Layered Ratatouille

Dear all,

Back from the holidays, I felt like tying up loose ends before the end of the year. One of these loose ends is layered Ratatouille, my recipe for this month.

When I watched the movie Ratatouille, I was astonished to see a beautifully layered dish.

I had known Ratatouille as tasty peasant food from the south of France. It originated in the area around Nice and its name means 'tossing food'. You get the idea? The original used only zucchini, tomatoes and bell peppers. Later aubergines were added.

In the movie, Ratatouille looked very sophisticated. Ratatouille producer, Brad Lewis, had asked the American celebrity chef Thomas Keller, consultant for the movie, how he would prepare this dish if he had to serve it to the most famous food critic in his restaurant.

Keller suggested the layered Ratatouille. Of course, he fanned the vegetables with a palette knife and made two different sauces, one a pipérade (made from roasted peppers) and the other one a tomato sauce.

By the way, I love Pixar movies. Especially Ratatouille is close to my heart; the rat with gourmet taste makes me smile every time.

As you know, I don’t aspire to serve Michelin star dishes in my kitchen. I decided to combine the pipérade and the tomato sauce and I arranged my vegetables by hand in layers. The result might not look as perfect as the Ratatouille in the movie – but it tastes and looks attractive enough for any dinner party.

Wishing you happy cooking, always!

Kornelia Santoro with family

Layered Ratatouille

Ingredients:

• 1 medium yellow zucchini
• 1 medium green zucchini
• 3 medium aubergines
• 3 medium tomatoes
• 2 red bell peppers
• 5 cloves garlic
• 200 ml tomato puree
• 6 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 1 tablespoon Herbes de Provence
• salt
• pepper

Method:

To achieve an aesthetically pleasing result, you need to have vegetables with roughly the same diameter. I use differently coloured zucchini for effect. If you find only one colour, never mind. If you don’t have Herbes de Provence use any herbs you like. This mixture of dried herbs usually contains rosemary, thyme, oregano, savory and marjoram.

A normal Ratatouille contains bell peppers. Because you cannot layer bell peppers, I have included them in the sauce. Roast the bell peppers by holding them into a flame. They should darken all around and the skin should blister.

Place the roasted peppers into a bowl and cover them with cling film so they keep steaming while cooling down.

Rub away the darkened skin. You might need to rinse the bell peppers under water.

Clean them and blend the flesh to puree.

Mix the blended peppers with the tomato puree, the herbes de provence, two teaspoons salt, pepper and two tablespoons olive oil.

Wash and cut the zucchinis, the aubergines and the tomatoes into thin slices.

Spread the remaining olive oil over the bottom of a pie form.

Cover it with the tomato sauce. Arrange the slices on top of the sauce in a fanlike manner.

Sprinkle salt and pepper over the slices and bake in the oven at 200 degrees Celsius for one hour.

About different kinds of fat

Fats: The good, the bad and the really ugly

When it comes to fat and the human health, it is difficult to figure out what is really happening, not to mention forming an educated opinion. Until recently, scientists promoted polyunsaturated oils to keep cholesterol levels under control. Now it seems that the experts might have been wrong by condemning saturated fats. I, a humble lay person, cannot help but feel confused. Maybe all this scientific research cannot be taken too seriously. After all, there is always somebody paying the bills and this might influence the outcome of any research.

For me it is time to apply some common sense to the subject: I strongly believe the more natural the fat, the better. That means in short: I trust butter and cold pressed oils. Generally I use only butter and olive oil in my kitchen. However, now a book has changed my mind: In future I will include cold pressed coconut oil as well.

In the book “Coconut diet” (ISBN-13: 978-0-00-727284-6, available from HarperCollins Publishers India) the author Cherie Calbom provides some interesting information about coconut oil. According to her, coconut oil got a bad reputation due to negative media reports during the latter half of the previous century. Saturated fats were widely held responsible for the increase of heart disease in the USA, condemning butter as well as coconut oil. Polyunsaturated oils were hailed as healthy.

Nowadays it seems exactly the opposite may be true. I believe refined vegetable oils – even if they are polyunsaturated – are bad for our bodies. Vegetable oils produce highly damaging trans fatty acids when refined or heated. These trans fatty acids, according to latest research, are the really ugly when it comes to our health. The clog our blood vessels and they inflate the fat cells on our hips in no time at all, not to mention they become quickly rancid, flooding our body with poison. Most packaged food contains oil of questionable quality.

On the other hand, saturated fats like butter and coconut oil are absolutely vital for the human body (the following points are taken from the “Coconut diet”):

• About half of cell membranes are made from saturated fatty acids.
• Our bones need saturated fatty acids to incorporate calcium.
• Saturated fatty acids protect the liver and enhance the immune system.
• Tissues retain omega-3 fatty acids better when you eat saturated fat at the same time. (Check Kornelia's Kitchen  ).
• The heart muscle is embedded in tissue made from saturated fat.
• Short and medium-chain saturated fatty acids combat harmful microorganisms.

More recipes at Kornelia's Kitchen
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