Creamy Broccoli Mushroom Casserole Recipe

Today's recipe is a quick, simple and a easy baked recipe. A recipe of Mushroom Broccoli Casserole. Let's begin. Well, apart from Broccoli and Mushroom of course, there are couple of more vegetables, which of course you will see through the course of the recipe. Primarily, a casserole requires something called a white sauce, or a bechamel or a Mornay. A Mornay is nothing but a white sauce with lots of cheese. What I'm doing is, instead of using butter and refined flour, I'm using a combination of Ghee and Ragi, which is your red millet. Wonderful, healthy and stunning to say the least. And this trust me, is inspired from a couple of recipes in the south of India. One of course is a Ragi Mudde. And the other one is a Ragi Sangati. It's a combination of these two recipes. I'll bite very different. First things first, let's begin with sautéing the vegetables, keeping them ready, and then moving on to making the Ragi sauce. Let's do that. Let's begin with Desi Ghee. Let's move it in with Garlic, chopped. Roughly cut Red Onions. Sauté this literally for 30 seconds. And add in the rest of the vegetables. Beginning with the tougher vegetables, in this case, Carrots, Beans, Cauliflower. And Green Peas. You could blanch these and keep ready as well. Sauté this for a while. Couple of minutes is more than enough. 2 to 3 is just about perfect. Time to add in Blanched Broccoli Florets. Button Mushrooms. And sauté this for a couple of minutes again. Let's season this with Salt. The vegetables if you notice have begun sweating, If you see the Mushrooms have also started leaching the water. Ensure the flame is on an all-time high. And now is the time to add in some Spinach. Remember the fact that Spinach also has its own Salt. And that's the reason why you need to go easy on Salt. Stir this quickly. And time to add in our special spice. This spice that I'm referring to is called the Gunn Powder. Or the Molga Podi. Now you can either use this, Or you can use Sambar Masala or Rasam Powder. Depending on what the availability is. Now this adds that wonderful note of a humble home in the South of India. And that also kind of makes this casserole or this bake extremely unique. So time to add in Molga Podi. Stir this well. And with this off goes the flame. Let's keep the vegetables aside. And begin with making the sauce. And in the same pan, let's add in some Ghee. Let's add in the Ragi flour. Let's cook this well till it's wonderful and fragrant. It should get literally a nutty aroma without burning this. If you're doing something like this for the first time, 3 to 4 minutes on medium to low flame is perfect. Once the Ragi starts frothing like so, Time to add in water a little at a time. Add a little, stir a little. This way, you'll avoid the lumps. End of it all, if you think this has gone a little out of hands, You can also use a whisk. Time to also add in some milk. Allow this to cook on medium to high flame for 3 minutes. And ensure this becomes nice like a thick sauce. Literally a Ragi Beshamel. Time to season this with salt. And let's keep the flavours as minimalistic as we can. Well, at this stage, it's literally like I said become a Ragi Beshamel. You can switch the flame at this point in time, But if you want to elevate this, Make it slightly more indulgent, make it more kids friendly, You can add in some Cheese and make this into a Ragi Mornay. So, let's do that and add in some Cheese. Now, you can again use the different kinds of Cheese varieties, That you get in the market. You can add in a dollop of Cream Cheese, You can add in some Processed Cheese, You can add in Jeddar, Emmental, choice is complete yours. But, right towards the end, you can also grate in some Mozzarella. Remember that. Let's add in Cheese. The Cheese has wonderfully melted. A quick check. Once this kind of holds shape, Time to turn the flame off. Now that our vegetables and sauce are both ready, Let's now move into layering. Keeping it as simple as layer 1 and layer 2. Layer 1, of course has the vegetables, Which are cooked in Ghee and Molga Puri. And layer number 2 is this wonderful Ragi Mornay. And finally before baking, Let's top this up with some Mozzarella Cheese. All our layers are done and ready. The next step is to bake this at 180 degrees Celsius for 15 minutes. And after that, a magic step. Wait and watch. Well, our Broccoli and Mushroom Casserole is baked and ready. Now let's take this to the absolute next level. By adding in a tempering. And this is a very typical South Indian tempering. Let's begin with Ghee. Once that heats, I'm going to begin with Mustard. Cumin Seeds. Dried Red Chillies. Couple of Curry Leaves. Couple of Green Chillies. Cut into halves. And last but not the least, Some Asafoetida. Let's pour this on top of the casserole. With this ladies and gentlemen, Our baked casserole is done and ready. Very western yet very traditional. Make this for your family, make this for your friends. And see how they jump to the idea of eating something traditional, Yet quintessentially contemporary. This is me Varun Inamdar signing off, bye for now.