The horrid summer heat of Walnut Creek is receding, and a young girl's thoughts turn once more to ovens.
I looked in my fridge Thursday and realized that the only thing in there was all the ingredients for ratatouille. Sio that had to happen!
There are a million ways to make this dish, but I primarily read Julia Child's recipe, the wikipedia article and a nice article in the Guardian. (A shout out here to the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, my 2yr home town paper).
Rifling through these I evaluated all steps for a) necessity and b) difficulty. Here is what I did:
Step 1) make a piperade
- Saute one large onion (finely diced) and 2 bell peppers (finely diced) until soft
- Add minced garlic to taste, bay, thyme, and herbs de provence
- Add 2-3 small tomatoes (also finely chopped but neither peeled nor seeded) and simmer down till thick
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| Piperade |
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| Grilled veggies are yumm |
Step 2) grill veggies slices
- Slice up equal amounts of eggplant (1med-peeled) zucchini (2 large) and tomatoes (3 med)
- Grill the zucchini and eggplant slices. I did this on my cast iron griddle while simmering the piperade and it was very little effort for big payoff.
Step 3) bake it
- In a pot (I used the same cast iron one I had made the piperade in) layer piperade, zucchini, eggplant, tomatoes, more piprerade.
- I think I should actually have put the tomatoes between the eggplant and zucchini.
- Place in a 350F oven with a lid 3/4 on, and leave to bake down for 90min-2hrs/when your house starts smelling like deliciousness
I ate it with some Parmesan cheese over rice. My only two criticisms: Needs more eggplant!!! Also, it seems a waste to cook heirloom tomatoes, given how delicious they are raw. Especially in caprese.
Fun fact: I found out while doing research that Thomas Keller was the consulting chef for the film Ratatouille. I suspect this was just so Pixar guys could try and work expense meals at the French Laundry (The first place I will eat upon becoming filthy rich).
Fun fact: I found out while doing research that Thomas Keller was the consulting chef for the film Ratatouille. I suspect this was just so Pixar guys could try and work expense meals at the French Laundry (The first place I will eat upon becoming filthy rich).
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| Heirloom tomatoes in all their glory |
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| My camera is useless once the sun goes down. I promise this looked more appealing than the amorphous yellow blob leftover when I remembered to take a pic at 10pm |
