I love this recipe, to be honest I haven’t tried many ratatouille recipes out there to compare it to, but its easy and tasty and full of veggie goodness so I sticking it here as a firm favourite for the whole family. It freezes well, so I usually make a large batch and freeze meal size portions for quick home made ready meal kind of nights. It is also a fantastic base, for other recipes and meals so if you want to see some of the recipes/ways of serving scroll right to the bottom of this post!
The recipe can be found here;
http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/vegetables-recipes/classic-ratatouille/
As can all the nutritional value information. Thanks Jamie Oliver. You can go straight to the recipe following the above link, or click more below to see the ingredients and step by step instructions (with some baby/family friendly tweaks thrown in) and some the alternative ways of using/serving.
Ingredients
- 2 red onions
- 4 cloves of garlic
- 2 aubergines
- 3 courgettes
- 3 red or yellow peppers
- 6 ripe tomatoes
- ½ a bunch of fresh basil
- olive oil
- a few sprigs of fresh thyme
- 1 x 400 g tin of quality plum tomatoes
- 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
- ½ a lemon
Step 1:
Prep ingredients before you start: peel and cut the onions into wedges, then peel and finely slice the garlic. I leave ours in larger chunks to be picked out if required.
Trim the aubergines and courgettes, I cut these into large chunks, so that they can be sliced into finger food portions for the little man.
Deseed the peppers and chop into 2.5cm medium sized chunks. Roughly chop the tomatoes. Pick the basil leaves and set aside, then finely slice the stalks
Step 2:
Heat 2 tablespoons of oil in a large casserole pan or saucepan over a medium heat, add the chopped aubergines, courgettes and peppers (you may need to do this in batches) and fry for around 5 minutes, or until golden and softened, but not cooked through. Spoon the cooked veg into a large bowl.
I have actually tried this recipe in a tagine, and in our slow cooker… both times it turned out great. Both times I have followed the above step first, browning the veggies and tossing them into the tagine/slow cooker.
Step 3:
Using the same pan, add the onion, garlic, basil stalks and thyme leaves with another drizzle of oil, if needed. Fry for 10 to 15 minutes, or until softened and golden
Step 4 (cooking according to recipe):
Return the cooked veg to the pan and stir in the fresh and tinned tomatoes, the balsamic and a good pinch of sea salt and black pepper.
Mix well, breaking up the tomatoes with the back of a spoon. Cover the pan and simmer over a low heat for 30 to 35 minutes, or until reduced, sticky and sweet.
Alternatively:
Step 4 A- Cooking in Tagine:
Add the onion, garlic, basil and thyme to the veggies in the tagine then… Mix well, breaking up the tomatoes with the back of a spoon. Cover the with lid and pop in a preheated oven (about 200′) for 30 to 35 minutes, or until reduced, sticky and sweet. Remove from oven to stir occasionally, and remove tagine lid for about 10 mins of the final cooking time.
Step 4 B – Cooking in Slow Cooker:
Add the onion, garlic, basil and thyme to the veggies in the slow cooker… Mix well, breaking up the tomatoes with the back of a spoon. Cover with slow cooker lid and cook on high for 3-4 hours. You may need to remove the lid and cook uncovered for the final half hour to remove any excess liquid.
Step 5:
Tear in the basil leaves, finely grate in the lemon zest (this really is a must, it makes the flavour pop and is much healthier than cheese!) and adjust the seasoning, if needed. Serve with a hunk of bread or steamed rice. (or pasta… or see below for alternative uses…)
This blends nicely, for a baby you could try blending it with some pasta (you may need to add a little extra liquid) to make a yummy chunky puree, once my little man got a bit older, I started whizzing it less to create a mashed texture and eventually I started just slicing the veggies into finger food chunks and let him go at it.
Storing and Alternative Uses:
Freeze- this recipe freezes really well.
If you are using a slow cooker or tagine, I would suggest reducing cooking time slightly so that the veggies keep their bite once they have been reheated, I notice using these methods that the veggies became slightly over cooked in the reheating process.
Allow to cool, when cooling large batches it is best to spoon the mix into several bowls, or even stand the bowls in cold water to help speed this process up.
Once cooled I simply spoon a single (or family sized) portion into a freezer friendly food bag and then they are ready to pop in the freezer. I tend to store mine in single portions, this is because sometimes its just me eating, other times I am adding it to pasta or using it as a side dish, but it doesn’t matter what ever works for your family is best.
Alternative Ways of Serving:
Make Spaghetti Bolognase:
I mentioned above that this recipe makes a fantastic (in my opinion) chunky spaghetti bolognase. The ways that have worked best for this have been;
- Brown the mince meat, add in some tomato puree, enough pasata to cover/wet the meat and some mixed Italian herbs and add to the slow cooker before cooking the ratatouille. For this method you may wish to half the ingredients listed in the original recipe, as adding the meat will bulk it out. (This was the most tasty way, and because you can leave the slow cooker to do its thing, I can prep it during nap time and let it cook away during the afternoon ready for tea time)
- Cook the mince meat fully, with some pasata, tomato puree and with some mixed Italian herbs, then mix with half the ratatouille mix until you reach the desired consistency. Freeze or store the remaining ratatoulle for another meal. This works well in our house, as Mr W is vegetarian, so I can add quorn mince to his single portion of ratatouille while I re-heat it and we can all have our own meat/meat free version of spaghetti bolognese together
It isn’t classic Spaghetti Bolognese, I call it Mamas Spaghetti, because its one of those dishes I can see being passed down and refereed to as ‘bolognese the way mama made it’.
Pasta Sauce:
I mentioned above it blends nicely, I have used this to create a pasta sauce on a few occasions, again just defrosting a couple of portions and then popping in the blender until it reaches the desired consistency. This makes quick and easy home made pasta sauce with out all the extras and salt you can find in jar sauces.
Lasagna
I haven’t tried this one out yet, but I don’t see why it wouldn’t work. I have a few portions of both the classic ratatouille and the spaghetti bolognese in the freezer that need using up before the house move (hopefully in the next two weeks… eek!) so I may defrost these and make some mini lasagnas (a veggie and a meaty one) and test this one out!
If you made it this far, I salute you! This is my first recipe post and I am still working on format, what to include and how to present it, so bare with me. Thanks for reading, happy cooking.
The Wild Ones & Me 