April 2021

B for Baked Vegetables

Food, Healthy Food, Italian Cuisine / By / July 26, 2021

I love cooking, I really do, but sometimes when I am too tired after a workday I feel like taking a shortcut to cooking. Again, I am a huge foodie, but those foodie tendencies are more inclined towards non vegetarian food or desserts. I am not a fan of vegetables in general and do not eat most vegetables. The ones I do eat, I need to make them more interesting once in a while to keep myself interested. Out of these 2 proclivities was born the idea of baked vegetables.

This is an – almost – healthy dish with lots of vegetable and is easy to make at home. Its delicious to eat and brings a twist to boring, everyday vegetables.

Which Cuisine?

This is essentially an Italian dish. However, I have never been to Italy and don’t really have a connection per se. Italian is simply a cuisine I love and Italy is a country on my bucket list. In fact, had in not been for the pandemic, I would have had visited Italy last October. Be that as it may, here goes my simple but lovely recipe for baked vegetables.

Ingredients:

Carrot – 1 medium, chopped

French Beans – 100 gms., chopped

Peas – ½ cup

Cauliflower – ½ of a medium sized, diced/cut into half florets

Potato – 1, diced

Garlic – 4/5 cloves, chopped

Flour – 1 tbsp.

Milk – 2 cups

Salt – to taste

Pepper – 1 tsp.

Red chilli powder – 1 tsp.

Oregano powder – 2 tsp.

Thyme powder – 1 tsp.

Cheese – 1.5 cup, grated

Butter – as required

Oil – 2 tsp.

Method:

  1. Boil the chopped carrots, french beans, peas, potato and cauliflower with a pinch of salt in a saucepan till they are about ¾ cooked; al-dente. Drain them once done.
  2. Meanwhile, let’s prepare the white sauce which brings the whole dish together.
    1. For the white sauce, heat 2 tsp. oil in a frying pan. Add chopped garlic and sauté till you get the nice fried garlic smell. Then add a knob of butter (~1tbsp.).
    1. Once the butter melts, add the flour and keep mixing so that it doesn’t form lumps.
    1. Now add in the milk and keep sauteing to avoid lumps.
    1. Once the sauce starts to thicken, add in salt, pepper and red chilli powder, thyme and oregano and mix.
    1. Add ¼ cup cheese and mix.
    1. Adjust taste and take it off the heat.
  3. Grease a baking tray with butter. Preheat oven for 5 minutes at 180 °C.
  4. Add half of the boiled veggies to the baking tray like a layer. Ladle the white sauce over the veggies. Sprinkle half the grated cheese. Repeat for a second layer.
  5. Bake the entire thing for 15 minutes, making sure the cheese has melted and become slightly golden brown.
  6. Garnish with red chilli flakes and oregano. Baked vegetables is ready!
Ingredients
White sauce preparation
Preparing for baking – layering
Ready to bake!
Presenting…Baked Vegetables a la Nils!

This may sound like a lot of steps but I just broke it down for ease of understanding. It really is quite simple to make and is pretty fast. Please try out and let me know how it turns out!

This post was written for Blogchatter A2Z challenge; Day 2 – Letter “B”.

A for American Pancake

Travel / By / April 1, 2021

The quintessential American breakfast, apart from cereal, consists of pancakes. Drenched in syrup, this hot, fluffy, fried floury goodness is loved by one and all, young or old.

Pancakes come in many varieties like sweet or savory, plain or blueberry, with maple syrup or with strawberries, with cheese or with chopped veggies and so on. However, the basic recipe remains the same and the rest are just additions or simple substitutes. What I will be sharing here is the basic recipe which, although initially sourced from various sources, is now my own recipe with adjusted quantities.

The NY Connection

While I was in New York, I had the chance to taste the original version at a cute breakfast place just round the corner from my hotel. They were mini pancakes smothered with maple syrup. Yum! Eating them fresh from the oven with hot coffee is the stuff ideal holiday breakfasts are made of. Since then, pancakes – American style – have become a breakfast staple at my home. Here’s the recipe I use.

Ingredients:

Flour – 1.5 cups (~180 gms.)

Milk – 1.25 cups (~250ml)

Eggs – 2 small

Sugar – 1 tbsp.

Salt – ¾ tsp.

Baking powder – 2.5 tsp.

Butter – 1.5 tbsp, melted

Oil – for frying

The above ingredients are enough for 12 pancakes of about 6cm dia. each.

Method:

  1. Mix all the dry ingredients together in a bowl with a whisk (I feel that creates a more homogeneous mixture).
  2. Add the milk and the eggs and mix well. However, do not beat too hard.
  3. Finally add the melted butter making sure its not hot or it will curdle the egg. End result should be a smooth batter.
  4. Heat a flat frying pan and the lightly oil it (preferably with a silicon brush).
  5. Once the oil is hot, ladle the batter – about 5 tbsp. for one pancake – onto the pan and let it fry for about 3-4 minutes. Then the pancake and fry the other side for a couple of minutes. Both sides should be light brown at the end.
  6. Enjoy the hot and fluffy pancakes with chocolate syrup or strawberry syrup, or any sweet syrup at that.
Ingredients (these are half measure for 6 pancakes)
Final batter
Ladling batter
Cooking process
Voila! Pancakes!

That’s it, the easy and quick recipe for American pancakes! If you try it out, do let me know how it turns out.

This post was written for Blogchatter A2Z challenge; Day 1 – Letter “A”.