheese (I used parmesan)

1 cup frozen green peas, thawed and microwaved for about 2-3 minutes

2 medium potatoes, cut in small cubes and boiled

3 carrots, diced and blanched

1 head broccoli, cut into florets

chilli-garlic sauce

salt and pepper to taste

1 tbsp butter, cut into cubes 

Method

Preheat oven to 425F. Cut the bread slices into small one inch pieces, add one layer of bread pieces to the bottom of  a baking dish (I used a square dish). 

Melt butter in a pan, add cloves, bay leaves, onions and saute. Add the flour and cook it for a minute or so. Add milk and stir continuously to avoid lumps. Boil till it comes out as a sauce. Add nutmeg, salt, pepper and half of the grated cheese in the sauce and mix well.

To the baking dish, add a third of the peas, potatoes, carrots and half of broccoli. Pour sauce over it and drop in small amounts of chilli-garlic sauce in places. Make one more layer. 

For the top layer, garnish with left over peas, potatoes and carrots. Spread the remaining cheese and add butter cubes in places.

Cook until the edges are brown. Mine took nearly 30 minutes (think my oven temperature is not right!)

Note: I salted and peppered all my veggies while boiling or blanching. I salted and peppered the sauce separately.

Judgement- Very easy yet tasty...will definitely make it again!