Bonne 14 juillet! Today is la Fête Nationale in France, otherwise known as Bastille Day in English-speaking countries. It's celebrated much like July 4th is in the US, with fireworks and parades.
To celebrate, I decided to make a French meal: ratatouille with a baguette and brie and an aperitif. And no French meal is complete without dessert!
It took me a long time to decide on what I wanted to make for France. "French cuisine" is such a renowned thing, but most of what you think of for (savory) French food is meat-based. I toyed with the idea of boeuf bourguignon with seitan in place of the beef, or pot-au-feu (a national dish) with hearty root vegetables. I wanted to cook something that had significance to all of France, rather than cooking something regional. In the end, however, I decided that was too difficult and stuck with something I knew would be recognizable as "French." Ratatouille was a great choice because it's naturally vegetarian, and is something everyone knows of--I'm sure the Pixar movie helped popularize it with some Americans as well.
Ratatouille is a specialty of the region known as Provence. Since the Provence region is in the southwest corner of the country, it's located on the Mediterranean, which means it shares a lot of the same cooking styles and flavors with Italy. Ratatouille is basically just a vegetable stew, using whatever veggies you have on hand, but the most common combination you'll find is what I used today: eggplant, onion, bell pepper, zucchini, and tomato.
The vegetables are cooked separately to make sure they each cook at about the same time to avoid softer veggies getting too mushy before the firmer veggies soften. Then, everything is thrown in with a bouquet garni, which is just herbs tied together (I used fresh thyme with bay leaves). I also added some herbes de provence since it's a provençal dish after all.
As the tomatoes soften, they break down to form a sauce for the rest of the veggies to simmer in.
While the ratatouille simmered, the flavors melded, and the aromas wafted, I served some bread and cheese, accompanied by an aperitif made with Lillet blanc.
Lillet is a brand of aperitif wine, which I mixed with some gin and orange bitters, using this recipe from the Kitchn.
The baguette was from local bakery Red Hen. I couldn't help taking pictures of the packaging since it matched my Le Creuset.
After the meal, we enjoyed a tarte tatin, which is an upside-down apple tart, made by cooking sliced apples in sugar and butter until they start to caramelize, then topping it with pastry and baking in the oven.
I've made tarte tatin before, but this once didn't turn out quite as pretty as others. I think I let the apples cook too long on the stove before putting in the oven. I also think there was way too much sugar. But at least I was able to flip it successfully and none of the apple stuck!
There's a quote I love to share with people from the book "In a French Kitchen." The author, Susan Hermann Loomis, recalls a dinner at a friend's house, where there were four people sitting at the table: "Dessert was a big fruit tart with gorgeous golden pastry. Our host cut it in quarters and served each person their share. I surreptitiously glanced at the other diners, who were happily devouring their entire piece, so I did too. It occurred to me then that while so many in this world try to hide their love of sweets and desserts, the French are standing atop the Eiffel Tower proclaiming their sweet addiction to the world."
So of course I cut my--admittedly small--tarte tatin into four servings, but then placed two quarters on each place and we polished it off while listening to some French favorites:
Au revoir! À bientôt!
Recipes Used: Ratatouille // Tarte Tatin
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