For anybody who doesn't know about ratatouille, it is a Southern French vegetable dish made of eggplant, zucchini, bell peppers and tomatoes. I used to make a rather mediocre ratatouille with the recipe from "Les Recettes Faciles" by Françoise Bernard. Her book is one of my French cooking bibles, but some of the recipes are a little TOO facile. In her version, everything is sautéed and simmered together. As Alison pointed out in her comment, the secret to good ratatouille is to sauté everything separately.
There's only so much sautéing everything separately I can take, though: that's why I love the ratatouille recipe from Roger Vergé's excellent cookbook Les Légumes de Mon Moulin. I don't really follow the quantities, but I love his method.While you sauté your onion, garlic and bell peppers together, you bake your zucchini and eggplant on two separate baking sheets, after drizzling them with some olive oil, until they are tender. Then you throw everything into a covered baking dish, adding the fresh tomatoes at this time, and bake it for about 30 minutes at 150°c (300°F).
For novices, here's a basic ratatouille recipe -- but apply the Vergé method to the cooking instructions.
I like to make a lot of ratatouille because it freezes well or can be the base for a number of other dishes: quiches, vegetable tarts, gratins, or terrines. It is also good served lukewarm or cold.
This time my leftovers went into a savory "clafouti." My clafouti guide, Les Clafoutis de Christophe, doesn't have a specific recipe for "ratatouille clafouti" but I used the basic recipe -- with modifications, as usual -- for his bell pepper and tomato clafouti.
Most people know clafouti as a fruit dessert, but vegetable versions make great evening suppers, or can be served elegantly as starters in individual dishes.
Summer vegetables are still around, so if you haven't made ratatouille yet this season, there's still time!
3 comments:
Great idea, I live the vegetable versions.
I make ratatouille weekly, usually on a Friday, as it is my favorite comfort food and a good end to the week. At the LeClerc store near Cahors, I found frozen ratatouille vegetables and tried them. Not bad!
Back here in Wisconsin, I am growing my own tomatoes and eggplant just to ensure my weekly ratatouille ration. I usually grow peppers, too.
During my brief stint with Haloscan, I got a few comments through their system which disappeared when I put back the Blogger comment system.
On this post, Sarah of www.threetarts.blogspot.com said:
Yes, ratatouille is one of those dishes than can be either divine or very mushy and prosaic. Cook's Illustrated also recommends roasting the zukes and eggplant while sauteing the garlic and onion, but then adding all to the pan on the stove, including the chopped tomatoes. I'll probably try roasting the tomatoes the Verge way next!
My favorite side dish for ratatouille, by the way, is polenta with about four ounces of goat cheese thrown into the mix.
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