Veg Au Gratin : and an Experiment :D

Veg Au Gratin is a French Casserole dish which is baked with vegetables and topped with bread crumbs and cheese. I had read many recipe over the net for the same.  “The etymology of gratin is from the French language in which the word “gratter” meaning to “to scrape” as of the “scrapings” of bread or cheese, and gratiné, from the transitive verb form of the word for crust” (WIKI)...

I had made casseroles in the past, but never with so much of butter and cream. In the quest of keeping things healthy, I was somewhere missing that tempting feeling of having cheese melting inside mouth .. yumm !! .. So this time I decided to go for the cheesy treat, off course with lots of vegetables to still make it a healthy casserole. :) 


Though the method looks lengthy but its very easy to prepare and needs almost no preparation. The beauty is, you can use almost any vegetable of your choice to make this wonderful casserole. There is no rule at all. And I made this with my all time favorite Mushrooms and Onions with some Bell Peppers and Tomatoes for color. I have also used flax seeds for baking since I didnt want to use eggs here. I am not sure if I would have used Eggs, what difference would they bring to this recipe. Its all a combination of various recipe I have read .... As usual .. :)


Ingredients:
1. 2 medium potatoes, thinly sliced in circular wafers. 
2. 2 1/2 cups mushrooms, chopped 
3. 2 cup onions, thinly sliced 
4. 1 bell pepper, chopped 
5. 1 big tomato, chopped
6. 1/2 cup Sour cream 
7. 1/2 cup soft cheese 
8. 2 tsp each of oregano, black pepper, salt
9. 2 bread pieces ( For breadcrumbs. You can use ready made packet ones too )
10. 1/2 cup of Mozzarella cheese
11. 2 tsp Flax Seeds
12. 1 tsp Milk 
13. 1/4 cup Butter ( you can reduce the quantity accordingly )

Please wash all the vegetables properly before chopping... Preheat the Oven at 180 Degrees. 


Method:
1. Mix together Sour cream, Soft cheese and milk. Beat till gets fluffy. Add 1 tsp of spices and keep aside. 
2. Steam the potato slices into a microwave steamer for 3-4 min. They should be tender and almost cooked. Add to the Sour cream bowl. 
3. Roast flax seeds in a pan and grind in a grinder to a course powder. Combine together with the cream mix and potatoes and marinate them for 20 minutes. ( I really dont know why did I do this. But the end result was good anyway )
4. Now, heat butter in a pan, Toss onions and mushrooms together for 4-5 minutes uncovered till the water evaporates. 
5. Add tomatoes and bell pepper and cook covered for 4-5 minutes. Keep stirring in between. 
6. Add rest of the spices  and cook till no water remains in the pan. 
7. In the meanwhile, lets make breadcrumbs. Grind 2 pieces of bread in a grinder. Simple !! :)
8. Now in an oven safe dish, First layer the Mushroom-Onion mix. Then layer the potato- cream mix evenly. On top of it sprinkle the breadcrumbs. 

9. Bake this for 30 minutes till it gets bubbly. 
10. Take out and sprinkle Mozzarella cheese over the top. Bake again for 5 minutes. 
11. Serve it hot.. Beware it must be pipping hot inside... :)

This gets crispy from outside due to breadcrumbs plus cheesy too coz of cheese... So delicious inside ... Mouth watering dish for kids and you too :)

Now the experiment part.. Since I made it for brunch and this was more than enough for the two of us.. So I was left with a quarter of it at the end. And I did not want to keep it for next day. So for dinner, I changed this French dish into a typical Indian curry. And I was wiggling coz S could not guess it was the same thing :D :D 

I just added some ginger-garlic paste, tomato puree and roasted it with little oil. Added some Indian spices like red chili powder and coriander powder with a cup of water to the leftover casserole and cook it for 5-7 minutes. It was done :) .. And I did not prepare anything else for dinner then. It was soo creamy ( Off course with the amount of cream and all )... All in all.. Less work, more gain :)