My 7th Recipe, “Baked Sweet Potato ‘n’ Pasta”, tried my hand at fusion... By God’s grace, my blog has been shaping up well… It has been a busy week so far, trying to get my recipes photographed and to get my very own food blog up and running… After some of my other favorite recipes got onto my blog, decided that it’s time for one of my other favorite food to get on as well… With the combination of the sweet, spicy, garlicky potato and the creamy pasta; this dish is sure to strike all the right notes on your palate.
| Serves | : | 4 |
| Total time | : | 30 minutes |
| Preparation time | : | 5 minutes |
| Cooking time | : | 25 minutes |
Ingredients:-
| Sweet Potato | - | 1 Large | |
| Garlic | - | 3 cloves (Finely Grated) | |
| Green Chili | - | ½ (Finely Chopped) | |
| Butter | - | 3 Tbsp | |
| All purpose flour / Maida | - | 2 Tbsp | |
| Salt | - | ¼ tsp (as per taste) | |
| Ground Pepper | - | ½ tsp (as per taste) | |
| Dry Oregano | - | ½ tsp | |
| Grated Cheese | - | ½ Cup (Cheddar + Parmesan) and ½ Cup ( Mozzarella - Optional) | |
| Pasta | - | 1 ½ Cups | |
| Milk | - | 2 Cups |
Method:-
| 1) | First, we will start with the sweet potato layer of the dish. Wash, peel and grate the sweet potato. Use the large hole side of your grater. | |
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| 2) | Next, melt 1 Tbsp of the butter in a pan. Once the butter is melted, add the grated sweet potato, finely chopped chili, and finely grated garlic. Add a pinch of salt and sugar and sauté them in medium flame until the sweet potato is fully cooked. It took me 3 mins for the sweet potato to be done. | |
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| 3) | Now, keep the cooked sweet potato aside and start on the pasta layer. | |
| 4) | Bring a pot of water to a boil and add a pinch of salt and a drop of oil to it. Now cook the pasta in the hot water until al dente. (slightly undercooked ). It took me around 8-9 minutes to cook the pasta. | |
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| 5) | Now drain and keep the pasta aside and start work on the white sauce. First, melt 2 Tbsp of butter in a pan. | |
| 6) | Once the butter is melted, add 2 Tbsp of All purpose flour to the butter and saute for few minutes. The flour butter mixture should not change color. Saute until the flour is cooked well, till raw smell goes. It should be done in 1 min. | |
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| 7) | Now add the 2 cups of milk (preferably room temperature milk) to the flour mixer and keep stirring nicely. Lumps will be formed very easily. So keep stirring until you get a smooth consistency without any lumps. Now, reduce the flame to medium and add salt, ground pepper and dry oregano leaves. You can as well use Italian seasoning instead of just the oregano leaves. | |
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| 8) | After 30 sec, add the cooked pasta to the white sauce and give it a stir. Then add ½ cup of cheese (I used a mix of 5 Italian cheese which is readily available. But for best taste, you can just use a combination of parmesan and cheddar cheese), give everything a good toss until the cheese melts a little and coats over the pasta. Turn off the stove. | |
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| 9) | Now we will move on to layering. Take a baking dish and add the sweet potato mixture to the bottom and pack it tight. (Layering is your preference. Last time I tried with pasta in the bottom and sweet potatoes on top. Did not make any difference). On top of the sweet potato layer, add all of the cooked pasta with white sauce. Smoothen out the top. | |
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| 10) | Now add ½ Cup of mozzarella cheese on top. This is purely optional. Adding cheese on top will give you a nice crispy golden brown layer on top of your bake. Turn your oven to Broil mode. In case you do not have a Broil mode in the oven, preheat it to 400+ degrees F. | |
| 11) | Broil or bake your pasta layers in the oven for 5 mins or until the top is bubbling and golden brown. Leave it to rest for 5 mins and enjoy the dish while hot. | |
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Notes:-
| • | The sweet potatoes we get here are not very sweet. Hence I added some sugar to bring out the natural sweetness of the potato. You can avoid the sugar as well. | |
| • | When preparing the white sauce, do not cook the flour in butter for a long time. Else the flour will lose color or will lose its ability to thicken the mixture. | |
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