Print PDF
Favorite
Email
It's ratatouille time! You can tell, because when you go to the farmers market there's tomatoes and eggplant all over the place, and a lot of the stalls will have seconds available for cheap.
This is a great recipe for this time of year, at least where I live in upstate New York.
A quick note on pronunciation: the French pronounce it (approximately) rat-a-twee. Americans seem to have settled on rat-a-too-ee after the eponymous movie. I generally call it rat.
This is a great recipe for this time of year, at least where I live in upstate New York.
A quick note on pronunciation: the French pronounce it (approximately) rat-a-twee. Americans seem to have settled on rat-a-too-ee after the eponymous movie. I generally call it rat.
Remove these ads by
Signing UpStep 1Ingredients
So the greatest thing about ratatouille is that you don't need the prettiest and most beautiful ingredients. You want fresh ingredients with good flavors, but they can be bruised and broken and ugly, because you're going to chop them all up and cook them.
This is the great thing about buying what are called heirloom tomatoes in the United States or heritage tomatoes in the UK. And other things in other places. Your grandparents probably called them tomatoes. Such is the effect of big agribusiness. Chances are that you want to go and buy the ugliest tomatoes you can find at the farmers market. Big huge ones that have scars and scrapes and are funky colors. And they're cheap. And you're not just buying excellent tasting tomatoes, but making a political statement about what you value in food, and how it ain't pretty-looking identical-sized mass-produced tomatoes shipped many miles, but something grown locally by your neighbors that really tastes of something. But all artifacts have politics, this included, and I digress.
So. Go buy your tomatoes: here I've got about 4 or 5 pounds. You also want to buy a similar quantity of eggplant (aubergine, if you speak British English) and a similar quantity of onions, red or yellow, it doesn't matter. You probably want a bit more tomatoes than anything else. You'll also want to buy some zucchini (a.k.a. courgette), which I managed to cleverly leave out of the photo. I used one large one, about a pound and a half. You'll also want extra virgin olive oil, cheap red wine, and salt. You will also want some kind of herbs: rosemary is good, basil is also good, parsley will do if you've got nothing else.
In this instructable, I'm using
Tomatoes from West Haven Farm (and a few of my own)
Eggplant and zucchini from Mandelville Farm
Onions from Hendy Hollow (check out their website, done by some of my students!)
Garlic from Red Tail Farm
Rosemary from my garden, grown from a plant from Kingbird Farm
All bought at the Ithaca Farmers Market
...and Two Buck Chuck from Trader Joes, EVOO and sea salt from Wegmans.
This is the great thing about buying what are called heirloom tomatoes in the United States or heritage tomatoes in the UK. And other things in other places. Your grandparents probably called them tomatoes. Such is the effect of big agribusiness. Chances are that you want to go and buy the ugliest tomatoes you can find at the farmers market. Big huge ones that have scars and scrapes and are funky colors. And they're cheap. And you're not just buying excellent tasting tomatoes, but making a political statement about what you value in food, and how it ain't pretty-looking identical-sized mass-produced tomatoes shipped many miles, but something grown locally by your neighbors that really tastes of something. But all artifacts have politics, this included, and I digress.
So. Go buy your tomatoes: here I've got about 4 or 5 pounds. You also want to buy a similar quantity of eggplant (aubergine, if you speak British English) and a similar quantity of onions, red or yellow, it doesn't matter. You probably want a bit more tomatoes than anything else. You'll also want to buy some zucchini (a.k.a. courgette), which I managed to cleverly leave out of the photo. I used one large one, about a pound and a half. You'll also want extra virgin olive oil, cheap red wine, and salt. You will also want some kind of herbs: rosemary is good, basil is also good, parsley will do if you've got nothing else.
In this instructable, I'm using
Tomatoes from West Haven Farm (and a few of my own)
Eggplant and zucchini from Mandelville Farm
Onions from Hendy Hollow (check out their website, done by some of my students!)
Garlic from Red Tail Farm
Rosemary from my garden, grown from a plant from Kingbird Farm
All bought at the Ithaca Farmers Market
...and Two Buck Chuck from Trader Joes, EVOO and sea salt from Wegmans.
| « Previous Step | Download PDFView All Steps | Next Step » |
Most excellent. ;D