This weekend, I planned to do some serious cooking. Ever since we had seen the Disney/Pixar movie Ratatouille, we were aching for some good ratatouille. Funny actually, that you can get hungry from watching CG imagery of food cooked by rats. But then, I found out that star-studded, best-of-America cook Thomas Keller from The French Laundry had been in charge of creating the dishes cooked in the movie, and also took in the animators as interns to teach them how things work in a kitchen.
Anyhow, thanks to Remy the rat, I went to search for the recipe for the movie’s signature dish, and lo and behold: Google provided. So, I spent half of last Saturday shopping, cooking, tasting, and enjoying some really good food. I had to make some translations and clever adaptations to the recipe (I don’t think you can get either japanese eggplant or yellow squash around here). Combine the efforts with a good bottle of red wine Globus cleverly convinced me to buy (El Molino de Puelles) while I was actually buying a present for Grubi, and you have:
The Menu
Le crottin de chèvre chaud et ses poires caramelisées sur salade verte
(Grilled goat cheese on salad and honey-caramelized pears) [recipe]
Carré d’agneau mariné aux herbes provençales et Confit Byaldi
(Marinaded lamb rack with Ratatouille ratatouille) [recipes]
&&&
Glace vanille et cafés
(not very inspired, this dessert, I admit…)
The major trick here was to start off my Saturday with shopping at the market for the fresh veggies, and the directly prepare the Confit Byaldi. Once that is done, the way is clear for the lamb rack and finally the goat cheese. That way, you actually have very little to do during the “hot phase” when you should above all entertain your guests. Again, I wanted to take pictures of the dishes in the making, but again, I of course forgot. So, there are no illustrations unfortunately. But what is better than just letting you imagine the sight of these dishes and the aroma above all!
