The Aspiring Luddite

	I carry no phone An aspiring Luddite In a wired world. Mastodon Verification Link	Jeff Berry is an early adopter of the Internet and the Web, a late adopter of Twitter, and declines to adopt Facebook. With the death of Google+, he migrated to the Fediverse. He admins a medievalist Mastodon instance. He hates cell-phones.

Ratatouille Parmesan (or something)
21 June 2015

Ratatouille sounds, in many ways, like a fairly unpromising dish. I mean, really, vegetables cooked in oil? However, as with many things, the devil is in the details. The right vegetables, cooked slowly in olive oil, can be nearly miraculous. That's the trick, I think - vegetables stewed, not fried, in olive oil, and a mix that includes eggplant, onion, and tomato. Actually, you don't need much else.

That said, I made a valiant attempt to gild the lily. Somewhere in the back of my mind was the idea that I could merge eggplant parmesan with ratatouille and create ... something. Where the egg came from, I have no idea.

Ratatouille Novo

an eggplant
as many onions as you need
as many tomatoes as you need
salt
pepper
probably more olive oil than you think you need
as many eggs as you have ramekins
cheese, I used cheddar because I'm in England

Preheat the oven to 160C/325F or so. If you've purchased properly, the middle bit of your eggplant is the same size as your ramekin, so cut a few slices out of the middle and put them in the ramekins. Take your onion, ideally the same diameter as your eggplant middle, and make a nice few slices, which you should then place on top of the eggplant. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. If you've got nice big tomatoes, good on you, treat them as you did the onion. If not, cut them appropriately and make them fit as best you may. Again with the salt and pepper, and then anoint them liberally with olive oil. Place them reverently in the oven, as befits their station, and let them stew in their juices for forty-five minutes.

At this point, they should smell fantastic. Ignore that, and crack an egg on top of each ramekin. Then garnish with as much cheese as your little heart desires. My heart lusts for cheese insatiably, but yours may not. Back in the oven they go for another fifteen minutes, or a bit less if you prefer your eggs to be a bit more liquidly yielding.

Oh, and throw the leftover bits and bobs of the vegetables into a larger dish, in something resembling layers, with salt, pepper, and olive oil and cook them at the same time - waste not, want not!

You could serve this with other things, but, really, why bother?

The Aspiring Luddite