Crash Course on how not to make Vegetable Au Gratin!!!!

Well I have been raving about the Vegetable Au Gratin I ate at Radhakrishna Restaurant, Andheri. It seemed like a simple recipe, boil vegetables-make white sauce-mix in the vegetables-adjust seasoning-transfer to oven proof pot-cover with grated cheese and bread crumbs-cook in microwave.

Easy peasy, piece of cake...however what was not anticipated by the Sen clan (by which I mean my sister and me) was the inherent tendency to be lazy (me) and over ambitious (my sister). My mother hates foodstuff that comes for across the borders of India (by which I mean comfort foods like pizzas, burgers, chips, continental foods etc etc) so washed her hands off the enterprise.




Sunday, 28th December

So there we were, all enthusiastic about making the dish, my sister and I went to the supermarket and bought a packet of cut vegetables(to save time) and realised that Time is indeed money, they charged about Rs.55 for less than half a kilo of cut vegetables. Then we bought some cheese, I had a major fight on my hands trying to drag my sister away from the cheese section, but she more than made up for not buying cheese by buying two buckets of Dinshaw's ice cream, I give up, you can take a donkey to the water, you can't make it drink (you see I am trying to get my sister to join my campaign to lose weight). This accomplished we returned home all set to make VEGETABLE AU GRATIN.

By the time we reached home, mum had already prepared lunch, so the dish was scheduled for dinner, in the evening I was feeling particularly lazy and decided to postpone the cooking to the next day.

Monday, 29th December

Monday being a working day, I conveniently used it as an excuse not to cook.

Tuesday, 30th December

My mum used the cut vegetables to make Pav Bhaji and as far as I am concerned the Vegetable Au Gratin enterprise died an ignoble death.

Thursday, 1st Janauary 2009

I realise that we have all the vegetables required for the dish at home, in uncut form of course (courtesy the vegetable vendor who comes everyday) and once again I see a faint glimmer of hope that the dish will see the light of day. Mum had already made lunch, so once again I decide to postpone the cooking for dinner and promptly went out to meet Vin post lunch. This is when my sister who was a mute spectator to all this decided to take matters into her own hands and set about making the dish. By the time I came home all there was to see, was a sticky mass of boiled vegetables in white viscous material that you could have used as modelling clay. I decided to stick to mums cooking for dinner!!!

Mum narrated the sorry tale of how the white sauce refused to stay liquid no matter how much milk was added to it so much so that my sister conceded defeat.



Friday, 2nd Janauary 2009

This morning I came across the dish still untouched and decided to make one last damage control attempt. I added some more vegetable stock and milk to it and cooked it on low flame till it became fairly smooth. After adjusting the seasoning, transferred it to an oven proof dish and covered the same with cheese and bread crumbs. Microwaved it for three minutes on medium. The result is for all to see. I am eating it as I type this and can assure you it tastes quite nice.