Try this simple and tasty summer recipe using in-season summer produce.
SUMMER RECIPE – Ratatouille
Recipe from Guillaume Brahimi
Photograph by Gorta Yuuki
Featured in French Food Safari by Maeve O’Meara with Guillaume Brahimi
Published by Hardie Grant Books
From Provence in the south of France, this simple dish sings with summer vegetables – eggplant, zucchini, capsicum and tomato. Guillaume likes to cook the vegetables separately first, then combine them to cook to a glorious creamy stew that reminds him of childhood summers spent in Provence. Ratatouille was made before the family went to the beach and the flavours were perfectly melded by the time they arrived home.
-extra-virgin olive oil
-2 eggplants, diced
-3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
-sea salt and freshly
-ground black pepper
-4 zucchini, diced
-½ bunch thyme, leaves picked
-1 onion, diced
-2 red capsicums, diced
-1 kg tomatoes, seeded and diced
-500 ml tomato juice
-1 bunch basil, chopped
Heat a generous splash of oil in a frying pan over low heat and add the eggplant and a third of the garlic. Season with salt and pepper and sauté until tender. Tip into a large bowl.
Return the pan to the heat and add more oil. Add the zucchini, another third of the garlic, half the thyme and some salt and pepper. Sauté until tender, then add to the bowl with the eggplant.
Add more oil to the pan and sauté the onion, capsicum and remaining garlic and thyme until tender.
Combine all the cooked vegetables in a pot. Add the tomatoes and juice and simmer gently for 1½ hours. Remove from the heat, taste for seasoning and stir in the basil.
Serves 6
- Here is a great seasonal produce guide for you from our friends at Sustainable Table -
About the Author : Maeve O’Meara is an award-winning food and cooking author, journalist, broadcaster, television producer and presenter who has spent 20 years travelling the world discovering food.
She is the co-author of 12 books on food and co-created, presented and produced all five series of the acclaimed Food Lovers’ Guide to Australia.