Vegetable cobbler
My lovely Granny was an awesome cook. A few years ago, we found her old handwritten cookbook, and it’s amazing. It’s perfectly imperfect – spelling mistakes, scribbles, pages torn out, recipes slipped in the front on loose sheets of paper (in fact, one of them is even written on the back of a letter from the DVLA…). It’s the kind of cookbook that you don’t get so much any more, in the age of Pinterest, but it’s just brilliant (and her cursive handwriting was just gorgeous!).
I was recently asked by Schwartz to share a recipe that has a good story behind it, and my mind immediately went to my Granny’s cookbook. Imagine the life this book has had! There are tons of great recipes in here, but the one that caught my eye was this vegetable cobbler. I love veggies, I love creamy sauces, and anything topped with a cheesy scone is always going to be good.
The recipe starts by infusing some milk with an onion, some peppercorns and a bay leaf. The aromatics are then removed, and the milk is used to make the creamy white sauce. I used peppercorns and bay from Schwartz, since I know they’re great quality and would help impart as much flavour into the sauce as possible.
I’ve seen this technique in lots of recipes, but I’ve always thought it seemed like a bit of a waste of time – how much flavour can really be added in just a few minutes? Turns out, a lot! A white sauce can sometimes be a bit bland (I usually have to add a good handful of cheese to bring it to life!) but after being infused with the onion, pepper and bay, this sauce was seriously tasty – I had a hard time not scooping spoonfuls straight out of the pan. I would usually use ground spices and add them straight to the sauce, but I really like this technique of infusing the milk with whole spices instead. I need to experiment more with this idea.
The irresistible sauce is then stirred through a mixture of veggies, and that’s the main part of the vegetable cobbler done. You can use whatever veg you fancy – I used broccoli, peppers, corn and green beans. You could even add a tin of chickpeas or something if you want an extra protein boost.
The cheesy scone topping is really easy to make too – it only needs one bowl. Just mix everything together and dollop it on top of the creamy veg for perfect scones. They’re somehow light and comfortingly dense at the same time, and the cheesy flavour really comes through. If you don’t want to make the full vegetable cobbler, you could bake these scones on their own and they’d still be delicious.
I have no idea where my Granny got this recipe from – I imagine she probably copied it from a magazine or an old cookbook (I’m sorry if I’m accidentally plagiarising someone here!). But wherever it came from, it was a real winner. Comfort food at its finest – just the thing to help ease us into autumn.
Vegetable cobbler
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Print Pin CommentIngredients
- 1 small onion
- 450 ml milk (~ 1 3/4 cups)
- 1 bay leaf
- 6 peppercorns
- 2 tbsp butter
- 2 tbsp plain flour
- 1 medium head broccoli, separated into florets
- 100 g green beans (~ 1 cup), trimmed
- 3 red peppers, sliced
- 130 g sweetcorn kernels (~ 3/4 cup)
For the scone topping:
- 85 g plain flour (~ 1/2 cup)
- 85 g self-raising flour (~ 1/2 cup)
- 1 tsp baking powder
- Salt
- Black pepper
- 1 egg, lightly beaten
- 60 ml milk (~ 1/4 cup)
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 85 g grated cheddar cheese (~ 1 cup)
Instructions
- Peel the onion, and chop it into a few chunks. Add it to the milk, along with a bay leaf and around 6 peppercorns. Bring to a simmer, and allow it to cook gently for around 10 minutes (keep an eye on it, as milk has a tendency to boil over very quickly!).
- Sieve the milk into a jug to remove the onion, bay and peppercorns, and set aside.
- To make the white sauce, melt 2tbsp butter in a large saucepan, and add the flour. Cook over a fairly low heat for 1-2 minutes, stirring constantly, to form a roux. Add the milk a little at a time, stirring until smooth each time before adding more. When the sauce is ready, set aside.
- Meanwhile, prepare the broccoli, green beans and peppers, and cook them in a steamer for around 8 minutes, until just tender. If you don’t have a steamer, you can try resting a colander over a pan of boiling water and covering it with a lid. Or, you can just boil the vegetables for a few minutes instead.
- When the vegetables are cooked, add them to the white sauce along with the sweetcorn, and mix well. Season to taste. Transfer the mixture to a baking dish, and spread it out evenly.
- To make the scone topping, add the plain flour, self-raising flour, baking powder and a pinch of salt and pepper to a large bowl, and mix well. Add the lightly beaten egg, milk, olive oil and grated cheese, and mix again until well combined. You should have a slightly sticky dough – add another tablespoon of milk if it seems too dry.
- Dollop the scone mixture on top of the vegetables, creating several separate scones (I made four, but it will depend how many people you’re serving). Bake at 200°C (Gas Mark 6 / 400°F) for around 20 minutes, until the scones are golden brown and the vegetable mixture is piping hot.
Nutritional information is approximate, and will depend on your exact ingredients. Please calculate your own nutritional values if you require accuracy for health reasons.
Note: Nutritional information is approximate, and will depend on exactly what ingredients you choose. Information above is for one quarter of the recipe.
Want a good way to use up your bay leaves? Try my creamy lentil and aubergine stacks!
I’m here after seeing this on BuzzFeed this evening. I’m thinking about trying the recipe but I’m wondering what size baking pan did you use? From your photos, I’m guessing an 11×7 or an 8×8 would work? Or are those scones bigger than they look and will I need a 13×9? Thanks for your help!
Hi LaLa! Yes I think mine was around 11x7ish, I can’t remember exactly. Any similar size should be fine, you might just end up with smaller or larger gaps between the scones :)
Tried this out tonight after I saw it on Buzzfeed and LOVED the way it looked! It came out soooooo good! Thank you!
Amazing! Thanks so much, glad you liked it :)
I’m a year late to the party on this one. Today was a snowy day in New England, and the perfect day to finally try this dish. We loved it! Totally agree that simmering the milk with onion added a ton of flavor.
I just found some of my Grammy’s cookbooks too. Thanks to a magazine idea, I had the front page with her signature copied onto tea towels. Can’t wait to give them to my sisters for Christmas.
So glad you enjoyed this one Liz – cobbler on a snowy day sounds absolutely perfect :) Love the tea towel idea! So thoughtful.
Grandma’s old recipes are always fantastic! This one is great, perfect for now when the chilly evenings have truly set in :)
I always add a bit of garlic powder and ground white pepper to the sauce at the roux stage, and often some grated parmesan in the end as well. That way it’s never too bland, but it doesn’t overpower the dish either.
Thank you for the recipe!
I made this today. It’s quite hearty, isn’t it? We are super-full.
I did make a substitution, though (don’t I always?), in that it was raining so I couldn’t be bothered to go down and pick beans. Instead we had half a red cabbage in the fridge, so I used a chunk of that instead. I was a bit worried after it had come out of the steamer and was still like biting leather, so I thought we might have just had to eat around it. It cooked up nicely in the oven, though, and the cabbage was just the right side of firm but tender. :) I imagine you can probably make this with loads of different veg combinations. Personally I’m definitely using red cabbage again if available. :)
As for white sauces being a bit bland, I like to add a teaspoon or so of whole grain or dijon mustard to a plain white sauce along with some nutmeg. I think the mustard adds a bit of interest without taking away from the primary ingredients in the recipe. Dijon can be quite strong, though, so a bit of caution is advised. Personally I prefer the whole grain mustard. The seeds look nice in the sauce as well, I think. :)
Yes super hearty! Proper comfort food :) Red cabbage sounds like a great addition – I’m sure you can use whatever veggies you have in the fridge. Mustard sounds brilliant too, thanks for the idea!
What a lovely thing to find and recreate some of her recipes. I hope one day my grandchildren find my book of scribbles and enjoy it! This cobbler looks hearty and comforting!!
I need to start writing more stuff down – as it stands, my grandchildren will just need to scroll through my Pinterest board, which is a lot less interesting haha
How delicious, and how lovely to have that recipe book.
It is such a hot mid September day today that I cannot believe we are thinking about winter and autumn food.
I know, this recipe does seem a little out of place during this heatwave but I’m sure the cold will come soon! :(
So envious, because I don’t have any granny cookbooks infused with rich memories. The cobbler certainly looks like a meal on its own. Meat lovers, take note!
Haha absolutely, if you make things this hearty and filling, nobody could complain about the lack of meat :)
This looks a lovely recipe. Very comforting and perfect for the coming autumn. I am sure your Granny will be really happy of your version of her recipe
Reminds me of chicken and biscuits with veggies used instead. Pure comfort food, great recipe. Aren’t the old family recipes the best? Thanks for the share.
It’s really similar to that! The ultimate comfort food.