Ratatouille
On Friday I asked for some advice regarding what I should do with some eggplant that was sitting in my refrigerator. I decided to go with my friend Joe's suggestion that I make ratatouille . . . mainly because I also decided to try another French-inspired dish over the weekend that Joe suggested about a month ago. But you'll have to wait a couple of days to read about that one. As is my usual practice, I reviewed a bunch of recipes and then made up my own, based on the "cook-the-ingredients-individually-then-combine" technique of Julia Child, which results in a ratatouille with recognizable, distinguishable vegetable pieces rather than a semi-anonymous mush. This was the first time that I'd made ratatouille and I'm pretty happy with the results, but I'll do two things differently next time.
First, I need to work on my eggplant-salting technique (I actually salted both the eggplant and zucchini, as Julia Child suggests), because the process imparted too much salt into the finished dish. Any advice? Should I just use less salt? That seems like the obvious solution. Reading several recipes led me to expect I'd be able to wipe excess salt away after allowing about 30 minutes for the salt to pull the water out of the eggplant and zucchini. But the salt had all dissolved, so I pressed the veggies gently in clean dishtowels to drain the excess water but, again, too much salt traveled with the veggies to the finished ratatouille.
Second, I used whole cherry tomatoes and next time I'll peel and seed larger tomatoes instead, as most recipes advise. I love cooked cherry tomatoes so long as they're only cooked until the skin just begins to crack, but I cooked the ratatouille tomatoes a bit longer and some of the skins separated completely from the tomatoes. I'm not a fan of lonely tomato skins wandering around the dish. (Confession: I chose skin-intact tomatoes for the photo!)
Otherwise, this was delicious! This recipe makes about 6 hearty servings.
- 6 small eggplant*
- 2 medium zucchini*
- kosher salt
- 6 tablespoons olive oil
- 1/2 of a large yellow onion*, thinly sliced
- 2 bell peppers*, sliced into a shape of your choosing, seeds discarded
- 4 cloves garlic*, crushed or minced
- 2 pints of cherry tomatoes*
- 3 sprigs of rosemary*, de-stemmed and finely chopped
- pepper (& salt)
- fresh basil*, chiffonade with a few leaves left whole
- Peel the eggplant and cut into pieces 2-3 inches long and about a half-inch thick/wide (large batons). Cut the zucchini into a similar size/shape. Toss in a bowl with a bit of kosher salt (see note above) and allow to sit for 30 minutes, until the eggplant and zucchini release their water. Gently press and dry in a clean towel.
- Preheat olive oil in dutch oven or large skillet. Sauté eggplant and zucchini in a single layer, until lightly browned, in as many batches necessary. Move to a bowl and set aside.
- Sauté the onions and peppers on medium-low heat until soft, but not browned, about 10 minutes. There should be enough oil remaining from the sautéing of the eggplant and zucchini to accomplish this, but if not, add a bit more.
- Add the garlic and rosemary, stir, then add the tomatoes and leave them on top of the onion/pepper mixture. Cook for about 5 minutes, then add the eggplant and zucchini to the pot. Cook for another 5 minutes, salt and pepper to taste (I didn't need to add any salt, as explained above) and serve hot or cold . . . garnished with some fresh basil.
Looks great. Next time, try rinsing the eggplant and zucchini in fresh water, then patting them dry.
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FRM,
I've had the same problem with the salt thing in eggplant dishes (I've never salted zuc's). Then I read that if you've got relatively fresh, small eggplants, there shouldn't be much in the way of bitter juices in the fruit (the salting premise being you're extracting bitter juices). So I quit the whole salting thing altogether and have been happy with it. Even in a dish where the eggplant is more prominant such as a moussaka or eggplant parmesan, I've not seen much of a downside to not salting.
brs
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Less salt...for sure. I find eggplant soaks the stuff up.
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Looks just delicious, what a great photo.
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I will refrain from expressing my disdain for green peppers...and just say that it's a beautiful dish
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Looks delish! I had a french instructor that had the method of cooking everything separately as well. He also had us peel tomatoes.
As for salt, I just salt each component separately, and again at the end.
This stuff tastes even better the next day. I like eating this cold/room temperature with a touch of balsamic for acidity.
Let me know if you want me to send you the recipe I have.
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Thank you all for the feedback.
Next time, I'll skip the salting if the eggplant isn't bitter . . . and if it is bitter, I'll use less salt and then give it a quick freshwater rinse. This should take care of the problem. I'll let y'all know.
Also, Sonal, I agree 150% that it tastes even better the next day. Last night for dinner I pan-fried a link of chorizo and ate it on a piece of ciabatta with this ratatouille as a toping and it was excellent. It was so good that I considered making a "leftover" blog piece about it . . . but it was late in the evening and I was famished . . . so I didn't want to stop to take a photograph. Instead, I just sat back and enjoyed it . . . put pure personal pleasure ahead of my blog's needs for a change . . . gotta do it sometimes!
And, Sonal, I'd love for you to send your recipe. The more recipes, the merrier! You can send it to foodrockzman(at)foodrockz.com. Thanks!
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I'd concur with Bruce's comment, I've found the really fresh, tender eggplant we get at market doesn't need much salt.
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My Indian mother-in-law just lets the eggplant pieces soak in saltwater for a few minutes, which also seems to remove the bitterness without making things too salty...
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