Vegetable Masterclass

The 'Original' Ratatouille 🤌

Aug 20, 2022

Greetings Friends,

I’ve got a confession to make: meat is not my favorite category of cooking 😯

As a starting out cook, the holy grail was to hopefully work your way up through the stations with the goal of getting to be put on the hallowed meat station; firing off all the beef, lamb, pork, duck, squab etc…

These are generally the most expensive products. Naturally you don’t want a rookie cook ruining a bunch of high-cost proteins, so that position tends to be the most senior and skilled cooks (Note: In most kitchens. There are exceptions. in many French kitchens the saucier is the most important station.)

I’ve had this post in the pipeline for weeks and it kept getting bumped by other more ‘pressing’ content… like grilling, meat, fish… etc.

So that reminded me today that vegetables are often the big afterthought when it comes to meals.

We spend a lot of time and effort on babysitting proteins as the center of the plate priority. Then pull whatever we have in the fridge out to serve on the side.

Truth be told, fish and vegetable cookery are (2) of my favorite segments of cooking. They require finesse. This is not to say they are more difficult to cook. It’s just not… sear, baste, rest, serve. 😂

When talking about vegetables, specifically, we have the opportunity to layer flavors in a synergistic way.

What does that mean?

With vegetables we can use some techniques that equate to 1 + 1 = 25.

You see this many times in peasant-type dishes. Humble ingredients can be transformed into the most comforting, mind blowing, explosion of flavors.

As I told a twitter friend, this was one of the first times in a while I was left speechless by how delicious this vegetable dish was.

So let’s do that today… with one of my favorite examples.

The ‘Original’ Ratatouille 🫑 🍅 🍆 🌿

What is ratatouille?

There’s no definite answer. Due to regionality depending where you go in France 🇫🇷, village by village, there will be slight variations.

Traditionally this is a slow cooked vegetable melange of eggplant, yellow squash, zucchini, bell peppers, onion, tomato, thyme and basil.

These are all highly plentiful in the summer months. You’ll even see ratatouille variations in Italy 🇮🇹 along the Mediterranean, including a similar dish- caponata.

In the 1970’s French chef Michel Guérard adapted the classic ratatouille by omitting the peppers and replacing with mushroom. He also did not saute the vegetables. He also opted to shave the vegetables very thinly and arrange in a tian dish like you saw in the Disney movie Ratatouille. He called this confit biyaldi.

Thank you for reading Cooking with Octopod. This post is public so feel free to share it.

Peasant Food Paradise

We are going to leave the fancy recipes behind and show you the OG way. This is more about technique and less about a specific recipe, as I’ll explain. if you want the best possible flavor outcome there are a few extra steps. I’ll provide some short cuts but I promise you, the extra steps make a huge difference.

Technique Walkthrough

Ingredients

It goes without saying, but finding the best quality summer produce will be a big help. If you don’t have a farmers market nearby hit up a Middle Eastern market and if you are in an area with supermarket produce as the only option, that is totally fine. You still want to make this

Eggplant: Japanese eggplant, ideally. The globe eggplants contain a lot more seeds and should be salted before use. I prefer the texture and flavor of the japanese for this ratatouille (In the picture are 2 other varieties you can find at markets, I only used the Japanese in this recipe).

Squashes: I went with green zucchini. They have a slightly more vegetal flavor than yellows, so to keep it simple I went with the. There’s plenty of sweetness from the tomato and bell peppers. (see next)

Tomato: Vine ripened, or freshly picked by your local farm is great. These were a little smaller but were in such great shape I had to pick them up. Roma’s are ok to use but have less juice.

Bell peppers: Sweet yellow and oranges. Red bells are fine but have a much more assertive flavor. You’ll see when you taste this, balancing all the vegetable flavors, why I chose these.

Onion: Spanish yellows.

Other Ingredients: Fresh thyme (1/2 bunch) , fresh basil 5-6 leaves (I didn’t have any on hand), whole garlic (just 2 cloves), sea salt and extra virgin olive oil (Middle Eastern markets FTW.. I used Nablus EVOO. Solid and economical.)

Knifework

Great news… the bell peppers, zucchini, and eggplant are all cut into larger dice. approx 1-1.5inch squares. This means you don’t need to freak out about a long time to cut the vegetables up.

The onions should be a smaller dice.

The tomatoes will be blanched and peeled. Easiest way is to remove the core with a paring knife. Plunge in boiling water for 30-90 seconds, once you see the peels starting to pull away, put in ice water and the skins will slip right off.

Note the skins pulling away from where the core was removed.

Cooking

The reason this will blow out 99% of ratatouille recipes is because we are going to lightly saute all of the vegetables, individually, in EVOO. This is really important to the final flavor.

By cooking the vegetables in separate pans, we are developing and intensifying their natural flavors without muddling them with the other vegetables.

I was taught this a really long time ago by a great chef and it was a real “a-ha!” moment.

I started the sauteeing process while the tomato water was coming to a boil.

You can use several pans at the same time, or go one by one and wipe out/clean the pan in between.

The saute pan should be at a medium/med-high heat. The olive oil should be shimmering but not smoking. We want a gentle saute with minimal coloring. We are pulling the sweetness and don’t want a lot of char from the pan being too hot.

We are cooking maybe for 5 mins. Make sure to season each vegetable very well with sea salt. This helps pull moisture out and keeps the vegetables from browning.

After the tomatoes are peeled put them in a sauce pot with 1/2 bunch of fresh thyme leaves, 2 TB butter and 1 TB EVOO. Cook over medium high heat and mash the tomatoes down (you can use a potato masher carefully). Season lightly with salt. We are cooking this down into a thick sauce.

The butter was added after pic. Try and get as much liquid out initially by mashing the tomatoes so they will break down quicker.

Depending on how much water the tomatoes have will determine how long the sauce will take to reduce. You can see it has thickened, emulsified with the fats. blend in some fresh basil (if you have on hand).

This is one of the most important parts of the process. ⬇️

Taste each one of the vegetables, individually, and add salt if needed. I can’t overstate how important this part is.

The zucchini, eggplant and bell pepper should all have a firm, toothsome bite. Barely softened from the saute.

Now we can assemble and bake.

Assembling

Traditionally ratatouille is baked in French-style cocotte dishes. You can use earthenware, cast iron enamel (I have an oval Staub dish that I love for this), or even a pyrex. I ended up using a crock that’s been in the family for a long time.

The idea is the thicker cocotte dishes hold in the heat really well for the long bake.

Avoid reactives like aluminum or cast iron 🛑

If your dish is wider, you can layer in one go; it will cook faster, mine was taller so I divided the ingredients for (2) layerings.

To layer:

Add the onions to the base (or half, if using a smaller diameter)

Then add the eggplant, followed by Squash.

Now add the peppers and spoon over all the tomato sauce, adding those two garlic whole garlic cloves from earlier; stir the vegetables together to combine (or enough evenly coat the vegetables)

I did this process twice. ⬇️

Time

The ‘hard’ part is literally all done

If you remember when we discussed duck confit, the technique of confit is by cooking low and slow.

This is the other part that builds so much flavor.

A long, slow bake allows the flavors to slowly mingle and spread, while keeping the innate flavors of the vegetables distinct.

The eggplant will slightly dissolve providing a meaty and lush texture. The peppers will ooze out their sweet-tart flavor. Onions will slowly break down and the tomato sauce infused with thyme will pull everything together.

Cook in an oven for 2-3 hours at 275F convection, or 300F.

Since my crock was taller it took the 3 hours. If you’re using a more shallow dish it’ll be ready in the 2 hours.

The top will take some gorgeous color. Let cool for 15-30 mins or so.

Dive in with a spoon and serve up. You shouldn’t need any seasoning, maybe a slight pinch of salt depending on the water content of the squash.

And you have a most delicious OG ratatouille that will make even the most ardent carnivore forget about meat… momentarily 😉

It had been years since I’ve made this. I’m going to be making it much more frequently before summer is finished.

The ratatouille will get better each day it sits as leftovers but i’m guessing it won’t be sitting around very long 😆

The recipe does take some time and preparation. If you’re moderately comfortable in the kitchen I would approximate 30 mins for the knife work, tomato sauce and sauteeing. From there it’s all in the oven.

Shortcuts

Here are some shortcuts you can take but they will affect the final flavor. outcome

You can use whole, peeled canned tomatoes instead of peeling fresh.
You can cook that ratatouille in one pan by going, eggplant first, than add more oil, then onion, squash and peppers.
You can cook in a hotter oven (aka 375F). This will not give you as much flavor development.

Enjoy this gem of a recipe… and some techniques to elevate your vegetable cooking.

Thank you for reading Cooking with Octopod. This post is public so feel free to share it.