Mm, ratatouille.

[starlady]

Tasty Places
Dara Thai and Lao cuisine
Picante Mexican food
The Albatross pub (with games behind the bar)
Ici ice cream (worth the half-hour wait)

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I made my friend K's ratatouille recipe yesterday. It turned out great, though next time I'm probably going to add a little more olive oil. Also no matter how coarsely I chopped things, I just said to myself, "Ratatouille!? It's a peasant dish!" and that made everything okay.

1.6kg tomatoes
700g eggplant (2)
500g zucchini (2)
1kg onion
6 cloves garlic
Herbes de Provence (basil, thyme, parsley) - about 2-3 tsp
olive oil
salt & pepper
140g tomato paste

1. Peel and drain the tomatoes: Cut out stem cores; drop the whole tomatoes in boiling water for 2 minutes. Drain. The skin should split for easy removal. Otherwise cut a little X in the skin and then peeil it off. Or you can skip this step if you're lazy and don't mind tomato skin.
2. Chop the onion and garlic. Clean the bell peppers and cut into strips.
3. In a large pot with a thick bottom, put in onion and garlic and olive oil. Add bell pepper and cover to keep in moisture. Cook 20 minutes, stirring frequently and adding olive oil to prevent singeing.
4. Add the peeled tomatoes and the herbes de Provence. Add the tomato paste, unless you have good garden tomatoes, in which case omit it. Stir well and cook another 15 minutes.
5. Cut the eggplant and the unpeeled zucchini into rondelles. Add to the pot and cook about 30 minutes more. Add more olive oil and salt and pepper to taste.

Comments

[lian]

Ha! I always forget ratatouille is not (necessarily) an oven dish. I'll have to see how many zucchini are ripe for picking in the garden, you've given me an idea :)

(I planned to make zucchini cake originally, I hope it's enough for both...)

(What's a rondelle?)

[starlady]

Just a round slice. I'm not sure that's how rondele is spelled, actually. (Though my eggplant were big enough that I had to cut the slices in half.)

ETA: I've never made ratatouille in an oven. This recipe came from when we lived in Japan, where no one has non-convection ovens. I assume it's good in an oven?

[spacevlad.livejournal.com]

I made ratatouille once. It was awesome. I should do that again...