Twice Roasted Asian Ratatouille

Over the weekend, I went to the northern Philippines, at the province of Ilocos, for a short vacation with two girl friends. It's a very beautiful place, with many historic churches, windmills, sand dunes, mansions owned by famous historical figures, including former President Marcos. The place is also famous for longganisa, a local pork sausage, and bagnet, a slab of fatty pork that is deep fried. The food was great, but oh so fatty! So it seems quite fitting to post this vegetarian recipe, because tomorrow will be back to reality, and back to a more "normal" diet. Aside from that, I'm posting this here for one of the friends I was with over this short vacation, my friend G, who just loves this dish and who is requesting for its recipe.

This is a twist on another recipe I posted here, Twice Roasted Vegetables with Quinoa. This one has a more Asian flavour, because of the hoisin sauce, sesame oil and Chinese wine.

I used yellow and green zucchini, eggplants, red and yellow bell peppers, broccoli, button mushrooms and onions. But you can also do this with other vegetables like cabbage, other kinds of mushrooms, pumpkin, French beans, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts...the possibilities are endless!




Note: I roast the vegetables twice, because I don't want the dish to be watery. The first time, I roast them on a baking sheet covered with baking paper, until they are slightly brown and dry. Then I put them all in a baking dish, cover them with the sauce, then roast them again.  This is because when I mix them all up in a dish and roast them, I find that some of the water retaining vegetables like zucchini, eggplant and mushroom, weep and make the dish wet. But if you don't mind this, then just roast them once.

A variation would be to drain the vegetables and get the liquid and thicken it with a tablespoon of cornstarch and heat it.  Once the sauce is thick, pour it over the vegetables and mix well.

TWICE ROASTED ASIAN RATATOUILLE

1 cup each of any vegetables that you like, cut or sliced

Sauce:
4 tablespoon Hoisin sauce
4 tablespoons Chinese wine
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1/8 teaspoon chili flakes, optional

Mix all ingredients in a bowl.

Procedure:

Follow Step 1 and 2 of the recipe Twice Roasted Vegetables with Quinoa. But for step 2, after putting the roasted vegetables into the baking dish, pour the sauce instead on the vegetables and mix well with two large spoons.

Put the vegetables back into the oven, which has been preheated to 360F.  Roast for 10 minutes. Take it out of the oven and mix the vegetables so that the ones underneath will also get brown. Return back to the oven, and roast for 10 minutes more, until the vegetables' edges are brown.