Regular visitors will have noticed that I don't bake much. I have a fairly temperamental gas oven with a broken thermostat. Even if the thermostat worked I would be unsure whether it was recording the temperature at the front or the back of the oven. Most of the time I view the oven merely as a convenient support for the gas rings on top, on which I do ninety-nine percent of my cooking. I do have one percent days, however, and when I do, I choose robust recipes in which the cooking temperature is not critical to the success of the final dish. I never cook anything that will deflate when the oven door is opened to check how things are going.
Here's one of my robust oven-baked recipes.
Ingredients
700 -800g of potatoes
2 or 3 courgettes
I onion
1 green pepper
About 700cl of cheese sauce or vegan white
sauce
A small handful of roasted almonds or peanuts
A few sprigs of fresh parsley and/or tarragon
Black pepper
Olive oil
Salt
A few pumpkin seeds or some more nuts for garnish
Chop the onion, green pepper and nuts and fry in olive oil until the onion is transparent. Mix in the black pepper and chopped herbs. Peel and cut the potatoes into slices about 5mm thick. Cut the courgettes into 1 cm thick slices.
Build up layers in a shallow baking dish, sprinkling a little salt between each one. Plan for three layers of potatoes, two of the onion/pepper/herb mix and one each of courgettes and sauce. Begin with a layer of potato, then a layer of onion/pepper/herb mix, followed by another layer of potato. Courgettes make the next layer, followed by the onion/pepper/herb mix again, then a layer of cheese sauce. The final layer of potatoes goes on top where it should go brown and crispy.
Sprinkle on some pumpkin seeds or nuts and put the dish on the middle shelf of the oven at a fairly high temperature. After about twenty minutes you can turn the temperature down a little if the top layer seems to be browning too fast. It should take about an hour or so to cook the dish through.
Let the dish cool for fifteen minutes or so before putting it on the table as it will be scalding hot when it comes out of the oven. A green salad and/or some boiled carrots and green beans will go well as an accompaniment.