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Ratatouille: do you bother to..........


mint
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Fresh tomatos.....I hope/expect....millions of them around just now...a pinch or sugar....basil leaves in ratatoulle.For a dinner party.....stuff the rataouille into these round courgettes.....pre-cooked [just so that they are still nicely firm...boiled for a few mins] then gratinate with paremsan freshly grated. Serve with grilled fish or roast lamb.....or with savoury chestnut cakes. ...for the vegies amongst you.

 

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Jon - how do you make savoury chestnut cakes? Sounds like something we would like. I have some prepared chestnuts in a jar.

Sweet corn fritters would go well too. Though I'm not a big fan of ratatouille - I prefer the individual vegs. grilled or roasted with olive oil and s&p.

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I, too, like the sound of the chestnut cakes though with chestnut flour and pinenuts, it'll have to be a bit of a treat.

Pat, now do give us your recipe for corn fritters.  Wouldn't you know, the farmer behind our house had all his maize harvested yesterday and there are lots of cobs left on the ground that the machine didn't manage to get into the wagons!

BTW, I still make your Lentil Bake and it still tastes great.

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Chestnut cakes.

ingredients.....2 oniouns finely chopped...or 3 large shallots.

Chopped firm white mushrooms x 2...large.

thyme leaves to taste and a little romesemary leaves.

Corsley chopped chestnuts either dried ones...cooked untuill soft or from a jar...not really the tinned ones. So...a whole jar

concentrated FRESH tomato....

Wholemeal bread crumbs enough to bind.

An egg to bind.

2 oz butter.

sautee oniouns in butter slowly untill transparent...very low gas/elect.

Add chopped mushrooms and herbs....allow to cook.

Take off from heat add chopped chestnuts and other ingredients.Allow some of the chestnuts to be ground almost like flour.

Add enough tomato concentrate and breadcrumbs to allow mix to form little cake shapes.

Fry in shallow peanut or sunflower oil.

Good with ratatouille...sauteed spinche with garlic...or put a little boursin cheese into the pan with the spinache at the last moment.

I have a receipe for corn cakes.

 

 

Sautee oniouns un till transparent.....in butter

 

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Jon, I am taking you to mean FRESH breadcrubmbs, yes?

I will have to cheat and use tomato purée from a tube or a tin:  will take me forever to make tomato concentrate and then I won't want to make the chestnut cakes after all that work.

And do let's also have your recipe for corn cakes!

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FRESH TOM SAUCE.....I mean...yes and fresh bread crumbs....

sweet-corn cakes Friday morn....

bit shattered....after 5 days cookery course...medeival feast...hot weather and lots of cooking and serving from before breakfast...till  lateish......thank goodness they went to bed early.

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yes...of course lots of work but rewarding in many ways.

Corn fritters/cakes.

small qauntity...take 2 large pots [floury ones...for chips etc]

2large onions....grate...both.

Place in a bowl....2 eggs...beat together with salt and pepper to taste [you can make a small test fry in shallow sunflower or peanut oil] By the way we always wash our eggs in cold water...and our vegies, of course.

2 tablespoons...heaped of plain flour.add.

Take fresh corn off the tob by slowly and carefully cutting down from the cob....one head should be good.

mix and fry in little flattish cakes in shallow oil...cook slowly untill golden brown...alo#wing pots to cook...6/7 mins....very low gas....you can turn the gas up a little for more colour.

You can substitute corn for other things.

chopped corriander...do not be affraid of quantity.

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Jon - I like your recipe for corn fritters - reminds me of potato latkes.

Mine is much simpler, just some thick pancake batter and a small tin of sweet corn, fry in tablespoonfuls.

Yours is almost a meal in itself - with some salad maybe.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Coming back on this thread to let Pads know that I did it her way.........[:D]

All veg roasted in the oven, including many cloves of garlic in their skins.  Then tomatoes and more onions cooked and reduced in a saucepan (took forever because the tomatoes were so large and so juicy and I used a whole carrier bag full).

Mixed together and it was superb...quite the best ratatouille I have ever cooked or tasted.  Best of all, there was no need to use too much oil; only drizzle of oil with the roast veg and a bit in the tomato sauce.  And, of course, not a bit sloppy as the sauce was very well reduced.  Roasting the veg certainly intensified the flavours and gave it that nice, slightly burnt aroma and taste.

And for Claire and because OH is also not too keen on aubergine, I roasted the aubergine whole and then took off the skin so that by the time it was added in with the other vegetables, you couldn't tell there was aubergine in there.

Didn't bother with anything tinned or in tubes or indeed any sugar.  Added some dried herbes de Provence in the roasting pan before roasting the vegetables and sprinkled some torn basil leaves to the finished article.

Had it hot, then cold the next day and then made ratatouille tart on the third day.

Now if only Madame la Voisine would call again with another bag of her lovely, whopping great, juicy tomatoes, I could make another pot!

 

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Pads, spaghetti carbonara with smoked salmon instead of ham!  You bet I'd like to know how you make it!

5-e, it really wasn't a lot of work, rather less work than frying all the veg separately, in fact.  Roast veg, easy peasy and then just the tomato sauce made in the usual way.  It's just that there were so many large, juicy tomatoes that it took a long time to reduce and concentrate the sauce.

Tonight, I made a really special curry:  with courgettes (yes, the plants are still producing) and mushrooms picked in the fields.  The taste was out of this world and the mushrooms gave that lovely dark colour to the curry.

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Morning sweets.

This is one of my winter favorites and goes well with home made garlic bread.

Take some double cream (or some people like cream cheese but not me ) grind lots of black pepper( I add some hot dried chillis to my grinder for extra bite) leave the black pepper to soak in the cream , boil your spaggetti , chop some smoked salmon add to the cream,( as much as you like ) seperatley (so it dosnt stain the colour of the cream) fry off some onions till very soft and also some mushrooms if you like , warm up the cream and add the onions mush at the last moment .... drain spaggetti( make sure its well drained ) and stir the sauce well into the spagetti , serve ...... you can also add prawns if you like
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Bonjour, Pads (no longer morning here)

That sounds like one of those dishes that tastes heavenly and makes one look like a truly sensational cook!

Yup, that's my next BIG IDEA..............got a house full of visitors next week so this would be a nice dish for lunch or supper.  Nice big green salad to follow.  Then cheese. Then perhaps baked apples stuffed with sultanas and walnuts with honey and drizzled with Calvados and a nice dollop of something or other.

Now see what you've gone and made me do:  think about food again and I haven't long had breakfast![:D]

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