Mexican ratatouille. Lately I’ve found it challenging to make simple preparations stand out, and this at a time of year when it should be easy to just add a little salt or vinegar to fresh fruits and vegetables, with no other improvement needed. A lot of what I try seems to fall flat, or the seasoning is off balance, or there is too much heat or too little. For ratatouille, a basic rule is to cook each vegetable separately before you bring them together into a stew. This will retain the individual flavors and still create a medley, as Shakespeare might put it, “whose speechless song being many, seeming one.” I included chopped onions, several kinds of green peppers, zucchini, eggplant, and tomatoes. I use “Mexican” as a gratuitous name for ratatouille that contains jalapeños, which I have so many of in the garden that I want to put them in everything. This time it ended up soft, with the vegetables meshed together a lot more than I would have preferred, but I wanted to cook the eggplant thoroughly enough to get rid of the bitter aftertaste. (The quote is from Sonnet 8, which uses pleasing onomatopoeia to illustrate the contrast between separated instruments and harmonious music.) Perhaps next time I could just cut up a peeled eggplant in a small dice and cook it like applesauce.
(Photo: Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado.)
365 Days of Food 