Stranger Foods

Pesto, courgette & wild rice gratin

Serves 4-6 | Prep 20 mins | Cook 50 mins

Apart from a little onion cooking, this recipe is simply a question of mixing some ingredients together before baking. The dish is inspired partly by Heidi Swanson’s wild rice casserole, as well as a courgette gratin I learned to make early in my career. You can use pretty much any wholegrain cooked rice for this dish.

Source: Foolproof Veggie One-Pot: 60 Vibrant and Easy-Going Vegetarian Dishes

Ingredients

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x0.5

3 tbsps olive oil, plus a little more for greasing
1 onion, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic, finely grated
125 g mascarpone
150 g cottage cheese
4 tbsps store-bought vegetarian pesto
2 eggs
75 g sundried tomatoes in oil, drained and roughly chopped
4 medium courgettes, roughly grated
6 spring onions, trimmed and finely sliced
2x 250 g pouches precooked mixed brown and wild rice (any wholegrain rice will work)
3 tbsps dill, chopped
2 tsps baking powder
25 g vegetarian Italian hard cheese, grated
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Instructions

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Preheat the oven to 180°C.
Heat the oil in your wide shallow pot over a low-medium heat. Add the onion and cook for until soft but not yet browning. Add the grated garlic and cook for a further minute.
Remove the pot from the heat and transfer the cooked onions and garlic to a large bowl. (Don’t worry about washing the pot, as you will use it again.) Add the mascarpone, cottage cheese, pesto and eggs to the bowl with the onions and garlic, along with 1 tsp salt and ¼ tsp black pepper. Now mix in all the remaining ingredients except the Italian hard cheese, separating the grains slightly when you add the rice.
Brush a little more olive oil around the sides of your pot. Pour the mixture into the pot and top with the grated cheese. Pop in the oven and bake for until golden and puffy. Serve with a dressed green salad.

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