When I first decided to make this I had thought about making and easier version of ratatouille, and then I decided I should try making a béchamel and make some sort of cross between a ratatouille and a lasagne, bringing about the term ratatagne as coined by a colleague of mine.
It’s the kind of dish you want in winter, tomato-y, creamy, buttery and hearty.
What you’ll need
- Winter veg – choose your favourites. I used broccoli, carrot, beans, cauliflower, mushroom, sweet potato, potato, eggplant and onions
- Chopped tomatoes (canned or fresh, you pick)
- Italian herbs
- Pepper
- Salt
- Garlic
- Chilli Flakes
- 50g butter
- 1/4 cup plain flour
- 2 1/2 cups milk
Procedure
Bechamel
- Melt butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Add flour. Cook, stirring, with a wooden spoon, for 1 to 2 minutes or until mixture bubbles. Gradually stir in milk.
- Bring to the boil. Reduce heat to medium. Cook, stirring, for 4 to 5 minutes or until mixture thickens. Season with salt and pepper.
Ratatagne
- Preheat your oven to 180oC
- Grab your chopped tomatoes (I used canned) and put a layer on the bottom. Pick up your herbs and/or spices and garlic, chilli flakes and diced or minced onion and mix it into the tomato. Save enough for a second layer
- Layer with any vegetables, barring eggplant, potato and sweet potato (I saved thin round cuts of these for the top layers.
- I put a layer of just mushrooms next and followed it up with a thin layer of béchamel and sprinkle of cheese
- More veg, béchamel
- Eggplant sweet potato and potato. If you have béchamel left use it here, cheese, herbs and chuck it in.
I baked this for AGES. I think it was about 90 minutes at the end of it, everything was well cooked, but still a little crisp, but cooking time was the long one. I made it a night before and left it in the oven (because its winter and I knew it would be ok) and just reheated it for about 1 hour in the oven again!