BRIAM (GREEK-STYLE ROASTED VEGETABLES WITH GRATED TOMATO AND OLIVE OIL) - p. 165.
This recipe is written to serve a crowd. It makes two 9X13-inch baking dishes worth of food. We are not a crowd - there are just two of us at Casa de Mel (well, not including the cats), so I halved the recipe. All the veg (squash [I used yellow], onion, eggplant, bell pepper, potatoes, garlic, cherry tomatoes) are cut up and put in a large bowl. They are tossed with grated tomatoes, olive oil, salt, and black pepper. The recipe specifies “a lot of salt,” and I think that’s a good instruction, as a lot of cooks would tend to undersalt this. The baking pan (or pans, if you are making a full recipe) are covered with foil and baked for 40 minutes at 350F. Tip: anytime you bake anything with acid in it, such as tomato or lemon, covered with foil, it’s a good idea to rub the side of the foil that will be facing the food with oil. Otherwise, when you remove the dish from the oven, you might find holes in your foil and bits of aluminum dotting your food. So, yeah, I oil my foil. After the covered bake, the heat goes up to 400 and the dish is baked uncovered for another 30-40 minutes. I forgot to set the timer immediately after uncovering and turning up the heat, so when I realized that I guesstimated the time and set the timer for 30 minutes, figuring it had already been 10.
The veg come out perfectly soft, flavors melded, and just lovely, assuming you’ve seasoned them well. Eggplant is always a veg where I love it if it is cooked a certain way, and I hate it if it is cottony. No issues here. I feel like the covered, then uncovered instruction in this recipe is exactly what was missing from the biftekia recipe that I reported on above.
