Tomato and Sweet Corn Clafoutis

I am always looking for one pot dishes, preferably one which can be baked and thus "cook itself". In this direction, I have tried crustless quiches, frittatas . These are perfect for a late Sunday brunch or even a small evening meal at the end of a long day. While looking for some more such recipes which fitted my baked, one pot criteria, I came across Clafoutis.

Clafoutis or clafouti is a dessert - custard with fruit in its simplest form - which originated in France. The fruit of choice is usually cherries but when not in season is replaced with other fruits like peaches, pears, bluberries and the like. It is a simple way to consume summer fruits with some heavy cream, eggs and sugar and a very non fussy dessert which doesn't smother the fresh taste of the fruits.

Since I don't have such a strong sweet tooth, my thoughts wandered to making this a savoury dish - a quick look around and I found that I wasn't the first one with such an idea! In fact, I even stumbled across a rant about the tribe who convert a perfect great dessert into something of an abomination by adding vegetables and extra flour. Well, in my opinion, some of the best recipes have been created because of such experimentation - I'm not going to stop anytime soon, even if I don't produce any path breaking recipes in the process ;).

I made my recipe with the ingredients I had at home - tomatoes, bell peppers and sweet corn - you can used cherry tomatoes and even bacon.

Eggs - 3
Flour - 3-4 tbsp
Cream - 1/2 cup
Milk - 1//2 cup
Feta Cheese - 100 gm crumbled

2 large tomatoes thickly sliced
1 bell pepper - thinly sliced
sweet corn kernels - 1/2 cup

garlic cloves - 2-3
fresh basil leaves - 2 tbsp chopped
salt to taste
crushed pepper - 1 tsp
red chilli flakes - 1/2 tsp
oil - 1 tbsp

1. Preheat the oven to 180C. Heat oil in a pan and add the garlic cloves. After a minute, add the bell peppers and swiftly saute for about 3-4 minutes. Remove.
2. Grease a baking dish and keep aside. Whisk the eggs in a bowl, add the cream, milk, flour, salt chilli flakes and pepper and whisk some more.
3. Pour the custard batter into the greased baking dish and distribute the vegetables (including the sauteed garlic and bell peppers) over the batter till they just sink in. Scatter the chopped basil on top and sprinkle the crumbled feta cheese.
4. Bake for about 40-45 minutes till the custard is just set is just starting to turn golden on top.