Cheryl Marie Cordeiro

Inspired by the Disney/ Pixar movie Ratatouille (2007), here is my attempt at creating just such a ratatouille dish as they did, as a main course.
Photo for CMC by: Jan-Erik Nilsson © 2009.

A few years ago the movie Ratatouille (2007) by Disney / Pixar came out in the movie theatres. I found that a most inspiring film when it came to cooking despite the fact that the best chef in the movie was a rat, however most adorable!

Ever since I saw that movie, I have been pondering how the actual dish fits with the title of the movie, and my guess has been that the Disney/ Pixar gang probably found the title Rat-atouille witty, so that they based the whole story on that, but was then also stuck with trying to compose a main course out of something that is actually a side dish, similar to salsa. This was a challenging task for the film team since ratatouille is nice, but not really a dish so grand as to be presented as a main course in a gourmet restaurant.

Today when a friend who preferred vegetarian dishes showed up, I thought why not; lets see if it is possible to create something similar to a ratatouille, but one that can work as a main course by itself.

Normally a ratatouille is cooked and stirred towards a very soft consistency, it being a dish that might well be best served with a spoon. In the movie it was served warm with a fork, upright standing in presentation and appearing pretty dry. This is a bit tricky to accomplish since the main ingredients are botanically speaking fruits, and as such they will cook very quickly and also melt or fall apart very easily as soon as they get warm.

So, if we are to make a stand alone ratatouille main course, all this would need to be addressed.

My version of Ratatouille à la Ratatouille

The Ratatouille is known to stem from Provance, so taste wise I decided to situate it somewhere in between Southern France and Northern Italy, and brought out some really good olive oil from San Gimignano, some fresh garlic, a few shallots, and then fried this together into a spicy foundation.

Two cloves of garlic, chopped up and braised in olive oil together with some shallots.

Shallots are actually a kind of lily buds and have a much milder flavour than onions. Braise to taste.

A dark purple aubergine, sliced.

I then sliced up one zucchini, one eggplant and some large tomatoes. The zucchini and eggplant I drizzled with salt and left them for about ten minutes to marinate, to make them softer and more flavourful. The tomato and the zucchini does not need more than a warming to cook, but the aubergine is tougher to cook due to its spongy and air filled cells. So I tried to deal with this difference by using a really fresh aubergine and by sprinkling it with some salt beforehand to make it softer. Due to the difference in cell structures, salting the aubergine is actually more important than salting the zucchini prior to cooking.

A handful of Anya potatoes.
Photo for CMC by: Jan-Erik Nilsson © 2009.

We were first introduced to these distinctly thumb-shaped potatoes at a recent food fair in Gothenburg, Passion för mat, where author and potato expert Dan Berntsson was on location to give en empassioned talk about these Anya potatoes, which he calls “GI-potatoes”. These potatoes grow finer than the normal household variety and the firmness of their flesh helps with the GI-Index in our bodies after a meal.

A project of the Scottish Research Institute and Lord Sainsbury’s gardener, Anya potatoes were originally grown in Scotland in 1995 as a cross between the Pink Fur Apple and Desiree potatoes. It gets its characteristic knobbly features from one of its parent, the Pink Fur Apple.

While one could buy 10 kg boxes of Anya potatoes readily availble at the grocers in the UK, this variety of potatoes has only recently been introduced into the Swedish market by Dan Berntsson, and is currently only sold to restaurants. We were lucky enough to get our hands on a 1 kg pack of these potatoes only because we were at the food fair in Gothenburg, that opened up a wonderful gamut of delicatesse food items for us to explore and bring home. Continue reading “Anya potatoes, a potato lover’s nubbly delight!” →

Oatmeal, havregröt or havregrynsgröt, with almonds, walnuts, flax seeds and milk.
Photo for CMC by: Cheryl Marie Cordeiro © 2009.

As a child, I was never a fan of oatmeal because I was fed oatmeal served with sweetened condensed milk only when I was ill. Tasteless and watery, the consistency of the oatmeal served meant that it could be swallowed and digested more easily. Back then, because of my lacklustre association to oatmeal, I remember staring at a friend in horror when he told that his father ate plain cooked oatmeal everyday for breakfast, without added sugar. I asked him in all earnestness, “Why does your father do that?”

After more than fifteen years of not touching oatmeal and after a shift in continents, I began rediscovering this simple grain that in no matter what form you have it, takes less than ten minutes to cook.

A popular breakfast in Sweden, oatmeal in its most basic form is often cooked with a pinch of salt and served with apple sauce, milk and a dash of cinnamon powder on top. From this, I began experimenting with fruit, slicing bananas into the mixture or adding dried raisins to the mixture, taking away the apple sauce but keeping the dash of cinnamon. I’ve also tried frozen fruit such as frozen strawberries, raspberries, blueberries and mangoes. Fruit in general seems to go splendidly with oatmeal!

Beyond fruits, I began eating oatmeal with all kinds of nuts – hazelnuts, almonds, walnuts and brazil nuts. Or seeds such as flax seeds, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds. These also seem to complement oatmeal to a large extent and I began to enjoy having oatmeal at breakfast.

Today, with a repertoire of oatmeal recipes at hand, I find oatmeal to be one of the most cost efficient, healthy and interesting meals one could whip together in no time. Everyone from atheletes to those with high blood pressure and diabetes would benefit from eating at least one serving of oatmeal a day.

As for my association of oatmeal and illlnesses, it’s pretty much gone now. In fact, I’m just as happy settling for oatmeal with sweetened condensed milk as I am with oatmeal with fruits and nuts. The latter, preferably without added sugar.

Entrecôte garnished with maïtre d’hôtel (butter creamed with chopped parsley, lemon juice, salt, and pepper). Salad with a light vinaigrette dressing and hasselback potatoes.
Photo for CMC by: Jan-Erik Nilsson © 2009.

Entrecôte with a Tuscan twist

The thing is, we really enjoyed our brief stay in Northern Italy and Florence last year and we miss it. After we came back home, we have been cooking things inspired by the region, we are enjoying the wines and some food we brought back and we make plans on places to see when we will be back. Rarely have we been so certain about going back to a place we have visited than to Tuscany. So when preparing an entrecôte dinner recently, it was nigh impossible not to put a Tuscan twist on the meal and for fun, we don’t mind sharing the recipe.

So here goes, Entrecôte alla Fiorentino.

The ideology behind Florentine cooking is basically to take great care when selecting the ingredients. The artist and genious Michelangelo came from Florence. If you have seen his Pieta in the St Peters Basilica in Rome, or his statue David in Florence, then you know what what a Florentine artist can make out of a slab of marble. Then imagine what a Florentine chef can do with a piece of meat! So, if we take Michelangelo’s and the Florentine spirit to our hearts and celebrate that in our own cooking, then wouldn’t we delight in the results?
Continue reading “Entrecôte alla Fiorentino, a personal interpretation” →