A Sort-Of Ratatouille to Remember a Friend

Did you ever have a friend who died, much too soon? And after they were gone, amid the shock and the sadness, you kept feeling their presence in certain scents and sounds and tastes and pieces of music and writing?

While there are still so many good tomatoes and courgettes (AKA zucchini) to be had in the markets, I wanted to share with you my recipe for ‘Ratatouille for Richard’ from THE SECRET OF COOKING. It’s one of the recipes in the book that many of you have reported enjoying making and eating which gives me such pleasure.

The main reason this recipe means so much to me is that it’s a memorial to a friend called Richard Edwards who was the best of men. He died of a stroke, aged just 54, in 2021: a loss which can hardly be borne and which feels no less sad, four years on. Eating this ratatouille takes me back to being on holiday with Richard and his wife Claire and their two children. This was when our own two older children were little and the third didn’t yet exist and my husband and I were still as together as can be. As Claire later wrote to me, those were times spent building a life we all thought would ‘last and last’.

On those holidays, Claire, who is French, would make giant vats of ratatouille. It was the kind of cooking that makes total sense when you have young children because a single pan of ratatouille would buy us many meals. She always called ‘rat-at-a-touille’, with an extra syllable, as a joke. What I remember most about Claire’s ratatouille was the radiant smile of appreciation on Richard’s face when she put it on the table, along with a roast chicken and a dish of gratin dauphinoise.

Richard understood so many things about living. He was a lawyer but he believed that the things that really mattered were love and children and music and poetry. He was also extremely funny. When I needed it most, he once gave me some advice that was both tough and kind and unstuck a sticky situation. I will never not think of him when I smell this dish cooking in the oven with its gentle scent of garlic and thyme mingling with olive oil and aubergines and tomatoes.

As I explain in the book, it’s not really a classic ratatouille like the ones Claire made so painstakingly with each vegetable sauteed one by one. Mine is something more like a ‘tian’: not stewed on a stovetop but constructed from thinly sliced vegetables arranged in a pan and baked in the oven. After testing it a few times, I decided to add a very quick garlicky tomato sauce underneath, made from a can of tomatoes, to add back some stewy goodness . This saucy layer means that it can be served not just as a side dish but as a vegan dinner in its entirety with some rice or pasta (though I might also add a fried egg for non-vegans).

I am an impatient cook and don’t usually spend time arranging things in concentric circles so trust me when I say this is a snap to make. As originally requested by my youngest son, it looks a bit like the ratatouille in the Pixar film of the same name. But the pleasing thing is that – even though it looks fancy and people are disproportionately impressed – it’s actually much easier than the original ratatouille. If you have a food processor, slicing the vegetables thin takes almost no time and then most of the cooking is hands-off, in the oven. You can even get it ready ahead of time and reheat, if it helps.

Most versions of this dish that I’ve seen will tell you to alternate the vegetables one by one. And I tried! But it took ages and also didn’t work very well with the ratio of vegetables that I had. I ended up with loads of aubergine and courgette leftover. So then I figured out I could make little stacks of aubergine and courgette instead which looked just as good but took a fraction as long.

When I first had the idea of ‘Ratatouille for Richard’, I wrote to Claire to check if she was OK with it. I suddenly wasn’t sure if it might seem in poor taste. With typical generosity she wrote back and said that Richard’s own response would have been ‘and why not?’ She added, ‘it is the way to live life’. I still think the most beautiful version of the dish anyone has made was from Richard’s daughter, who sent me this photo of it made with yellow courgettes.

RATATOUILLE FOR RICHARD FROM THE SECRET OF COOKING

I’ve served this in many ways to many people. Try it for a simple midweek vegetarian dinner (with nothing more than a bowl of orzo or a rice pilaf or some baked potatoes and cheese and sour cream; or guacamole if you want to keep things vegan). But it’s also great the way Claire served it, with a roast chicken and some roast, boiled or dauphinoise potatoes and a green salad.

Serves 4–6, depending on what else you are having with it

100ml extra virgin olive oil
6 cloves of garlic, peeled and finely grated
1 × 400g tin of plum tomatoes½ tsp fine salt
½ tsp sugar
3 large courgettes (zucchini) - about 450g
2 large aubergines (eggplants)
6 large vine tomatoes
A few sprigs of thyme, leaves stripped and chopped

Flaky sea salt

Preheat the oven to 190°C fan.
In a medium saucepan, heat 20ml of olive oil over a medium heat and sauté 2 of the garlic cloves for a few seconds before adding the tinned tomatoes and ½ tsp each of fine salt and sugar. Cook, stirring often, until it reduces down a bit. Now, either mash it a bit with your wooden spoon or blitz it with a hand-held blender. Spread this sauce over the bottom of a large casserole dish or wide-lidded ovenproof pan.

Cut the courgettes paper-thin using either a mandoline or a food processor. Now cut the aubergines in half lengthways and cut them too, using a mandoline or a food processor. Finally, slice the tomatoes as thin as you can using a sharp knife and a chopping board (I find they get mashed by the processor). Make stacks of the aubergine, courgette and tomato and arrange these in circles in the pan. When the pan is full, sprinkle over the thyme and distribute the remaining garlic as evenly as you can, tucking it into the crevices. Sprinkle the whole thing well with flaky sea salt and pour over the remaining olive oil. Put it into the oven for 30 minutes, then put the lid on and return it to the oven for another 30 minutes, or until the vegetables are completely tender and a little bit shrunken.