Ratatouille #Recipe

Emma Shawcross
14th August 2018

Its National allotment week, so here is a very a classic tasty dish using lots of vegetables. It may be old school, but it is packed with flavour and full of healthy vegetables for all the family.

• Chop and prep all the vegetables in to similar sized chunks so they all cook at the same rate
• You will need a large pan that will fit everything in, however this will reduce, over cooking.
• First add the lardons and cook, then sweat down the onion, celery and carrot in the pan with some rape seed oil ( if you wish to make the dish vegetarian, please miss out the lardons)
• Add the rest of the chopped vegetables and the herbs (including black pepper and bay leaf), holding some fresh thyme back to garnish the dish.
• Sweating this all off together untill the vegetables reduce and become soft and rich
• Water will naturally come out of the vegetables condensing the flavours, this will take about 20 minutes of stirring on and off
• Then add the tomatoes and again cook down for about another 20 minutes
• Taste and season with salt and pepper
• Now it is ready to serve.

Recipe Info

Serves

6

Serving Suggestions

Serve with wholemeal pasta and garlic bread or on its own as an compliment to cooked chicken or meats. Can also be used as a filing for hot or cold wraps for lunch.

Ingredients

Smoked bacon or pancetta Lardons
1 large onion chopped
1 carrot pealed and chopped
2 sticks of celery pealed and chopped (to get rid of the stringy bits)
Rapeseed oil
3 peppers de-seeded and chopped
3 courgettes chopped
2 cloves of garlic crushed or chopped
Black pepper
Handful of fresh Thyme (reserve some for garnish)
1 tablespoon of Mixed fresh or dried herbs
Bay leaf
1 large aubergine chopped
1kg of fresh chopped tomatoes or 2 tins of chopped tomatoes

Equipment

Large Pan
Chopping board
Knife