Deconstructed ratatouille

Ratatouille is a traditional French dish where summer vegetables are cooked slowly together to render up all their luscious juices. The recipe below uses the same vegetables but they are individually oven roasted and combined prior to serving.

Deconstructed Ratatouille

Ingredients:
Serves 4-6
(Amounts are approximate)

2 red onions, peeled, halved and cut into thin segments
1 aubergine, sliced, each side brushed generously with olive oil
3 or 4 red or yellow peppers, halved, seeds removed and cut into strips
About 6 vine tomatoes
6 small courgettes, sliced on a diagonal
About half cup olive oil
NZ sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 tbsp white wine or sherry vinegar
Generous bunch of basil

Method:

Preheat oven to 210 degrees fan bake. (220 degrees oven bake).

Cook all ingredients separately in a low sided oven dish, removing the cooked vegetables to a serving dish as and when required:

Place onions in a bowl and generously toss in olive oil and season well. Place on a low sided tray with the aubergine. Roast approx 20 minutes, removing aubergine when cooked.
Continue to cook onion and when lightly browned and soft, pour over vinegar. Return to the oven and cook a further 5 minutes. Remove to the serving platter with the aubergine
Place peppers in a bowl, generously toss in olive oil and season well. Oven roast until lightly charred looking, about 20 minutes. Remove to serving dish when cooked.
Similarly toss the courgettes and cook until lightly coloured, about 5 minutes. Remove to serving dish.
Place tomatoes on low sided tray, drizzle with olive oil, season well, dust lightly with a little sugar. Cook until skin just starts to split and add to serving dish.
Finally garnish the vegetables with roughly torn leaves of basil. Serve the vegetables warm or at room temperature.

The vinegar acts as a balance to the olive oil and this forms a rough dressing. Make sure the oily juices in the pan are added to the cooked vegetable.

Hint:

If the vegetables are tossed in a bowl with the olive oil and seasoning, the coverage is more even, than just a casual drizzle of oil and a sprinkle of salt! A low sided oven dish means the air circulates easily and the vegetable don’t sweat.