Oven Ratatouille (Firinda Sebze): How to Deal with Imperfections

The other day I re-took Myers Briggs test to find out my personality type has changed over the past ten years. From ENFJ I have gone to INFP. I wonder if this shift reflects the fundamental change in my character or just describes the current moment. From extravert I have gone introvert: who could tell?! But then I have never been spending so much time with other people - my extended family, my clients, my market vendors and Istanbul crowds. After time with them I happily crawl into my own shell and love staying there for a while undisturbed. From judgmental I went to more reliant on intuition: I guess being in the new culture I can’t always rely on the logical clues to explain the behavior of people around me. So I develop sensing rather than judging.

My new resulting personality type is INFP, “The Idealist” which describes the current me so well. I am looking for harmony in people, things and relationships of them all. When I don’t find it I get very upset. I start seeing only imperfection around me and feel more and more miserable.

Yesterday we went for the third, final as we were told, trial of my wedding dress (yes, I have decided to marry my husband eventually, how great is that?!). I was so happy with the choice of the bridal shop since the staff showed most understanding and cooperation to date. And the dress we have chosen is exactly what I was looking for. In the whole wedding planning it has been my dress I have felt most certain and positive about. Two first trials went really smooth: the tailors kept adjusting various parts of the dress - layer by layer. It was at the third trial when I got to see the dress as a whole. Only to see though because I could not wear it: the back lacing did not open up enough for my shoulders to fit in. The tailor arrived to rip out the unfortunately long seam and as I had the dress on I almost immediately found four other serious faults. Pour Özgür! He kept repeating how beautiful I looked without understanding what I was talking about. I have managed to explain myself to the tailors though and they promised to fix it in two days.

I so wanted my wedding to be perfect. Armed with Pinterest I have been clipping bits of perfection from wedding blogs and professional wedding photographers websites (no-no to any bride-to-be). And then I was pressurizing my husband about implementing those inspirational bits. Not that I am very demanding. Friend of my mother-in-law who would handle the decoration said she had relaxed after talking to us since it is the brides who are the hardest to please and we agreed on the setup within 15 minutes. “Table covers? Plain or lace?” For a moment I thought how we can put a color table cover under the lace one. And then I said, “Who cares. Lace!” And I never got back to reconsider. See, I don’t want a 3-layer cake. But in those things I want I expect perfection. This is why I considered a team of professional make-up artists and hair stylist who work in movie productions in Istanbul for my bridal makeup and hair. Whose price quote gave a shock to my husband as it exceeds the price of my dress or my monthly rent in Istanbul.

As the preparation continued I had to come to terms with the fact: pinterest boards have nothing to do with the reality and here is no way to get this wedding perfect. My mother-in-law wanted to make a big perfect thing for me too. But so it happened that many due payments could not be completed so her plan does not seem to come true either. Even with all the money she just does not have the energy and health enough to run the organization. Her cancer diagnosis which was suspected by many in the family is confirmed. “What will happen to my mom?”, asked me Özgür after she told us. And you are talking about a perfect wedding?

Yet the guests are coming. About half of them from abroad. So we will host them and entertain in the best way we can. And they are all family and good friends and it is really hard to screw up in the company of close friends and family who have seen the worst of you already. And then Ozgur is professional organizer and above all very sane man who has thousand and hundred too many little details of any event in his head without taking a single note. And even I can’t reclaim the plan from his head to write it down on the paper I have confidence in him. This is why I decided to marry the guy on the first place. So we can’t screw up in a big way.

After this reconciliation I go to the kitchen and look around for what to cook the lunch with. We have a lot a lot of Bayram leftovers - raw and cooked. So I pick up a couple of zucchini with rather ugly skins, a few starting to dry up eggplants and some way too soft tomatoes. No one wants to cook with ingredients like this but throwing them is a crime. If my ingredients are not perfect at least the timing is. I set my mind for ratatouille. I grate my soft tomatoes so the skins get naturally discarded and make a tomato sauce heavy on onion, garlic and green pepper. Meanwhile I thinly sliced eggplant, zucchini, potato and carrot and stack them on a greased baking tray as library card index, sprinkle the tomato sauce and garbanzo beans on top. And send it to the oven covered so it does not dry too fast.

I cook the ratatouille and cook and cook and after an hour the vegetables still remain crunchy. This is one of the things I still can’t figure out with our oven: how to use it. My mother-in-law has a professional oven that bakes at lower temperatures. I remember how my Easter bread was baked at 150C/302F mostly and she herself never goes over 165C/329C which she claims corresponds to the 180C/356C in a normal oven. So the meal time is coming and my ratatouille is still not ready. In desperation I transfer in into a dish suitable for a stove - destroying the beautiful library index card arrangement at most parts of course. More water, lid and 20 minutes of intense boiling produce the desired result - but not the presentation. The dish looks like a mess.

If you want to treat perfectionism in something you must start turning volumes of that something. Like I am sure if I had a 5th wedding (God forbids) I would have been way more laid back and less demanding. In cooking I am miles away from perfectionism because perfectionism is a bad strategy at the kitchen - it really slows you down. If you are to put a meal on the table for 8-10 people you have no room for perfectionism.

As I have brewed the tea and taken the plates upstairs to set a table under the walnut tree I turn on the oven again and quickly put together the topping of egg, cottage cheese, bread crumbs, sesame seeds and yogurt. 10 more minutes for the topping to roast and some fresh parsley for a fresh finish - and my ratatouille is ready to serve. The presentation is still better than Turkish dishes have in 80% cases and everyone complements on the dish. But then follows the reaction which every meatless dish I make gets from my Turkish eaters, “It is so good .. yet you could have thrown a bit of meat inside.. just a but”. I think this is how I may have sounded yesterday at my bridal dress trial.

Oven Ratatouille (Fırında Sebze)

Delicious way to use not so attractively looking vegetables and feed many with one pot.

Serves: 8-9

Ingredients

Tomato Sauce

• 1/2 cup olive oil and more fore greasing
  
• 3 medium onions, finely diced
  
• 5 large garlic cloves, crashed
  
• 1 tsp ground coriander seeds
• 1 tsp ground black pepper
• 2 large green peppers, (I like using soft variety called “village pepper” in Turkey) seeded and finely sliced
• 5 medium tomatoes, grated and skin discarded
• 2 tbsp salt

Ratatouille

• 3 medium eggplants, thinly sliced
• 3 medium zucchini, thinly sliced
• 2 medium carrots, thinly sliced
• 2 medium potato, thinly sliced
• 1.5 cup cooked garbanzo beans

Cottage Cheese Topping

• 2 eggs
• 1 cup thick yoghurt
• 1 cup cottage cheese
• 1 tbsp dry thyme
  
• 1/3 cup bread crumbs
• 1 tbsp toasted sesame seeds
• 1 tbsp salt
• fresh parsley finely chopped
  

Directions

1. Prepare the tomato sauce: In a large saucepan heat the olive oil and soften the onions and garlic (about 7-10 minutes), then add the coriander, black pepper and chopped fresh green peppers and let them fry for a few minutes before you stir in the grated tomato. Let simmer for 10 minutes for tomatoes to release their juices fully and then set aside. Unlike the regular sauce making when you want it to cook down a lot in this case you want to leave it rather watery so that there is enough cooking liquid for the long baking in the oven. I cook the whole sauce at highest heat for quick result and toss the pan frequently.
2. Prepare the topping: Mix well the cottage cheese topping ingredients and set aside.
   
3. Assemble the ratatouille: Preheat the oven to 190 C/375F. Ideally by now you have four bowls of thinly sliced vegetables and a pan of tomato sauce. Divide the sauce into four parts, transfer each quarter into a bowl of vegetables and bath vegetable slices in the sauce. Grease a baking tray with olive oil and arrange vegetable slices like library index cards altering the colors - few slices zucchini followed by eggplant and then potato followed by carrot and so on. Arrange the garbanzo beans on top and spread the cottage cheese topping using a spatula. Cover with aluminum foil and send to oven for about an hour. Then remove the foil and let it cook for 10-15 more minutes for the topping to roast and get rather pretty. Serve hot seasoned with chopped herbs (eg. parsley).