AirFryday: ‘Maak ’n plan’ cheesy vegetables bake

I’d forgotten about the tacos spice mix I made a few months ago, having put the leftovers in a jar and ignored it in the cupboard. There were sundry vegetables in the house: carrots, onions, leeks, courgettes. 

There was plenty of cheese too including Dalewood Fromage’s “everyday-eating” Simond, which is madly tasty for such a modest moniker. I cast around, spotted the mascarpone that I knew I needed to use in something, checked the milk supplies, and that was it. A cheesy vegetable bake was coming up.

This dish comprises two things: first, sliced vegetables are cooked in the air fryer in a touch of oil until soft. Meanwhile, a béchamel sauce is made, which is turned into a cheese sauce. When this is done, you pour it into the dish of cooked vegetables and cook it a second time, topped with cheese.

You could take it a step further (I didn’t, but you could): cool the sauce before it goes into the vegetable pot, beat an egg into it, and then pour it over and continue. This ought to give you a more “set” dish and will need 5 or so minutes more cooking time, because it is cool.

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Don’t feel you need to use the vegetables I used. If you have cauliflower florets, peppers, whatever, by all means just use what you have. It’s a way of using up veg that is otherwise ignored.

The tacos spice mix consists chiefly of garlic powder, onion powder, chilli powder, cumin, paprika and oregano. Mix your own, or grab a few spices and/or herbs of your choice.

Air fryer cheesy vegetable bake

(Serves 2 or 3 as a whole meal, or 4 to 6 as a side dish)

Ingredients

3 carrots, peeled and sliced thinly

1 onion, roughly chopped

4 courgettes, sliced

3 leeks, sliced

Garlic salt

Peanut oil or other oil

1 Tbsp tacos spice mix, or similar that you find in your cupboard (that’s the point)

For the cheesy béchamel:

2 heaped Tbsp flour

3 Tbsp butter

1 litre full-cream milk

250 g mascarpone

300 g Dalewood Fromage Simond “mild, easy-eating, everyday lekker kaas”, grated

Salt and white pepper

Grated cheese to go on top

Method

Put all the sliced vegetables in a bowl and pour a modest amount of peanut oil over. Not too much. Sprinkle some spices over. Give them a good stir to coat.

Preheat the air fryer to 200°C and bake for 12 to 15 minutes (at this point it’s a nice, easy, quick veg bake ready to serve as a side dish), tossing the veg halfway through. Leave it to sulk while you make the sauce.

Bring the milk to slightly before boiling point, and take it off the heat. 

In a separate pot, melt the butter, take it off the heat, and briskly beat or whisk in the flour until you have a smooth roux.

On a moderate heat, add the heated milk to the roux a little at a time, stirring constantly, until you have a thick sauce. This should go slowly, taking about 15 minutes for the floury taste to cook out.

Stir in the mascarpone until well combined.

Grate the cheese and stir it in until it has melted. Season with a little salt and pepper.

Pour the cheese sauce into the vegetable pot, and stir and toss so that all the vegetables are coated and distributed.

Grate more cheese on top.

Bake it at 200°C for about 10 minutes or until the top has browned happily. DM

Tony Jackman is Galliova Food Writer 2023, jointly with TGIFood columnist Anna Trapido. Order his book, foodSTUFF, here

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