Gourmet Files: The heat is on

Roasted vegetables are juicier, more flavourful and fun than grilled ones.

October 18, 2014 04:33 pm | Updated May 23, 2016 05:31 pm IST

Oven-roasted vegetables.

Oven-roasted vegetables.

Now that winter’s almost upon us and fresh new vegetables are here, I decided to take the plunge and try roasting them. I usually grill them in a ridged stovetop pan that gives nice brown stripes, so that they look different from regular pan-sautéed stuff, and have an almost charred smell. But this time I decided, with some trepidation, to cook them in the oven. With a little help from Neelam, who said I should relax, it was just a cooked salad, I could watch them and, in any case, nothing could go wrong; it wasn’t a soufflé that wouldn’t rise.

But a digression. I cannot say enough about the joy of an oven that is fitted at waist height. Most times I found my old oven too low to use comfortably — so this new one is getting more use from me in a week than the old one got in a month. And it’s smaller, so I feel less guilty about heating it up for just one or two dishes.

So I decided to do a quick cheat’s garlic bread and roast vegetables along with the usual roast chicken and salad. Garlic bread, as Tim Hayward of the Financial Times puts it, “effectively hot buttered toast with a Marcello Mastroianni accent — is tantamount to seduction”. I just bought a French loaf, cut it into thick slices, but not so far to the bottom as to separate each piece, buttered it liberally with crushed garlic mixed with softened butter, wrapped it in foil and ‘baked’ for 10 minutes. I was a little nervous about the veggies’ cooking time and whether the roasting process would dry them out. Roasting seems to be another word for baking. Not the ‘baked vegetables’ that my mother’s generation did in white sauce — with or without cheese — but baking as in cooking with all round heat. But the vegetables were juicier and more flavourful than when grilled.

The selection and preparation of the vegetables is commonsensical: start earlier with the slow cooking types, like potatoes and garlic, and add the others later: the ones that can be eaten raw, like bell peppers and mushrooms. We washed some new ‘spring’ potatoes (which should be called ‘autumn’), halved them, skin and all, and tossed them in a dressing. Those went in first, with a whole head of garlic, after removing just its papery outermost layer, not separating the individual cloves. I sliced off the top so that the flesh of each individual segment was exposed, smashed it with a rolling pin, and poured more dressing on to the decapitated face.

The dressing was like French vinaigrette, only much oilier. Neelam also said I should make the dressing with regular vegetable cooking oil, and liberally drizzle in some extra-virgin olive oil at the very end, when the cooking was done. And she said I could add some sugar, to help the colour, but I added honey to the mixture of safflower oil, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper. Recipes advised rosemary, which I couldn’t get, so I threw in a couple of sprigs of fresh thyme and, while the roasting went on, the entire house was suffused with its fragrance. Since I dread scorched, stained trays, I covered the largest of the oven’s metal sheets with aluminium foil, making it overlap to prevent the teeniest drop from reaching the tray. Then, with the oven preheated to 225°C, in went the tray with the potatoes and garlic head. After about 10-15 minutes I poked a potato half with a knife, it seemed half done, so the cubed green and yellow zucchini and pink baby onions went in, peeled but whole. About 10 minutes later, the diced red and yellow bell peppers, and, for the last five minutes, the whole or halved mushrooms. Cooking time is necessarily approximate because it depends on the size and quality of each vegetable piece.

When the vegetables were plated, all multi-coloured, succulent and moist, and the garlic golden, I poured the juices from the tray on them. And wished I’d cooked two heads of garlic because it was sweet and mild, and eating it was fun. Each clove, when pressed, even with a spoon, came out of its skin like a soft torpedo.

vasundharachauhan9@gmail.com

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