Vegetable Au Gratin

Vegetable Au Gratin is a very fancy name for baked vegetables in a cheesy béchamel sauce, which is a very fancy name for plain old white sauce. This is supposedly a french dish. But if you will take a moment here and google the term "Vegetable Au Gratin", I am willing to bet my right arm that 95% of the recipes that you find will be from Indian blogs. This is a bona fide Indian smash hit dish.

Vegetable Au Gratin

Back in the good old days, making children shell peas used to be a way for Indian mothers to get them to sit still for a good long time. This was before it was outlawed by the Geneva convention. So it is okay if you want to use frozen peas in this dish. But if you can resist the temptation to use frozen cut vegetables, you will be truly rewarded.

Ingredients

1 Cup - Carrots, diced
1 Cup - Cauliflower, Cut in small florets
1 Cup - Green Peas
3 Tablespoons - All purpose flour
2 Cups - Whole Milk
2 Cups - Cheddar Cheese (Shredded)
2 Tablespoons - Oil/ Butter/ Grease of your choice
Salt and pepper to taste

Method

Preheat the oven to 350 F (175 C).

To make the béchamel sauce, in a pan, heat the oil on medium to low heat.

Add the flour and cook it in the oil for a couple of minutes. Don't let this brown.

Now slowly add the milk in, whisking it continuously with the flour so as to not let the flour be lumpy ( do not attempt to take photos while you do this).