This month’s recipe is based loosely on pisto, a Spanish dish that is related in a Mediterranean way to the ratatouille of France and Caponata of Italy. It’s an everyday dish using summer vegetables cooked slowly, without fuss and often served with a fried egg on top. The runny yolk of the egg adds another layer of flavour and the whole lot is mopped up with crusty bread. Deliciously simple. It can also be served alongside meat and fish as a saucy vegetable, as a cold salad addition or on toast with ripped up mozzarella balanced on top.
It’s a dish I often make when we are travelling, as it is a one pot wonder. The last version I made contained sweet potato, not traditional, although one of the first incarnations of this dish made by the Moors was with pumpkin so it’s not too far off the original track.
The ingredients are fairly flexible but would always contain onions, peppers, tomato and garlic and then maybe courgettes, aubergine and pumpkin. The ingredient list sounds the same as ratatouille but the vegetables are cut into smaller pieces and then gently braised in olive oil so it tastes quite different.
It takes a little time to cook but after chopping the vegetables the only work is to stir the pan.
Eat it hot, room temperature or the next day. It will sit comfortably in the fridge for two to three days.
Pisto
Ingredients:
• 1 large onion
• 1 carrot
• 2 stems celery
• 1 small fennel
• 100mls olive oil
• 1 red pepper
• 1 green pepper
• half bulb garlic
• 1 stem rosemary
• 1 sweet potato
• 1 courgette
• 3 ripe tomatoes
• Salt and black pepper
Method
Begin with prepping the first four ingredients: Peel and chop the onion, peel and dice the carrot, cut the fennel into half or quarters and finely slice, split the celery stem lengthwise then dice small.
Heat a large pan – this can be a skillet or shallow saucepan, add enough olive oil to generously cover the bottom of the pan, then the chopped vegetables. Cook on a high heat until everything is sizzling then turn the heat to medium low, you should still hear some activity but not too much. Season with a little salt, add the rosemary and keep giving the odd stir while you prepare the other veg.
Cut the peppers in half, remove the seeds and stem then cut into 2cm strips, then into a 2cm dice. Peel the sweet potato and cut into a dice, roughly 2cm.
Wash the courgette, cut into quarters lengthwise the chop into 2cm dice. Dice the tomatoes small.
When the onions and so on have softened – this will take approx. 10 minutes – stir in the peppers. Increase the heat to get everything sizzling again then lower to medium. Cook for 10 minutes then stir in the sweet potato. Stir to combine the sweet potato with all the melted down veg then add the courgette and diced tomato. Cook gently, the tomato will break down and become sauce. Season with salt and black pepper.
Cover the pot with a lid then simmer for 10 minutes, until the sweet potato is tender. Keep an eye on it so that it doesn’t stick. Check the seasoning and then it’s ready to serve.
We have our garden planted up and now we’re patiently waiting for everything to grow. This week’s rainy weather will help it all along and then I hope the sunshine will be back.
Enjoy June!
Karen
Lettercollum Kitchen Project,
Timoleague
info@lettercollum.ie
www.lettercollum.ie
023 8846251
