#Ratatouille
##Back story. I was watching the film and decided to attempt to play around as attempt to cook something fun for me and my friend that has seen the film.
##Shopping List - Gets complicated because I change it based on season
- A few (4)Red or Orange Bell peppers or any other sweet pepper but avoid the colour green. (it looks unpleasant)
- Garlic - Just get a whole bulb
- Some form of eggplant -- Japanese Eggplant makes ones life easier.
- Some form of zucchini -- Getting Green and Yellow is the closest to the films presentation
- Can of peeled and diced tomatoes -- My favourite is fire roasted plum tomatoes if I can find them (you can also do fresh if you like but I hyper lazy when it comes to sauces)
- Fresh tomatoes -- four?
- Usually in fall I introduce some form of Fungus -- Lobster mushrooms when I can find them.
- Yellow onion
- Spices (Standard Provencal ones)
- Balsamic Vinger
- Olive oil -- pick you poison I tend to prefer tuscan and greek
Again there are seasonal and mood changes for this but this is the core
##Cooking Instructions
- Halve the peppers and core the peppers and place in the oven on a small cookie tray. The oven should be about 230 Celsius or about 450 Fahrenheit
- In about ~20 mins they should be ready to be peeled (test by trying to pull of the skin with a fork) When they are ready to be peeled take them out of the oven and let them cool and bring down the oven temperature to 135 Celsius/270 Fahrenheit
- While the above is going on dice the garlic and the onion and put in a sauce pan on lowish heat with some olive oil and spices and salt. Stir until soft but don't let it go brown.
- Fold in the canned tomatoes and a bay leaf and then the peppers if they are peeled and ready. Cook until very soft and stir frequently.
- ALL THE SLICING If you have a mandoline slicer life became easy. If not this will take a while. Basically you cut the zuchinni, eggplant (halved if you are using a regular one), and tomatoes. You want the slices to be thing but enought to hold their shape. This takes forever
- When the sauce is done cover the bottom of a casserol pan in it and place some aside in a small bowl. (Not a lot maybe half a cup)
- Layer in the sliced vegetables so it looks a bit like this in the pan. Dip each slice in the half cup of the sauce but only to wet it not to slather it on.
- Place in the over for 2 hours covered either in foil or baking paper if you have it. Vegetables will be tender at this point. Then remove convering for about 30 mins.
- Take the remainder of the sauce and put it in a small sauce pan and mix in some more olive oil and balsmic vinger. Along with another helping of the spices and garlic. Cook on a medium heat. Reduce the amount of moisture till it's closer to a paste. This will have a very pungent flavour have some water ready if you are tasteing it.
- Drissle some on olive oil broil for at most 15 mins. (If the outer edges start to brown that is the sign it's done)
- Plate and place some of the vingerette sauce thing on the outer edges of the plate and a little on the dish itself. (That way people can choose their spice level if they wish to dip it in stuff on the outside.
###Closing thoughts Pairs well with heavy red wine, but I say that about pretty much everything.