Baked Spinach Corn In White Sauce
20 July, 2018
Baked Spinach Corn is a continental dish, cooked in white sauce and served with garlic bread.
It is an excellent dish to be served at parties or in your day to day meals. We all are very well aware of the benefits of this leafy vegetable. Storehouse of calcium, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, copper, manganese, vitamins A, C, E, K and B6, thiamin, protein, fibre. It is low in fat and even lower in cholesterol.
We often look for ways to incorporate spinach into our daily meals in some form or the other. Spinach juice, spinach chapati, Palak Paneer (Cottage cheese dumplings in spinach gravy), Palak ki kadhi (spinach in gram flour and curd gravy), Palak ka saag (spinach vegetable), etc.
Luckily my children love spinach in any form, be it a traditional Indian dish or a continental one. They are fond of spinach. So, I also try to make different dishes using this leafy vegetable.
Baked Palak Corn is one such dish. They love it all the more because it is served with garlic bread. Yes, instead of chapati, it tastes good with garlic bread. Garlic bread, is also homemade with wheat flour.
Another good plus point of this dish is the white sauce.
Normally white sauce is made using all purpose flour but I make it with wheat flour only.
Believe me, there is hardly any difference between the two, except the colour of course. And when mixed with spinach or pasta, even the colour does not matter. Unless you mention, no one will come to know that it is made with wheat flour.
It does involve 3 different steps
(1) Preparing Spinach
(2) Boiling Corns
(3) Preparing White Sauce
You can prepare spinach and boil corns in advance and keep in the refrigerator. This saves your time.
I have used American corns here. You can use that or canned corns or take out from the corn web.
For making this dish, the more finely spinach is chopped, the better it is. I usually chop it in my food processor.
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Ingredients Â
- 1 Cup 250 g Chopped Spinach
- 1 Cup 250 g Corns
- 1 teaspoon Crushed Garlic
- 1/2 Onion Chopped Finely
- 100 gm Cheese Mozzarella
- For White Sauce: 1/4 teaspoon Olive Oil
- 2 Tablespoon Butter
- 2 Tablespoon Wheat Flour Atta
- 1 Cup Milk at room temperature
- Salt to taste
- 1/4 teaspoon Black Pepper
- Pinch of Nutmeg Jaiphal
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InstructionsÂ
- Put oil and butter in a heated pan. (Butter, when added directly, tends to burn, hence added to oil)When butter melts, add wheat flour.
- Stirring continuously, cook on medium flame for a minute or so, It should be like a roux (paste). If the mix is even little crumbled, add little more butter. While cooking it will be frothy, keep stirring.
- When the colour of the flour changes a little, also you can feel the aroma coming out of it then switch off the flame.
- Pour little milk with one hand and keep stirring with the other hand. You have to be quick otherwise lumps may form.(Always add milk in batches)
- When mixed homogenously, again pour some more milk repeating the act of stirring. It will be a smooth paste.
- Lastly, put the remaining milk. Mix nicely.
- It will be very liquidy at this stage. Cook this liquidy mixture on medium flame.
- Soon it will start thickening. After about 5 to 6 minutes, when it coats the back of the spoon and you get the desired sauce-like consistency, then switch off the flame.
- Add salt, pepper and nutmeg. Use as desired. White sauce is ready. Keep it aside and we will use it for making Baked Spinach Corn in White Sauce
- In a pan, heat olive oil. Put crushed garlic and chopped onion. Saute until light brown.
- Add chopped spinach to it and cook on medium flame.
- Cook till all the water evaporates and it becomes almost dry. This serves the dual purpose, the spinach gets cooked and all the water is evaporated.
- Add this spinach to the white sauce.
- Preheat oven to 180 degrees for 10 minutes.
- Add boiled corns.
- Mix properly and adjust seasoning, if required.
- Transfer it to a baking dish.
- Sprinkle grated cheese over it.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 5 to 7 minutes or till cheese melts and gets a little brown
- Serve with love and bread of your choice, preferably garlic bread.
- In the absence of oven, add cheese to the spinach corn mix in the pan only. Mix and cook for 2 to 3 minutes till cheese melts and mixes in it.
Notes
- Clean spinach, take off thick stalks and wilted leaves. Wash it thoroughly in running water. Chop it very finely. 1/2 kg of spinach gives about 250 g of cleaned and chopped spinach.
- Squeeze out excess water in the chopped spinach by pressing between your palms. This saves your cooking time.
- While cooking, ensure that the spinach dries up otherwise when transferred to white sauce it will be watery.
- I have added salt only to the white sauce. Keep salt on the lower side only as cheese too has salt.
- Use any cheese that melts easily, mozzarella or cheese slices.
- You may adjust the quantity of corn and cheese as per your liking.
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