hands down. this is not debatable. this was some fine ratatouille. not too stewy. not too heavy. just right.
and the sad part is that it’s not my creation. it came from a recipe from “smitten kitchen“. she saw the movie and got inspired. i suppose i’ll see it on pay-per-view one of these days when my guy is working late because he’s most likely not going to want to humor me through an animated kids flick about a rat that cooks - no matter how great i tell him it is – and i can live with that. yes i can.
so it all started with a little shopping excursion because although i was stocked up on the produce end of things, i needed some pomi, goat cheese, fresh thyme and i was somehow out of garlic – and much more importantly out of ‘ciao bella’ chocolate sorbet which is total fat free heaven in a carton and hands down the logical choice to cap off this dinner.
this recipe requires mega slicing, calling for 1/16 of an inch, so i even broke out the bad-ass mandoline pulling out the .75 mm insert and that’s pretty thin… but there was a lot of slicing about to happen and there was no way i could achieve it manually. even my cuisinart would have made the slices way too thick.
the funny (kinda sorta) story here is that cary had come home from work and was getting ready to go for a run. as he kissed me, walking out the door, he eye-spyed the mandoline and in a serious voice said “be careful” and then he was off doing his daily 5 miles. halfway into it an ambulance sped by and all he could think of was that i’d had a mandoline encounter of the worst kind, and as he ran back towards the house he was envisioning that i’d hemmoraged blood all over the kitchen while trying to call 911. so obviously our collective experience with this contraption hasn’t been great. but it has led to a new found respect for the thing and hey, i only nicked myself ever so slightly this time around so – big improvement.
ps – i even bought the mandoline with the built in guard for safety, and we’re still drawing blood over here…
so i put some pomi strained tomatoes into the bottom of the dish and diced up some garlic and onion, added salt and pepper and a little bit of olive oil and proceeded with the layering process.
and layering
until we had this pretty little number
then cary perfectly did the parchment cut out thing being the technical guy that he is
and let it bake for 45 minutes or so. i served it over whole wheat couscous because i had some leftover chicken broth in the fridge and couscous is so simple and fast to make and it was almost 10 pm and i needed to watch jon stewart.
last but not least you top it with some good montrachet…
and then you declare that this is the best ratatouille ever.
7 responses so far ↓
1 Elizabeth M // Jul 27, 2007 at 7:19 pm
You cooked my boyfriend!! I meant to take him with me. But I guess if he had to be sacrificed, this looks like a noble way to go. This looks so fantastic! I just got some local goat cheese today, and I am going to the farmers market in the morning. I think I smell dinner!
You have a great way with words, which is a great complement to your mad skills in the kitchen. You rock girl! Now go whip me up a nice cobbler with the peaches I bought from Hot Thomas today.
2 Amy // Jul 28, 2007 at 5:02 am
This sounds delicious and looks beyond gorgeous. Way to go! I saw the recipe on Smitten Kitchen, too, but the amount of slicing was daunting, even with a mandoline (which is hands-down my favorite kitchen tool ever, despite the fear I feel in its presence).
Love the site redesign, too — especially the banner. The image looks so luscious.
3 Amy // Jul 28, 2007 at 5:09 am
This sounds delicious and looks beyond gorgeous. Way to go! I saw the recipe on Smitten Kitchen, too, but the amount of slicing was daunting, even with a mandoline (which is hands-down my favorite kitchen tool ever, despite the fear I feel in its presence).
Love the site redesign, too, especially the banner. The image looks so luscious.
4 claudia // Jul 28, 2007 at 6:19 am
thanks. i can kinda live with the look of the blog now but not sure how i feel about fluid width as opposed to fix, etc. 3 colums is a lotta blog. it’s a screen filler. well hopefully i’ll fill it with some good stuff…
5 Trish // Aug 8, 2007 at 7:54 am
I keep looking at all these beautiful ratatouille dishes but… I’ve tried egg plant a few different times and really just don’t like the taste of it. Do you think the dish would suffer a lot without the eggplant? Or, should I give egg plant one more try?
Thanks! – Trish (BTW – I’m a new subscriber – found you through 101 cookbooks – I’m enjoying your blog already)
6 claudia // Aug 8, 2007 at 8:43 am
hi trish! removing the eggplant would not affect the dish at all. it might not be as classic a rendition but it will still be great. just use zucchini and yellow squash and tomatoes and various colors of bell peppers – layer it all up and bake. the tomato sauce on the bottom with the onion and garlic are a must! i know many folks who don’t like eggplant…
7 more of the same but different // Aug 15, 2007 at 3:22 pm
[...] - this ratatouille is not an identical twin to the last batch. nope. it is none other than my last ratatouille’s long lost italian cousin… complete with tons of basil, fresh mozarella, grated parmesian [...]
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