This is what it’s like being from the provinces. All your life you cook something called chambott’, especially as all the summer gardens come to fullness in the backyards of our homes. There are zucchini, caguzze, yellow and green. There are tomatoes bursting with juice, flesh and heat, sometimes the skin is actually starting to split, that means we have to use them that day, there is basil so pungent with flavor that along side of the tomatoes it actually is the smell of home. There are green bell peppers too. So it’s time to make a chambott for dinner. At the height of summer we make chambott a lot.
By the time I move to New York I realize everyone thinks I’m making rattatouie. That’s kind of hard in a way. This is one our dishes. No matter how much people call it ratatouille.
The way we used to make it was to put some oil in a big frying pan on the stove and in subsequent turns fry all of these vegetables.
One or two eggplants
Two or three zucchini
Two or three onions
Three cloves of garlic
Either two to four good fresh tomatoes, rip about half a bunch of basil into the tomatoes, can do parsley too if desired garlic.
Or one or two containers of grape tomatoes
8-10 peppers, red and yellows are even better
Can do potatoes too
Do some sliced onion into each mixture.
Good quality olive oil, salt, pepper, hot.
Clean and cut up vegetables into 1 ½ –2 inch cubes put into large bowl with enough olive oil, salt, pepper and hot if desired. Coat all the vegetables with this mixture and bake at preheated 450 degree oven and bake until carmelized.
As each one is done put in a bowl until they are all combined.Sometimes now I simply bake each of the vegetables in a roasting pan in the oven at a very high temperature, using some onions and or garlic along with each vegetable and mixing in the fresh basil leaves. They caramelize and taste divine when all assembled. It takes away the constant stirring time when you cook this on top of the stove.
