Gratin Of Broccoli With Cheeses & Bacon


Thought I'd include this as my last posting for 2014 but was busy fixing some electrical stuff around the house so... We had this for Boxing Day lunch and people loved it! This is an old recipe made with cauliflower instead of broccoli so I said " what the heck " and used Broccoli instead and amazingly enough it came out much better ....






Kept it simple and here is how it went :

Ingredients:
  • 1 kg of medium size broccoli florets with no stems. Stems were cut off, pealed and served raw (very crunchy and delicious)
  • 4 slices of smoked bacon chopped and slightly fried.


  • 150 gr of shredded Gouda.
  • 70 gr of grated Parmigiano Regiano.

  • 1 litre to 1-5 litre of white bechamel sauce made with 75 gr of fresh butter, 75 gr of all purpose flour, and enough cold full fat milk to make a medium thick bechamel sauce to pour over the whole before baking. 

Method:
  • Wash broccoli florets and place heads up in your cous-cous cooker strainer part letting the steam coming from below cook it for 20 minutes. These baby broccoli will come out soft.

  • Use a round 28 cms in diameter baking dish, brush some butter around the sides and bottom and set the broccoli florets heads up until you fill the dish.

  • Scatter the bacon pieces around the broccoli, including some of the melted fat from the bacon.
  • Add the shredded Gouda and grated Parmigiano Regiano to nearly cover the top of the broccoli.

  • Pour the bechamel which must not be too thin or too thick.


  • Sprinkle some freshly grounded pepper.
  • Add some dollops of butter to give the bechamel a nice color during baking.
  • There is no need for salt in this dish due to the presence of the cheeses and bacon.
  • Bake for 45 to 60 minutes at 180 degrees with convection hot air on.
  • When you are satisfied with the color of the surface take out from oven and let cool 15 minutes at least otherwise it is too hot to enjoy.
This can be had as a starter or a side dish.

Happy New Year 2015 everybody and thank you for reading me.
Enjoy!!
Stelio

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