I have childhood memories of asking my mother if ratatouille contains rats, which probably meant that she had to talk me into eating it. No more. While cruising Epicurious yesterday night looking for heathy and satisfying dinner inspiration, I happened across this recipe, written by the Culinary Institute of America’s Associate Dean of Restaurant Education, Chef Lou Jones. I realized that besides seeing the adorable Pixar movie, it had been a very long time since I had indulged in this simple, fresh, and amazing dish.

The recipe begins by roasting zuchini, yellow, red, (and for economic reasons, I also included) green peppers, eggplant, a halved head of garlic, and a par-boiled bulb of fennel. You must rub each of these in olive oil with your hands before placing them on a baking sheet.

Be sure to get the olive oil into the grooves in the head of garlic as well. Wrap the bottom in foil, leaving the top exposed, before placing it in the oven.

This recipe features it’s own sauce, which I highly recommend making. It is custom-brewed with fresh thyme and marjoram, which really makes this dish special. You may as well make the sauce while you are waiting for the veggies to roast. Go on… just do it!

After about 35 minutes, your vegetables should be ready to come out of the oven. They will look shrunken and the skins will have begun to brown.

Place the peppers in a large bowl and seal it tightly with foil to help loosen the skins. Allow the rest of the vegetables to rest for about 10 minutes (or at least until they are cool enough to handle).

As soon as you can touch the vegetables, move them to a cutting board for preparation.

Remove the seeds from the zucchini, remove the seeds and peel the skin from the peppers, and core the fennel, then chop everything into very small pieces, as uniform as you can get them.

Place all of the chopped vegetables into a pot. Squeeze the garlic cloves out of their skins into the pot and add the sauce. Simmer for approximately 10 minutes until there is almost no liquid. Finish with more fresh herbs, balsalmic vinegar, olive oil, salt and black pepper. This recipe makes a lot more than just the two of us could eat, so happily I will be enjoying this at work for the next few days. It is a delicious and vegan way to detox after the holidays (or for a pre-New Year’s cleanse).

Ratatouille
Epicurious |  November 2008 by Chef Lou Jones 

For Ratatouille:

1 bulb fennel, stalks discarded

3 red bell peppers, pierced with tip of knife

3 yellow bell peppers, pierced with tip of knife

2 medium zucchini, quartered

1 medium eggplant, quartered

About 1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil

1 head garlic

2 cups tomato sauce (see below for recipe)

1 tablespoon fresh basil, chopped

2 teaspoons fresh thyme, chopped

2 teaspoons fresh marjoram, chopped

2 teaspoons kosher salt

1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar

For Sauce:

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 small onion, diced (about 1/2 cup)

2 cloves garlic, minced (about 1 tablespoon)

1 small red bell pepper, diced (about 1/2 cup)

1 cup dry white wine

2 sprigs fresh marjoram

3 sprigs fresh thyme

6 whole leaves fresh basil

1 (15-ounce) can crushed tomatoes

1 tablespoon tomato paste

To make sauce:

In medium saucepan over moderate heat, heat oil until hot but not smoking. Add onion, garlic, and pepper and sauté until just tender, 6 to 7 minutes. Add wine, marjoram, thyme, and basil and simmer, uncovered, until reduced by half, about 10 minutes. Add tomatoes, tomato paste, and 3/4 cup water to pot and simmer, stirring occasionally, until slightly thickened, about 30 minutes. (Sauce can be made ahead and refrigerated up to 3 days.)

To make ratatouille:

Preheat oven to 350°F.

In large saucepan over moderately high heat, bring 2 quarts salted water to boil. Add fennel and boil until tender, about 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, rub red and yellow peppers, zucchini, and eggplant with olive oil and transfer to large baking sheet. Cut off top 1/2 inch from garlic head. Wrap in foil and transfer to baking sheet alongside vegetables.

When fennel is tender, use tongs to transfer to sheet and rub with oil. Roast vegetables, turning occasionally, until tender and slightly browned, 30 to 40 minutes.

Transfer roasted peppers to large bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Let all vegetables stand until cooled slightly, about 10 minutes. Peel and deseed peppers, then finely dice. Remove seeds from zucchini and finely dice. Finely dice eggplant. Core fennel and finely dice.

In large saucepan over moderately high heat, combine diced roasted vegetables and tomato sauce. Squeeze garlic from skins into pan. Simmer mixture, uncovered, stirring occasionally, until thickened with very little liquid remaining, about 10 minutes.

Stir in basil, thyme, marjoram, salt, pepper, balsamic vinegar, and remaining 1/4 cup olive oil. Serve immediately.

I think that friends who have been reading my blog are beginning to grow concerned about my health. After all, it would appear from my latest posts that I have been living on a steady diet of butter, sugars, eggs, vanilla, and chocolate. Never fear, I cook far more than I post and I’ve been spreading warm, buttery love to the thighs of friends, relatives, and colleagues near and far. In the midst of this flurry of holiday baking, my meals have primarily consisted of healthy, simple meals with seasonal flavors. This salad is a delightful example of this kind of weeknight eating, featuring sweet-tart dried cherries, two kinds of apples, musky toasted walnuts, roasted fennel, and a sweet vinaigrette, all wrapped in the loving arms of warm goat cheese.

Step 1: Slice one bulb of fennel into 1/4 inch slices. Coat them with olive oil and season with sea salt and fresh ground pepper and roast in the oven at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. Be sure to stir from time to time to ensure that the pieces are cooking evenly. Add a little water to the bottom of the pan if the fennel is drying out.

Step 2: Make the vinaigrette. Combine 1/4 cup balsalmic vinegar, 2 tablespoons olive oil, 1 tablespoon honey, 1 tablespoon dried basil in a small bowl. Whisk together until the honey is dissolved. Add salt and pepper to taste. Set aside.

Step 3: When the fennel has about 7 minutes to go in the oven, place a small pan with 1/3 cup walnuts spread evenly over the surface. Begin the process of preparing your lettuce. Be sure to wash and dry thoroughly, and set aside.

Step 4: When the fennel has about 4 minutes left, place a small dish of goat cheese in the oven to warm.

Step 5: Core and chop apples into thin half circles.

Step 6: Remove everything from the oven, and prepare to assemble the salad.

Step 7: Place lettuces, fennel, walnuts, cherries, and apple slices in a large bowl. Use a whisk to stir up the dressing and drizzle it down the sides of the bowl, not directly on top of its contents. Scoop the dressing off the bottom of the bowl with your fingers, folding it over the salad, mixing the contents in the process.

Step 8: Plate the salad, ensuring that each of the ingredients are evenly distributed. Top each salad with a disk of warm goat cheese. Serve immediately.

Warm Goat Cheese Salad with Roasted Fennel

Salad:

1 lb. Mixed baby greens

1 Gala apple

1 Granny Smith apple

6oz fresh goat cheese

1 large fennel bulb

1/3 cup walnuts

1/2 cup dried cherries

Olive oil

Sea salt and fresh ground pepper

Dressing:

1/4 cup balsalmic vinegar

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 tablespoon honey

1 tablespoon dried basil

Sea salt and fresh ground pepper

The arrival of my November 10^th installment of NY Magazine elicited squeals of delight from yours truly – a whole spread of holiday foods featuring local ingredients (and the farmers who grow them!) written by a few of my favorite chefs. Given that I’ve been in a soup-y mood lately and that I love love love fennel, deciding to dive in with Dan Barber’s recipe for a fennel soup was a no-brainer (stay tuned for other gems, including Ed Brown’s Roasted Oysters with Leeks & Bacon – drool).

This soup is simple once you move beyond the stock, which is just slightly more complex than an average vegetable stock with it’s fennel, garlic, coriander seeds, and thyme. I recommend that you prepare it in advance, otherwise you are looking at 4 hours in the kitchen. 

Alas, I did not photograph the stock-making process, but the instructions are straightforward – apologies for being a bad blogger. 

There are few things more satisfying that chopping into a big bulb of fennel – it’s dense and crisp and your kitchen is instantly filled with fresh, anise aroma. Well, maybe there is one thing more satisfying – peeling an apple clean with just a single insertion of the blade. When chopping the fennel, be sure to use only the white parts for the soup and hold the greens for later.

The rest is simple – sweat out the onions and shallots in a tiny bit of olive oil, add the apples and fennel, then the stock, season, and simmer for half an hour. Come back in 30 minutes and you will have a saucepan of mush – fennel, apples, and the rest all cooked down and ready to become creamy soup.

Contrary to Dan Barber’s instructions, I pureed the mush in the food processor as I tend to avoid cleaning my blender at all costs. I let the food processor do its job for about three minutes and got the desired effect – a creamy, dense fennel soup that tastes so rich that you’ll never miss the stick of butter that you’ll swear is enveloped in that fennel-apple goodness. This soup is a vegan’s dream.

Dairyless Local-Fennel Soup
From New York Magazine, November 10, 2008
THE RECIPE:
For the Vegetable Stock:

• 
1 tablespoon grapeseed oil 

• 1 1/4 cups medium-diced onion 

• 1/4 cup thinly sliced shallots 

• 1/4 cup medium-diced leeks
•  
1/2 cup medium-diced carrots 
• 
3 1/4 cups medium-diced fennel 
• 
Salt

• 1/8 teaspoon coriander seeds 

• 1/8 teaspoon black peppercorns 

• 6 sprigs parsley 

• 3 sprigs thyme 

• 1/2 head garlic

Heat the oil in a large saucepan, add the vegetables and a pinch of salt, and sweat over low heat. Add the coriander seeds, peppercorns, parsley, thyme, garlic, and 6 cups water. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer for 50 minutes. Strain and chill.

For the Fennel Soup:

• 
3 tablespoons olive oil 
• 
1 onion, chopped 
• 
3 small shallots, minced 
• 
3 1/2 cups diced fennel, white part only, reserving green fronds for garnish 

• 1 apple, peeled and diced 
• 
Salt and ground black pepper 

• 1 tablespoon fennel seeds, crushed 
• 
4 cups vegetable stock (recipe above) 

• 1/2 teaspoon chopped thyme

Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a large saucepan, add the onion and shallots, and sweat until translucent. Add the fennel and apple, and season with salt and pepper. Cook for a few minutes before adding the fennel seeds and stock, bring to a boil, and simmer for 30 minutes. Add thyme and season to taste with salt and pepper.

Transfer to a blender and purée, adding the remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil. Return to saucepan and heat gently. Garnish with fennel fronds.

THE CHEF:
 Dan BarberBlue Hill and Blue Hill at Stone Barns
Instead of the traditional pumpkin or squash soup, Dan Barber prefers the anise-flavored fennel. “It’s so silky and rich, you don’t need to add dairy,” he says. “Which means it’s hearty without being filling, so you can enjoy the rest of the meal.” Barber has experimented with many varieties for flavor, but Ken Migliorelli’s oversize bulbs, he’s says, “are the sweetest.”
THE FARMER:
 Ken Migliorelli(Migliorelli Farm) Tivoli; 845-757-3276 or migliorelli.com Ken Migliorelli comes from a family of Italian farmers—when his grandfather emigrated from Italy in the thirties, he brought broccoli-rabe seeds with him and planted them on his farm in the Bronx. That same strain of seed is now grown on Migliorelli’s farm in Dutchess County, which is one of the largest regional farms specializing in Italian products—broccoli rabe, arugula, and dandelion, among 140 other items. “The fennel’s grown in a sandy loam soil,” says Migliorelli. “That’s what makes it sweet.”