Every now and then I crave ratoutoille, a traditional French casserole made with eggplant, zucchini, garlic, tomatoes and herbs. When I read @attn's recipe for it last week, I eyed my vegetable crisper and noticed I had all the ingredients - and given it was a cold, rainy day, a hot winter stew was definitely in order.

People will tell you all kinds of ways to cook it, and to be honest, it can be complicated if you want all the vegetables to be done to the same consistancy - no one wants hard potatoes and mushy squash. But I do it a little differently, adding most of the vegetables to a oven proof tray first, before adding the tomatoes. I also add two secret ingredients - smoked paprika and olives - and instead of potatoes, I add white beans. Given it's all in the one tray, there's very little mess.

My secret ingredient is smoked paprika. I don't think I make a tomato dish without it. It gives a lovely richness to the dish and is very common in any Spanish cooking. I've had this tin for nearly twenty years and just top it up at Wholefoods. It's so essential in my kitchen that it's above the cooktop with the salt and pepper.

The first thing to do is chop your vegetables into chunks. I find eggplant, zucchini and capsicum take reasonably the same amount of time cut into cubes, and to be honest, I like my eggplant roast so it's creamy. You can also add chopped onion, garlic, salt, pepper, and a ton of smoked paprika. Sprinkle liberally with olive oil. I also add a pinch of chilli flakes, but of course this is optional.

Now as you know I'm a massive fan of fresh herbs, and thyme is just great with tomatoes (and potatoes, and mushrooms!). I add a few twigs to the dish as the leaves will fall off as it cooks and I just remove the twigs later. It's so easy and simple to do it this way!

The vegetables go into the oven at about 220 C for about half an hour. I then check and stir, and when the vegetables are done, I add a liberal handful of black olives, a can of tomatoes, and a can of white beans. The dish then returns to the oven for another twenty minutes or so, so that the flavours all fuse together.

Then I make a crumb out of smoked almonds and fetta. If I'm feeling particularly cheesy I add a little parmesan as well as I love it's sharp flavour. It's basically half fetta, half almonds (say a cup) whizzed up in the blender. That gets sprinkled on top and then back into the oven for another ten minutes or so. Voila!

It's delicious in a bowl served with crusty bread, or even without bread - and so easy and flavoursome.

I must apologise for this final blurry photo, but it's still winter in Australia, sos by the time dinner is on the table, it's quite dark and the lighting is understandably terrible! I sprinkled a little extra parmesan on mine as well as I find it hard to resist!

I mean, people do some pretty fabulous versions of it - look at this gorgeously presented plates from Unsplash below! But you get the premise, right? Courgette, aubergine (zucchini and eggplant if you're in the US), tomato, garlic - marriage made in heaven.

How do you make ratoutoille? What's your favourite one tray dish?

With Love,

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