Ratatouille's Ratatouille

I enjoy following Smitten Kitchen. I've only ever tried one of her recipes. Her pie crust recipe. It is now my pie crust recipe. It's all butter (no shortening or lard) and that's the kind of pie crust recipe I can believe in.

I was really happy today to find this recipe for Ratatouille's ratatouille because I've always wanted to make it that way. She posted it 3 years ago from today. I haven't made this recipe yet, but I'm going to tomorrow after I pick up my local organic vegetable share and also buy a mandolin because I'm sure I don't have a knife sharp enough to slice vegetables 1/16 of an inch thin.

I know that I will be using something besides goat cheese. After finding too many fermented goat's milk bottles in Nigel's crib when we though he was allergic to dairy I just can't eat the stuff any more. Tastes like fermented baby bottle. And also I want to serve it with risotto if I have the energy to stand in front of the stove for that long. I'll let you know how it goes.

Ratatouille’s Ratatouille

As envisioned by Smitten Kitchen

1/2 onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, very thinly sliced
1 cup tomato puree (such as Pomi)
2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
1 small eggplant (my store sells these “Italian Eggplant” that are less than half the size of regular ones; it worked perfectly)
1 smallish zucchini
1 smallish yellow squash
1 longish red bell pepper
Few sprigs fresh thyme
Salt and pepper
Few tablespoons soft goat cheese, for serving

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Pour tomato puree into bottom of an oval baking dish, approximately 10 inches across the long way. Drop the sliced garlic cloves and chopped onion into the sauce, stir in one tablespoon of the olive oil and season the sauce generously with salt and pepper.

Trim the ends off the eggplant, zucchini and yellow squash. As carefully as you can, trim the ends off the red pepper and remove the core, leaving the edges intact, like a tube.

On a mandolin, adjustable-blade slicer or with a very sharp knife, cut the eggplant, zucchini, yellow squash and red pepper into very thin slices, approximately 1/16-inch thick.

Atop the tomato sauce, arrange slices of prepared vegetables concentrically from the outer edge to the inside of the baking dish, overlapping so just a smidgen of each flat surface is visible, alternating vegetables. You may have a handful leftover that do not fit.

Drizzle the remaining tablespoon olive oil over the vegetables and season them generously with salt and pepper. Remove the leaves from the thyme sprigs with your fingertips, running them down the stem. Sprinkle the fresh thyme over the dish.

Cover dish with a piece of parchment paper cut to fit inside. (Tricky, I know, but the hardest thing about this.)

Bake for approximately 45 to 55 minutes, until vegetables have released their liquid and are clearly cooked, but with some structure left so they are not totally limp. They should not be brown at the edges, and you should see that the tomato sauce is bubbling up around them.

Serve with a dab of soft goat cheese on top, alone, or with some crusty French bread, atop polenta, couscous, or your choice of grain.