The Waning Tomato and Its Give

We are a few days away from the solstice, September 22nd. We’ve still got some summer in the air in New York, and at the farmer’s market. September is the best month of the growing season, a great intersection of the summer favorites and the beginning of fall, moving on from the heat and onto some great sleeping weather before the darkness of winter. 

Ratatouille is a dish originated in Provence in southeastern France, a place I have never been. So if you are French or are an originalist who only believes in the sanctity of traditional ratatouille, know that I’ve never touched down on the soil. We can’t all travel extensively.

This is delicious

Ratatouille often feels like a mushy vegetable side throwaway, an obligatory gesture for vegetarians at the wedding buffet. The underwhelming reputation of this dish exemplifies our¹ general attitude towards vegetable cooking, that they are second tier to protein. Even when people love vegetables, they don’t necessarily understand how to cook them well. 

The main ingredients in ratatouille are tomatoes, zucchini, eggplant, peppers and garlic. There is such an incredible window of time to gather these recipes, from June to early/mid October. Right now may seem a little late in the season to put up a recipe like this, or is it the perfect time when you’re maybe tired of tomato salads and the sun isn’t bringing the long days of delicious heat.

This dish is a champ because it uses zucchini, a vegetable that grows faster than anyone wants to eat it. We need to figure out many ways to eat zucchini because there’s a lot of it. You can use classic green zucchini, yellow squash, patty pan, romanesco, any summer zucchini/squash you have. Same with eggplant, same with tomatoes, use all the variations, let your freak flag fly. I prefer garlic and shallots over the classic onion for the flavor. The peppers should be sweet, there can be some spice to this dish, but it’s not spicy by definition.²

Something to know about me and cooking: I’m not fussy, but I’m specific. There’s a difference. The key to this recipe is to cook the vegetables separately. I do it to build flavor, not because I love generating more dishes. Tomatoes, eggplant and zucchini don’t cook at the same time. By cooking them separately you are maximizing the individual flavor before mixing them together.

Ratatouille is great because it’s good hot, cold, warm, room temperature…it’s better the next day, like so much food. I like it alone, as a side, with an omelet, with beans, on a piece of bread, mixed with pasta or rice. It also likes cheese. Because everything is cooked, the vegetables don’t need to be at height of flavor. As the sun wanes and the days are shorter, this is important. I want to keep eating tomatoes for as long as possible before the long days of apples and hard squashes are upon us. 

If I have more zucchini, I use more zucchini, same with the eggplant, and again with the peppers and the tomatoes. I use the tomatoes that aren’t going to be great raw in a salad or a sandwich, the slightly weepy ones I didn’t get to in time or the ones I’ve sliced raw for sandwiches that now are in the refrigerator to avoid fruit flies. I don’t love eating a cold, refrigerated tomato raw, so this a perfect usage.

Case in point this expensive beautiful heirloom tomato that caught my eye and I didn’t get to fully tomato sandwich it. In it goes.

Understanding your cooking vessels–pots, pans, sheet trays–is important. This means how long it takes them to heat up, how they hold that heat, where the hot spots are and their surface area. Surface area is wildly important for cooking, if you overcrowd the sheet tray or pan, the food doesn’t cook evenly. Some of it ends up steaming, and if you want the food to get color and a little crisp, you’re not going to achieve that. Conversely, if the pan is too big, the ratio of heat to food can be overwhelming for the food and overcook it. When I buy food to cook, I’m not only thinking about how many people I’m feeding, but what I’m cooking it in. Part of the reason why I made this recipe this size is because of the pots I have.

I used a large enameled cast iron for the shallots, garlic and tomatoes, the diameter is almost 16”. It’s called a braiser, a wide pan with low sides. It’s important that it’s enameled, I don’t want to cook a lot of tomatoes in cast iron without–the acidity of the tomatoes can mess with the cure and the flavor gets off.  

For the amount of squash and eggplant I had, I used a 10” cast iron pan to roast them. A sheet tray is also a great thing to use for roasting these (and generally all) vegetables.

Here are the ingredients for this dish, and my general ratio/proportion for the vegetables.³

• Olive Oil

• Salt/Pepper

• Chili Flake or Aleppo Pepper

• Garlic and/or Shallots (dealer’s choice)

• 1 part zucchini

• 1 part eggplant

• 1 part peppers 

• 2-3 parts tomato

• Glug of white wine (optional)

• Fresh Herbs-Basil/Parsley/Tarragon/Fennel/Mint any, each, all or none to finish

Preheat oven to 400°. Make sure it comes to temperature. 

Slice or chop the garlic and dice the shallots if using, a medium dice is fine. Keep them separate. 

Cut the zucchini into inch thick coins. If the diameter is large, cut in half.

Cut the eggplant into 1-2 inch cubes. If you’re using a large globe eggplant you got from the supermarket, salt it for 30 minutes.⁴ If it's a large eggplant from the farmers market or any other size don't sweat it.

Cut the peppers into 1-2 inch pieces.

Cut the tomatoes into chunky wedges. Make sure to cut the stem out. My wedges are usually 2 inches long. If I use smaller tomatoes–-cherry, sungold, romas, I cut them in half and quarters if necessary. 

Toss the zucchini with olive oil and salt. Spread out on a tray or pan and put in the oven. Check at 10 minutes, they’re usually down in about 15. There should be a little give, but still shape and form. Let cool a bit & put them in a bowl. 

Heat a wide pan or skillet on a burner on medium high.  Add a few tablespoons of olive oil and let it heat for a minute, then add the shallots if you’re using them.⁵ Season the shallots with salt after they start to become translucent, and turn down the heat to medium. The salt will pull water from the shallots and extend the amount of time you can sauté at this heat before adding the garlic. This matters because it impacts the flavor. 

Surface Area is Important.

When the shallots are translucent and fragrant, add the garlic and stir them together. It should dance in the pan a bit. Let the shallots and garlic hang out with each other for a little bit, if possible take the garlic right to the edge of turning brown but if you’re nervous it’s not worth it! Add the tomatoes. If the heat in the pan dies, turn it up a little bit right away. You are eliciting the tomatoes to give their liquid to mingle with the oil and shallots and garlic, you don’t want to slowly make sauce. These tomatoes will preserve their shape and heat through. Toss the peppers in with the tomatoes. Mix everything together but don’t go nuts. Salt them to pull more beautiful liquid and season with some chili flake or aleppo pepper. 

Toss eggplant with olive oil and salt and spread out on the same pan you used for the zucchini. Put in the oven and check at 15 minutes. Eggplant usually takes more like 22-25 minutes to give. 

The color on the eggplant and squash came from the contact with the pan while roasting. It adds another dimension of flavor and texture

Once the tomatoes give and the peppers have lost their crunchy rawness (some bite is good) turn the pan off and wait for the eggplant to be done. Then add the zucchini and the eggplant to the pan, turn it back on a medium high and mix the tomatoes, peppers, zucchini and eggplant together, minimally.⁶

If you are using wine, now is the time to do it while the pan is on a higher heat and the alcohol can burn off quickly, usually in a few minutes if everything is at a solid simmer. A glug is a free pour proportionate to the dish, usually an ounce or three. Wine enhances the flavor of the vegetables, the dish shouldn’t taste boozy from it. That’s why it’s important to give time to cook it off.

The Elusive Glug

You just want everything to hang out together and mingle for about 5 minutes.  There should still be a good amount of the tomato/oil liquid in the pan. Don’t let this reduce down too much-it is pure gold!

Taste for salt and add pepper. If it tastes a little flat, add a little vinegar. Finish with fresh herbs if you got them.  

More on The Give

The give is a moment. I think of it a lot when cooking, it’s the moment when something transforms. I think of it a lot with braised meat, the long grace period with the tougher cuts when they reveal their true beauty beyond economy. If your beef stew meat is underwhelming, it probably needs to cook longer, same with your beans. There are three moments of the give in regards to ratatouille . When the tomatoes release enough of themselves into the pan with the olive oil and garlic yet maintain their shape, when the eggplant changes from a spongey whore for olive oil to a satisfying, toothsome food and when the squash gets just a little soft so it’s not raw but it’s not obliterated into vegetable water.⁷ 

THIS IS IT

The give is also a moment with someone else, a relaxation, an intimacy, a trust. This sounds like an emotional description, but it’s also physical, how my body relaxes around some people. It’s not giving in, it’s not the cad you swore you’d never sleep with again. Your integrity is still maintained, much like the integrity of each of the vegetables I’m discussing in this recipe. They give, and then they come together. Ratatouille.

1. United States of America

2. But I’ve also never been to France, so…you do you.

3. I used about 2 pounds of zucchini, 2 pounds of eggplant, 4 peppers, 4 pounds of tomatoes, 4 cloves of garlic and 4 shallots. It yielded 2 and a half quarts—10 cups of ratatouille. We ate it for a few days.

4. Salting sliced or cubed eggplant pulls moisture and bitterness from it. Let it sit for at least 30 minutes in a colander, then rinse it and pat it dry before you cook it.

5. Shallots (and onions) can sauté longer than garlic before burning, so I always start them first. No dish can backpedal from burnt garlic.

6. Stirring and mixing feel like such productive things when cooking, but sometimes they mess up what you’re making. You want to preserve the shape of each vegetable, so just mix everything together a bit. Otherwise they’ll break down too much.

7. My obsession with overcooked zucchini comes from my childhood. My Nana always cooked the zucchini my grandfather grew to the point where it was obliterated. Maybe it was her version of Quiet Cooking. This is always my reference point for how I cook zucchini, that I don’t want to take it that far. I still want some tooth on it. I don’t blame my grandmother, cooking wasn’t her thing. When I asked her about moving from the suburbs to start a dairy farm when they were a young family in the 1940s, she just said “Nobody asked me.” I think about that statement more than I think about her indifferent attitude towards cooking.