Ratatouille (conventional, not a Confit Byaldi)

Been occupied with works the whole day I almost forgot to blog (like it matters much LOL). So, this morning I made a Ratatouille. I hate veggies since day-1 and I've been struggling to eat them since then. Ratatouille is one of the veggies menu (out of 3 perhaps?) that is edible to me. Having experienced the meat, poultry and fish chapters of the Mastering the Art of French Cooking book, I now enter the Légumes chapter. Nearly no options available as a veggie hater, but then I found this Ratatouille section. Of course it's not a French cooking without this famous Provençal dish. This is the only dish of which I can swallow a bell pepper.

Definitely not a Confit byaldi, just one of the traditional Ratatouille. Following the instruction of the almighty Julia, I juiced the tomato manually using a sieve (page 504 and 506) and it took a lot of effort. Browning each of the veggies one by one, as well as unpeeled the tomatoes was nothing compared to juicing the tomatoes with a sieve LOL. Unfortunately, I'm no fan of tomato, so I found my Ratatouille was so "tomatoey". My Ratatouille tasted almost the same as one I ate in a brasserie with sauté chicken. But still, to me, this one is too tomatoey - hence, a bit sour. I will reduce the tomato in my next Ratatouille - we'll see. So, IMHO, we must also aware of our preference and tolerance towards certain flavor, I can handle super hot and spicy food but never sour. It is also important to note that, in Ratatouille, we need the veggies to hold their shapes so pay attention to the heat, cutting method and stewing period.

The highlight is the Ratatouille, so I prepared only a simple fish steak sauté au beurre. In addition, to add the essence of Provence, I also prepared a Herbes de Provence (but without the marjoram) and put it in the stew. Lotsa lotsa rosemary indeed because I love rosemary. I planned to blog at least one French cuisine a day, but le husband is still a big fan of Indonesian food so I have to cook Indonesian food for him and keep the French food in my head for 1-2 days. Well, I will still post my other cooking and food/restaurant review tho :') hopefully le husband will love butter as much as I love butter.

See those zucchini? well, eggplant tastes better LOL. Never been a multitask person but today I am - worked while cooking. Happy eating veggies everyone!