Baked spinach delight
I am delighted to know that even pure vegetarians found my “Baked egg delight” really delightful to look at and have asked me to come up with something for them sans eggs.
So here I am with another “delight” that I have named as “Baked spinach delight “.
Ingredients:
1. 10 to 12 slices of stale/ slightly dry bread.
Now you don’t have to be very particular about the exact number of slices here. As you read on you will see that just with a little bit of tact we can do with less or if you feel the need then more slices of bread.
We are going to crumble the slices of bread in the processor , so that explains the need to have a little dry bread .
2. One cup of steamed and drained thick spinach puree or you could even keep it a little coarsely chopped like I did.
3. Half a cup of grated or crumbled cottage cheese , if you get ricotta cheese then that can be used in the place of cottage cheese.
4. A few cubes of cheddar
5. Seven level tablespoons of butter
6. Two tablespoons of crushed garlic
7. Two level tablspoons of any spicy tomato sauce or ketchup
8. Salt and pepper to taste
9. Two tablespoons of grated cheddar
10. A 350- 500 ml baking dish
Method:
1. Remove the sides of the bread slices and process it to get fresh bread crumbs.
2. Add around 4-5 tablespoons of softened butter to the fresh bread crumbs and knead it into a firm ball. The amount of butter can be altered to get a soft dough.
3. Press the dough into a greased baking dish making the base and pressing it to the sides, I just liked the idea of bringing the sides a little highter than the dish, just my fancy. Place the dish in the fridge so that the dough becomes a little firm.
4. Melt the two tablespoons of butter on medium flame and add the crushed garlic, stir fry till the garlic turns golden.
5. Add the spinach and stir fry for three to five minutes . Turn the gas off.
6. Tumble in the grated cottage / ricotta cheese , stir till well mixed and season with salt ,pepper and the tomato ketchup. Let the mixture come to room temperature.
7. Put half the mixture into the dish and place a few cubes of cheese in the center.
8. Add the rest of the mixture and top with the grated cheddar.
9. Bake at 180° for 20 minutes .
10. Best served hot , incase you prepare it in advance then a few minutes in the microwave should be fine.
delightful
ReplyDeletelooks good, but doesnt the bread base become a little hard if not consumed immediately?
ReplyDeleteI made this dish in the morning since the photographs come out better in the natural light , kept it in the refrigerator after it cooled down and then reheated for about two minutes in the microwave just before serving for dinner.The bread base was still soft.
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