Lulu’s Ratatouille (and the benefits of elbow grease)

ratatouille-lulu

I’ve been reading Julia Child’s My Life in France and the difficulties she faced trying to publish Mastering the Art of French Cooking.  In 1959, when Houghton Mifflin finally passed on the book, and before Knopf picked it up, Julia read a note from her champion at Houghton who explained the rejection, “They feel [the average housewife] wants ‘shortcuts to something equivalent’ instead of the perfect process to the absolute.

America’s culture has changed a lot since then, but anyone who reads Simone de Beauvoir’s 1947 America Day by Day will be struck by how much has remained consistent.  The business instincts of the Houghton execs remains somewhat true today if Rachel Ray’s empire is any evidence.  Thankfully, there is room for more ambitious efforts, as Julia Child and Simone Beck proved and as new author/chefs continue to show; a recent example is Paul Bertolli’s almost literary Cooking by Hand.

Ratatouille strikes me as a perfect dish to highlight the merits of the two mindsets (and there are indeed merits to both).  Sometimes I will throw together a ratatouille very quickly, let all the components stew together for a while unaided, and enjoy a perfectly good rendition.  However, with a little more effort and time, you can take the dish to a different level entirely.

On Friday evening, after picking up some lovely fresh vegetables from the local farm, I rolled up my sleeves and put together an adaptation of Lulu Peyraud’s ratatouille from Richard Olney’s cookbook Lulu’s Provencal Table. It is considerably more involved than my usual, but the result, which we ate the next evening, was the sweetest, most delicious ratatouille I have had in a long while.

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Rustic Provencal Galette; the new site

Before diving into the recipe, we want to welcome you all to the new home of Constables Larder.  Thank you for joining us here, and please let us know what you think. If you are an RSS subscriber to the old blog, please unsubscribe that one and sign up here (although if you are seeing this post, it means it’s working automatically, miracle of miracles).

Spring is finally starting to emerge, and my palette is very Mediterranean-focused. Last weekend, this manifested in the form of a galette — essentially an onion tart with the addition of zucchini, olives, garlic, and tomatoes.  Instead of a pâte brisée, I decided to try a Provençal pastry (pâte à l’huile d’olive) which Richard Olney describes in Simple French Food (my new flame). It is easy to make, quite tasty, and has a rustic personality and texture.

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Baked Halibut

I was mentally preparing to braise a pork shoulder today when I happened upon Kalofagas this morning. One look at Peter’s grouper baked in parchment paper, and my brain said, “now this is what you want!” Lisl and I are both suffering from colds, and the light taste of Mediterranean summer just seemed perfect. Indeed, it was so.

A segue: I’m very picky about the freshness of my fish, and until I find a fishmonger I trust, I tend to stay away. When I lived in San Francisco a decade ago, I would trek out to the Chinese markets in Sunset because the freshness was so superior to the normal supermarkets. We’ve now been in Rye, NY for two years, but I will admit that it took Peter’s post to get me to test out a fish market in Port Chester. The upside is that I was very impressed. One look at the eyes of the whole snappers behind the glass and I knew that they dealt in fresh fish.

Back to this recipe, the amounts here feed two quite nicely. It’s a delicious, fast meal to put together, and the ingredients are quite similar to how I like to cook mussels. The below is similar to Peter’s recipe, but not identical, so I recommend you check out his blog as well if you haven’t already.

Baked Halibut

A 1 lb halibut steak (or filets)
1 small red onion, thinly sliced into rings or half-rings
2 cloves garlic, minced
half a green pepper, chopped
3 campari tomatoes (or a handful of cherry tomatoes)
1/4 cup dry vermouth
pinch of dry basil
several leaves of fresh oregano
lemon
salt and pepper

Pre-heat oven to 400F.

Heat up a splash of olive oil on medium-low heat and saute the onions and garlic for a couple of minutes. Then add in the green pepper, saute for a few minutes. Then add in the vermouth and a couple pinches of salt and pepper. Cook for a few more minutes then remove from the heat.

baked halibut veg

Lay the halibut on a piece of parchment paper that extends several inches past the length-wise ends of the steak. Sprinkle a little salt and pepper on top, then spoon out the vegetables and liquid on top of the fish. Sprinkle a pinch of dried basil leaves on top, dot a few oregano leaves around, and place two slices of lemon on each end of the steak. Fold the sides of the parchment paper up towards the middle and tuck one over the other and refold a few times to create a seal and get the paper snug with the fish. Twist each end of paper and tie off with kitchen string.

Place on a baking tray. If you have too much parchment paper hanging off the ends to fit in the oven easily, trim with scissor. Bake for 15 minutes, then check one of the packets. If you have a steak, remove the backbone from the middle, carefully half the fish, and plate. Spoon the delicious broth over the top.

baked halibut wrapped
Note: bottom image above is after baking

I kept the below picture of the halibut steak because it interested me. I can’t quite put my finger on why; perhaps because it has that grainy, soft-focus, de-saturated look I adore in Orangette’s pictures.

halibut

P.S. Now that I’m cooking fish again, I have to tackle an interesting but never-attempted technique: baking a whole fish packed in salt.