For my first week of the 52 Week Challenge, I chose a dish that I have been curious about making ever since seeing it in the movie with the same name. At the time, I remember thinking the thin slices were pepperoni and how appetizing the dish looked, especially when Ego’s jaw (and pen) dropped. While vegans can rejoice, I do wonder what it would be like to make it with some pepperoni.
Making the Dish
When looking for a recipe, I came across Thomas Keller’s interpretation called confit byaldi which apparently is a play on a Turkish dish, İmam bayıldı, or stuffed eggplant. I have seen a lot of people on TikTok using Thomas Keller recipes, especially that zucchini one, so I figured he’s enough of a big name in the culinary industry for me to try one of his recipes.
The process includes the following stages:
– cooking the piperade
– preparing the vegetables
– baking the vegetables
– making the vinaigrette
– assembling
If you remember the scene from Ratatouille, the piperade is the red sauce that Remy spreads across the bottom of the pan before layering on the thinly sliced vegetables which include green zucchini, yellow squash, roma tomato, and eggplant. If you can find it in your local grocery store, Japanese eggplant is the best variety to use for its thinness. This way, you have similar circumferences and avoid the problem I ran into where the eggplant slices were much bigger than the rest of the veggie slices. I ended up cutting some of the eggplant slices down to better blend in – if you look closely at the pictures below, you can see some of straight edges.
The cooking techniques themselves were not difficult – roasting, sautéing, chopping, slicing, and baking in the oven. Peeling the skin from the roasted peppers and the tomato were probably the most technical parts, so a couple pro tips that are not in the recipe:
– For the tomato: make 2 slits in the shape of an X on the bottom of the tomato, blanch it in boiling water, and peel
– For the peppers: after roasting, place in a plastic-wrapped bowl to steam before peeling
Most of the time was spent baking the veggies (2 hours covered and 30 minutes uncovered!), which did make the overall recipe time-consuming, but at no point did I feel stressed from things going wrong at the drop of a hat. Unlike the mad rush you typically picture with cooking, many of the steps made the recipe feel slow and easygoing: cooking down the onion and garlic for 8 minutes, carefully slicing the squash on the mandolin, layering the veggie slices around the pan. I appreciated feeling the way that the song “Le Festin” (aptly translated to “The Feast”) from Ratatouille made me feel – calm and like I’m strolling down the streets of Paris.
Eating the Dish
The texture is very one note: soft and mushy. When I fed Kyle a forkful, he rightly exclaimed, “Yep, that’s a mouthful of vegetables!” That being said, what it lacks in texture, it makes up for in taste. I did not grow up in France with a mother who fed me this dish, so there is no way I can experience the nostalgia that Ego had with his first bite, but I did picture when Remy was trying to demonstrate flavor complexity with a piece of cheese and a strawberry. Taking a bite was savory from the thyme, sweet from the cooked down veggies, acidic from the balsamic vinegar in the vinaigrette. They all came crashing together and somehow achieved a balance that made it delicious.
Summary
I don’t anticipate making this dish again unless I am recreating it with a twist (would it be blasphemous to include pepperoni?), but I’m glad I gave it a try. I would recommend pairing it with bread, rice, pasta or some other dish to combat the one-note texture, but does not compete with the flavors. Chef Gusteau’s adage “anyone can cook” really does ring true with this recipe – if you have a few hours to spare (remember 2.5 hours are just oven time, so put on your favorite show), I would encourage giving this a try!