Recipe: French Bouillon Eateries, Part 5: Ratatouille and Roasted Pork
Part 5 in my French Bouillon series. The prologue for what the series is follows in bold. The recipes comes after.
One thing I find fascinating is that in countries such as France and Italy, there are specific classes of restaurants that serve specific types of cuisine as well as having a set décor and style of the restaurant itself. When I say cuisine, I don’t mean other ethnic cuisines, but rather, in France that serve different types of French fair or in Italy certain types of Italian food. In America, you can, of course, go to a Chinese restaurant or an Indian or a BBQ joint, but that doesn’t necessarily indicate the price point or the type of restaurant within those culinary traditions. In France, there are the small corner restaurants, Bistros, that generally serve French staples as well as moderately priced wine and other alcoholic beverages. In Italy, the cuisine I am the most familiar with there are the local small cheap restaurants, Osterias, and then the more formal, but still reasonable Trattorias, and finally the Ristorante, much more formal with secondi as well as pasta and antipasta. The closest thing we have to the French Bistro, or Italian Trattoria, is “the diner,” although even that changes names depending on your place in our nation. On the east coast, indeed they are called diners, but on the west coast we call them coffee shops, etc. When you visit a diner, you generally know the type of food available: breakfast all day-any way, burgers, and sometimes other blue-plate dinner specials: fried chicken, meatloaf, etc.
When you visit a French Bistro, generally you know you are going to be eating Bistro food at a restaurant that caters to the middle class / local neighborhood. French Bistros have caught on in America compared to other French eateries. Some of the Bistro staples have become commonplace: steak-frites, soupe a l’oignon, braised lamb shanks; however, in France, a “new” culinary wave is taking place: the revival of French Bouillons. I recently became aware of this because of an article by the New Times chronicling the revival and reviewing six of their favorite restaurants.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/10/travel/affordable-dining-in-paris.html
The term Bouillon comes from the French word for broth and certainly bowls of this simple comfort food would be expected in Bouillons. The restaurants started in the late 19th or early 20th century and were known for “a bargain-priced meal that promised to be surprising for both its quality and reasonable price: less than 20 euros, or about $23, for a three-course dinner with a glass of wine.” They are traditionally housed in large halls which allow them to serve a lot of people at lower prices with high turnaround. These Boullions were “working-class restaurants that thrived in Paris during the 19th century. ‘In an age of globalization, eating a meal at a bouillon is an affirmation of Gallic identity, since the comfort food we serve is so traditionally French,’ said Christophe Joulie, director of the Groupe Joulie, which owns and runs a number of brasseries in Paris, along with Bouillon Chartier, the 1896 vintage bouillon the company acquired in 2006.
By ‘traditionally French,’ Mr. Joulie was referring to dishes like marinated leeks, canard confit (duck preserved in its own fat) and choucroute Alsacienne (sauerkraut garnished with pork and sausage). ‘Everyone loves a bargain, especially at a time of economic uncertainty.’ he said. ‘A three-course meal of freshly cooked, on-the-premises food for 20 euros served in 30 minutes — has never been more popular.’ (So popular, that Mr. Joulie revived the original second address of Chartier near the Gare Montparnasse on the Left Bank in February.)”
And so, with that, I have decided to start my first cooking series on Gourmand Film Writer. Inspired by this article, I have decided to dive into French country food typically served at Boullions. As a means of saving money, many of the recipes use tough cuts of meat or reduce the amount of a protein in a meal to level out the cost. The food has been truly delightful. Fresh, complicated, and dare I say, new to me. It is indeed simple food, which in some respects remind me more of Italian cuisine, but there’s no mistaken that the flavor profile is truly French. Some of these recipes I have taken and altered from greats like Jacques Pepin; others I have been inspired by the recipe and tried my own editions.
Ratatouille and Roasted Pork
“Ratatouille doesn’t sound delicious. It sounds like ‘rat’ and ‘patootie.’ Rat-patootie” - Linguini (Ratatouille).
I’m about to make a bold claim. I believe Ratatouille is Pixar’s best film. That being said, that is something one day I will tackle in a film essay. Instead of discussing the cinematic and narrative merits of Ratatouille, I want to use the film to introduce the next dish I made in my French Bouillon Eateries series: Ratatouille.
When Anton Ego takes a bite of Remy’s ratatouille, he is suddenly transported back to childhood; to his mother’s cooking. Ratatouille is a peasant’s dish made in the spring to celebrate spring vegetables. Food has the ability to take us to magical places, back to memories of relationships and love long since passed. Unlike Anton Ego though, my childhood memories of food I loved generally did not involve vegetables; when I was a kid, I would have been much more like Linguini saying that ratatouille doesn’t sound appetizing because it sounds like rat-patootie. Thankfully I grew up.
Ratatouille is an amazing dish, usually of stewed vegetables. In this version, I tried to copy Remy’s version of the dish. A sauce placed on the bottom, followed by mandolin vegetables on top and than roasted in the oven before finished with more of the sauce. The vegetables become almost like a napoleon. It’s an elegant and amazing way of serving ratatouille.
Because I am not vegetarian and like my meat, I also roasted a pork tenderloin and cut it thin to go with it as not to overwhelm the ratatouille which should be the star of the plate.
Enjoy!
Ingredients:
1 small to medium size eggplant
2 zucchini
2 yellow squash
1 pint of cherry tomatoes
1 can of crushed tomatoes
1 small onion
4 cloves of garlic
1 spring of rosemary
2 sprigs of thyme
10 basil leaves rolled and julienned
½ cup of white wine
1 cup of vegetable or chicken stock
1 yellow bell pepper
1 orange bell pepper
Olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
1 pork tenderloin
5 cloves of garlic
2 sprigs of rosemary
1 cup of olive oil
1 lemon, zested and juiced
Salt and pepper
Preheat oven to 350 degree.
Begin by dicing the onion and then placing it in a large pot with a tablespoon of olive oil. Turn the heat onto medium and saute for 5-7 minutes until translucent. Then add 1 clove of garlic minced to the pot as well and stir. Cook for another minute. At this point, add the cherry tomatoes whole and turn the heat to high. After a minute, add the white wine and cover. The white boiling will cause the cherry tomatoes to burst. Cook for 5-8 minutes with the lid on. Then take the lid off, add salt and pepper, and then mash with a potato masher. Add the can of crushed tomatoes and the cup of vegetable stock. Bring to a boil and reduce to a simmer. Simmer for 30 minutes. Then set aside to cool.
In the meantime, take the raw bell peppers and place over the fire on a gas burning stove or grill on a grill. Turn them occasionally until the skin has blackened and blistered. Take off the heat and place in a bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Let steam / cool for 5 minutes. When the 5 minutes are up, peel the skin off and slice. Add to the tomato sauce.
Next in a food processor, blend the remaining 6 cloves of garlic and 3 sprigs of rosemary together with salt. You want to form a rosemary garlic paste. Reserve 4 cloves worth of garlic, taking the remaining two and add it to the sauce.
In a plastic bag place the pork tenderloin. Add salt and pepper into the bag to coat the pork. Then add the garlic paste followed by the lemon zest, lemon juice, and then cup of olive oil. Massage the pork and then allow to marinate for an hour.
While the pork is marinating, begin slicing the zucchini, yellow squash both on a diagonal and the eggplant cut into slices and then divided into fourths. They all should be roughly the same size.
Take the now cool sauce and blend in a blender until smooth. Add in the basil leaves and blend again. Sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste.
Then in a pan, spread a little of the sauce on the bottom so that the vegetables will not stick. Then begin layering the vegetables in a row, slightly covering the previous one. Think like potatoes au gratin. Rotate each vegetable first eggplant, then yellow squash, then zucchini, and repeat. When does pour a little more sauce on top. Cover tightly with foil. Place in the oven and cook for 45 minutes. Remove the foil at the end and cook for another 15 minutes. When it is done, remove from the oven and keep warm.
Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Place the pork tenderloin on an aluminum foil lined sheet. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Place in the oven at 405 degrees for 20-30 minutes until the pork is medium. Remove from the oven and let cool for ten minutes.
Serve together and top the ratatouille with a basil leaf and a drizzle of oil.
