Ratat Eggplant

The cold has started to infiltrate the neighborhood of NYC, so when I came home from work yesterday I felt like some cozy food. 'Cozy food' for me is generally something roasty, tasty and squishy (like its giving your mouth a hug). I had a lovely purple eggplant in the fridge which made me instantly think 'mmmm Ratatouille'. Ratatouille is wonderful because it is colorful, full of lovely vegetables, and can be coupled with an array of meats and/or carbs. I had to once again work with what I had to throw this together, so I changed the traditional recipe a bit.

I kicked off with the essentials for any good meal: sauteed onions and mushrooms. It is key to get the olive oil nice and warm in the pan before you throw in your veggies. I threw some yellow pepper in with the onions and mushrooms to add a little extra crunch and let them all get slightly golden. Its best to keep the pieces about a couple square inches so that your Ratatouille is good and chunky.

Before I started I had laid out some large rounds of eggplant on some paper towel with salt on one side to help take the moisture out. I tend to get lazy with eggplant and skip this step, but if I do I usually need to use more olive oil and keep a cover on the pan if I don't want the eggplant to burn, so if you don't want an olive oil OD, pre-salting is best. I decided to use a separate pan to bronze the eggplant so I could maintain the different flavors that each veggie has to offer. I cut the eggplant into cubes and threw them in the other pan with a drizzle of Olive Oil.

While the eggplant browned a bit on each side I threw a large clove of chopped garlic and canned chunky tomatoes onto the onion/mushroom/pepper mixture. Make sure to drain the tomatoes over a bowl before you throw them in so that you can use some of the excess tomato juice to remoisten your mixture if need be. I put a lid on the Onionmush pan to let it all blend together nicely and after about 5 minutes at a high simmer, removed the lid to let the moisture evaporate for about 10 minutes. Once most of the moisture was gone I gave it a good stir and then threw the slightly browned eggplant on top. I flavored with some salt and pepper and chopped up a handfull of fresh basil leaves to toss on top. I covered this deliciousness for a couple minutes then added a little more of the tomato juice and gave it a little stir. I let the whole thing cook for a few more minutes until it had the right balance of squish and crunch, and voilà Ratatouille!!

I decided to couple it with a little goat cheese and sundried tomato ravioli sprinkled with pesto and parmesan. Tasty deliciousness accompanied me for a cozy night at home. Pork Buns - I forgot to take a picture, but here is someone else's pic for your viewing pleasure...