Ok ratatouille is that great French classic, and what I wanna do is take the essence of
that do it really quickly, and lighter, with some new little ideas you're gonna love this.
This gorgeous take on a ratatouille has loads of tasty griddled veg in a rich tomato sauce,
all made much faster and with much less oil than the traditional version.
And I'm serving that with beautiful juicy herb-dressed steak, and a fragrant lemon and
saffron rice.
The perfect Mediterranean dish for four in just 15 minutes.
Time to crack on with my ratatouille.
First thing's up we've got aubergine and courgette.
The first job is quite simply just take the ends off the stalks and I'm gonna halve the
courgette, literally straight down the middle just like that, dead simple.
That goes straight on to a chargrille.
As usual with 15 minute meals y'know, I've got me kettle boiled, I've got me pans out
for me veggies and me rice and my griddle pan as well, make sure you push the veggies
down so they're getting full contact.
Slice the aubergine just over a centimetre think, like that.
Sometimes you see people putting oil on veggies on the grill.
I personally never ever ever do it, in any situation, because what I want to do is sort
of bring out the natural flavour of the veg, and then when it comes off then kiss it with
beautiful oils and herbs, y'know, things like that.
That'll be fine, squeeze him in there.
Make sure they're all sort of touching the bars, and we forget about that for a couple
of minutes until they're charred on both sides.
Ok so we've got veggies on.
Next job I need my kettle of boiling water and some rice, so that classic fluffy rice
recipe that I'm doing.
I've got some nice basmati rice and I just wanna do one full builder's cup of basmati.
And then fill it up with two cups of boiling water.
So there's one... there's two... and then there's a key flavour that I wanna get in
there to make it really really exciting.
And I've got some saffron here, y'know it is expensive and you only need a little bit
like that, and look at that.
Still by weight, one of the most expensive things on the planet, but we only need a little
bit thank the lord.
And when you put that into the water this incredible flavour comes out, it's amazing.
Of course a pinch of salt so it's got some seasoning, and just gonna quite crudely cut
a lemon in half, and I'm just gonna plop one half of a lemon in there, give it a shake,
lid on top on a medium heat.
10 minutes, that's gonna be light, fluffy, perfect, kind of golden and perfumed and lovely.
Leave the saffron to work its magic.
Now let's get some bold flavours going on with this ratatouille.
But before stirring, we're gonna concentrate on turning to bring out the delicious nutty
flavour of the veg.
Nice and dark...
you want the colour, don't be scared of it, it brings out a completely different flavour.
A ratatouille is a really heavily guarded y'know, sacred recipe, and it's delicious
and it's stodgy and it's heavenly, classic Provence dish, right?
But like what I'm tryna do is take the essence of those combinations and do it in a light,
quick, contemporary way.
So we got charred elements.
Now the other veggies of course are things like onion, i've got peppers, I've got some
garlic.
So very simply I wanna just peel the onion, halve it and remove the skin.
And we'll slice these red onions up any old how, it really doesn't matter.
So just a little bit of olive oil in here.
And the way of doing it has got way less olive oil than the traditional version.
With the peppers just push these seeds, and then you can just tear it open and remove
the seeds in one which is a nice little fast tip.
So push it in, tear it open, and there it is ready and raring to go.
And then just clank up the peppers y'know cut them up into any size, I'm looking for
absolutely no precision.
Y'know the worst thing in the world is picking up a recipe and it says cut it into exactly
a certain size and it's like oh god, got better things to do with me life.
That's two lots of veg from our ratatouille.
Next I'm gonna crank up the flavour quickly with some of my favourite taste enhancers:
anchovies, and harissa.
So the anchovies again are gonna give... you won't taste it, it'll just become a blur of
wonderful seasoning.
So just a couple of anchovy fillets will disappear into that dish.
Harissa - Moroccan, it's basically like an oil, a flavoured oil of wonderful different
chilis, so a nice little heaped teaspoon of that in there is gonna give a wonderful hum
of spice.
So it smells fantastic.
I'm just gonna crush some garlic here.
Two or four garlic depending on how fruity you feel.
I don't bother peeling the garlic when I've got one of these crushers 'cos quite frankly
all I do is just gun it straight in, like that.
Let's put a fifth one in come on, let's get a bit of France in there...
wosh.
Really exciting flavours going on.
The garlic and the harissa and the anchovies are all sort of cooking into each other which
is beautiful.
If you look at these two pans it's real opposites, you got brightness and sweetness and all that
perfume of the ingredients.
Then you got the courgette and the aubergine that have kinda been charred, and they kinda
go more savoury and nutty, and I love that sort of mixing of it up.
So all I'm gonna do is just grab a pair of tongs and then literally hack through it like
that in no particular fashion, and get that in there.
So there's a charred and that fresh element, really really nice.
Don't worry about the size or the shape, I'll probably leave those whole.
As they cook they're gonna fall apart anyway.
So let's just sort of finish this story and get this kind of put to bed.
Another little cheat I'm using balsamic vinegar just to sort of work - about a tablespoon
- just work with that sweet and sourness, ok?
And then passata, 700 millilitres, you can use tinned tomatoes if you want.
Pour that in, and then I'll finish that by seasoning it, and a bit of basil, and we'll
be really, really in a good place.
Leave the ratatouille bubbling on a medium heat.
Now for the next key element of the dish - gorgeous, juicy, succulent steaks.
Obviously when you're buying sirloin steak y'know look for a nice bit of meat, nice marbling
like that.
So first of all I'm just gonna whip that fat off.
That's reduced the fat immediately by more than 50%, and it's made it easier to cook
as well.
I'm gonna season this with salt and pepper.
And then I've got some lovely smoked paprika, you can use sweet or smoked look at the colour
of that, so nice.
Just want a little teaspoon.
And just again, pat that, use the actual board to season the other side.
So look no oil in this pan again, straight on the griddle pan, turn it every minute until
it's cooked to your liking.
Two steaks there will easily be enough in this style of cooking for four people, it
really will 'cos we're gonna slice them up nice and thin, it's gonna be gorgeous.
So everything's on the go, the saffron rice is infusing and the ratatouille is becoming
richer by the minute.
Oh, heavenly.
And as my steaks sizzle, I've got a tasty trick to enhance them even more with big flavours,
fast.
So what I'm gonna do is a board dressing, really really simple I'm gonna use some parsley,
just tear some off.
And just roll it all up, just chop it up so it's kind of fine.
As soon as that meat has come off the grill, if you don't sort of give it a little lick
of something oily it starts to dry, and then it starts to get tough.
So what I wanna do is create like a little welcoming party for our steaks, ok?
So parsley is really nice just distribute that around the board, right?
I'm just gonna turn this steak, 'cos like I said every minute you wanna be able to turn
this.
Look at that, nice bar marks, really good, and I'm gonna turn it the other way.
So, back to the dressing.
I want a heaped teaspoon of mustard.
And then just a little drizzle of good quality oil, just a tablespoon is enough to do the
trick, and the juice of one half of a lemon that we got left over.
So it's a kind of dressing.
All we do now is get a fork or a spoon or something, and just mess this all around.
And as soon as that lovely steak comes off the grill, we got something nice to roll it
around in.
Beautiful.
So one thing I gotta do to the ratatouille, y'know I can have a little taste just to double-check
that seasoning's in a beautiful place, absolutely gorgeous.
Mm...
I'm alright in seasoning.
Be quite brave with basil, take big hunks of it and just tear it up.
Give it a nice little mix.
These are all turned off now.
Get your steaks, go straight over to this beautiful dressing, and just move them around
and it's gonna be so tasty.
Slice that beautiful juicy steak, dish out that fluffy flavoursome rice, get dollopping
with some fat-free natural yoghurt, and finally scatter some more basil for a great fresh
flavour.
So there you go guys a beautiful grilled ratatouille with fluffy saffron rice, incredible steak
in its own sort of dressing, all in under 15 minutes, brilliant.
It's amazing the flavour that you can get from that grilled ratatouille really quickly.
Such big flavours, so quick.
Gorgeous.