Vegetable Magic - Ratatouille

The great John Thorne once described the courgette — or zucchini as he would call it — as 'a vegetable with the nutritious value, flavour, and texture of rained-on newspaper'. I'm forever indebted to a delightful fruit for introducing me to his work, but on ratatouille, John is wrong on more than one count, and it would be a crying shame to not suggest an alternative to myself, lest I be led astray by his hatred of courgette and hot ratatouille. It should be pointed out that I'm arguing with a certain version of John Thorne which, he himself outgrew. In the afterword to 'Vegetable Love', in Simple Cooking, Dr.Thorne declares that since writing the original recipe in 1981, he had discovered varieties of courgette — along with more charitable methods of preparations — which heightened its flavour.

Something of his writing which has been surprisingly enriching to my own cookery, is the richness of process and lack of siloing off between cooking and finished product. This is something I'm very comfortable in, but nevertheless it was good to have it articulated in a different style — and with a different level of writing skill – than I was used to. The philosopher C. Thi Nguyen expanded on this theme of 'process aesthetics' in his brilliant paper The Arts of Action, which is among other things, a critique on the recent notion of cookery as 'a mere instrument to the central aesthetic experience of the finished product', particularly where that central experience is structured around the intention of exporting images onto instagram pages where everyone seems to be eating the same things on a rotating basis. This surprisingly rich aspect to John Thorne's writing, is also why I was surprisingly mad at his ratatouille recipe, which is ugly as sin every which way.

The following is the descendent of a few recipes for ratatouille I've tried over the years. Off the top of my head I'm going to guess that the biggest influence was Joel Robuchon, but a few other people whose version of ratatouille have made it to my table include Alain Passard, St.Anthony, Thomas Keller and Ludo Lefebvre. The really key thing for me is that ratatouille is a magic recipe. It really shouldn't be as good as it can be. Peter Sloterdijk, in his voluminous poem-cum-monument Spheres, says of magic that it 'is not always trickery; the world itself encourages a magic-like approach to many circumstances, because it offers the experience that success occasionally exceeds what was actually undertaken. The oldest concepts of happiness and power are a response to this.’ (Foams, 372.)
Ratatouille often exceeds its own undertaking, particularly where care has been taken to use decent-enough vegetables, good oil and herbs, and seasoned with excellent music and attention. Unlike Thorne's recipe, I suggest that this is best served hot, alongside some simple bread & butter.

This is how I made my dinner this evening. Although I cheated with a few additions such as thyme from my grandmother's garden, I would suggest that a spirit of generosity towards oneself — and one's guests if you're fortunate enough to have good'uns — will more than suffice. The way I describe the recipe is perhaps sub-optimal, but I'm hoping that some sense of the ease of the process is imparted by its presentation:

Ingredients:

• Two pans, one big deep sided one like a Le Creuset, and another for some light frying such as a cast iron skillet.
• One onion. I used half a red onion I had in my fridge, along with a rather small brown onion.
• Garlic, at least three cloves
• Two red peppers
• Two cans of peeled plum tomatoes. If you can get good fresh tomatoes, use those. In my part of the world, at this time of year it is easier to use some canned San Marzano tomatoes.
• One aubergine, or eggplant if you're 'Murican. Do be careful, as I have it on good authority that all sorts of surprising things are hiding in your eggplant, including skulls! (http://scaryjane.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/20130205-233253.jpg)
• Two courgettes.
• Thyme (fresh from a your grandmother's garden if possible)
• One fresh bayleaf (if you can't get a good fresh bayleaf, go without)
• Decent olive oil. If you can only get naff olive oil, use some decent butter or other animal fat. I'd rather someone use duck fat than bad olive oil. I'm not a snob, I just think some cheap fats are better than others.
• Sea salt
• Black pepper
• If you have any white wine which is not quite up to drinking, you can use it here, but I only had roughly 50ml and I normally use none.
• Bread & butter
• Good music

Method:

1. Slice your onion finely, roughly 1mm is good. But don't worry if you go up to 5mm....it'll be fine. When you have done that, strip some thyme leaves off their stalks. My pile of thyme was probably about a tablespoon.
2. Warm 3 tablespoons of olive oil — or other fat — in a large deep sided pan. When it is hot, but not smoking, put in your sliced onion and thyme leaves. Season this lightly with a pinch of salt and a few turns of black pepper, and then let it cook on a low heat while you continue with your other vegetable butchery. I would recommend putting the lid on your pan here if you have one.
3. Peel your peppers. Yes, peel using a peeler. Mental I know but it's so easy compared to the proper method. Then cut the flesh away and slice those into roughly 1cmx2cm diamonds (please don't worry about the word diamond, just chop your pepper up roughly that size). Put your peppers in the pan. It should still be low heat. You can put the lid back on if you want.
4. Peel your garlic (I like to bosh my cloves with the side of a knife) and roughly slice/chop it, put it in the pan. Add your tomatoes, and lightly squish them with a spoon. At this point you can turn the heat up a bit, and leave the lid off until you can see the liquid starting to bubble. When it is starting to bubble, add another pinch of salt, and 5-10 turns of pepper, give it a gentle stir. Lower it right down, and cover.
5. Put your skillet onto a burner, and get it medium hot, ready for your courgette, and then the aubergine. Not ripping hot, but hot.
6. Get your courgette: wash & dry it. Chop the ends off, hold it on its end and cut away the sides. You'll probably be able to do this in 3 cuts, leaving a triangle of spongy seeds from the middle. You can save this or bin it depending on how waste averse you are. Slice these fleshy sides into roughly 1cmx2cm pieces, I like to make mine diamond shapes.
7. Add a tablespoon of oil into the skillet, and add when that is just about shimmering, add your courgette. Add a small pinch of salt, and stir it gently every few minutes. Cook for maybe 5 minutes or so, just until some of the moisture is driven off and it is starting to cook, before you add it to the big pan. If it starts to brown, put it into the big pan. You can take your skillet off the heat whilst you prepare the aubergine.
8. Wash and dry the aubergine. Cut the ends off, and cut the sides of the flesh away from the very spongy part in the middle, again you can keep this for layer use in something else. Chop your aubergine into 1cmx2cm pieces again, and then add to the skillet. If it looks very dry, add a little more oil, and some salt.
9. When the aubergine has started to cook and lightly brown, ad it to the big pan and stir it though. If you have a good bay leaf you can add it now. Also if you have some wine to use you can add it here, and bring the pan to a simmer to burn the alcohol off.
10. Turn the big pan right down to a very light simmer, and cover the pan. Let it cook for twenty five minutes on a very low heat. Come back then to taste. The vegetables should be cooked but not mushy, the sauce should be fresh but not acidic, and the ratatouille — which it now can be called — should be about ready to serve. You can give the pot more time in 5 minute increments. When you're happy with the ratatouille — having tasted & adjusted for seasoning — turn the pan off and leave the lid on whilst you set the table and butter some bread.
11. Serve a few good size serving spoons gently into the middle of a plate, and pour a glass of wine if you have any. Please enjoy with something like Faure or Charlie Parker if you're into that kind of thing.