Ratatouille

[Chantal]

I was given this recipe by a French girl who briefly lived next door to me and it's lovely.

You can choose the quantities/proportions to suit yoineur available veggies and your taste.

Rough chop:

Courgettes
Aubergines
Onions
Mushrooms
Garlic
Sweet Peppers
Chillies
Tomatoes
Smoked Bacon
Herbs de Provence
Salt & Pepper

Fry off the onions and bacon then add all the other ingredients with a little water. Cook slowly until everything is soft and it's reduced right down.

Eat immediately or pack into boxes for the freezer

[Colin_M]

I love Ratatouille and have often put any extra supplies into the freezer. After the n'th box, it's easy to get tired of careful labelling and just mark them "Rats".

We almost ran into trouble with this one year whilst moving house. The removal company offered to help in moving our full freezer by unpacking it & transferring the contents separately.

The workmen had been very chatty to begin with, but by the time they'd finished with the frozen stuff, were giving us wary glances.....

Colin

[peter]

Colin, , Peter.

[cevenol jardin]

I have not had ratatouille with mushrooms in before. Here is another version of Ratatouille -
it is based on how my neighbour makes it and it is pretty fantastic. The secret is to cook it very slowly adding each batch of veg according to how long they take or how soft you want them. The whole recipe and how to is posted on our website http://www.masdudiable.com/fluxit/mdd.n ... ouille.htm
but here is the ratio of ingredients of this years end of season batch which was by far the best yet.

* 100ml olive oil
* 400g onions, diced
* 500g Aubergine, diced
* 8 cloves garlic, sliced
* 500g red, green and yellow peppers, diced
* 350g courgettes, skinned and diced
* 400g sieved tomatoes or passata
* 3-4 sprigs fresh Thyme, tied together
* 1 tsp salt

[Granny]

Try adding some sundried tomato or sundried tomato puree for a change - it adds a bit of depth. And I often add fresh basil and/or oregano - from the garden, of course!

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granny

[Wellie]

Try 'roasting' all the veg instead of shallow-frying... it really does enhance the depth of flavours, especially the aubergine and peppers.
Mmm.

[Colin_M]

Try 'roasting' all the veg instead of shallow-frying... it really does enhance the depth of flavours, especially the aubergine and peppers

Good point Wellie. Another aspect of roasting is that it makes the whole process less labour intensive & time-dependent. You can bung the stuff in and come back to it later. Frying it needs fairly constant attention and I've never found aubergines at the best after being fried (seem to soak up as much oil as they can).

Colin