Briam
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Greek baked mixed vegetables in piquant tomato sauce.
This substantial main course dish recipe has multiple origins and creates fabulous herby aromas to go with the medley of sweet vegetables cooked in a fresh tomato sauce.
This recipe contains the following types of ingredient: plants and fungi.
Ingredients
Method:
Preparation - Make the sauce:
Skin the garlic.
Pick, wash, and briefly chop the herbs.
Using a food processor, blitz together garlic, tomatoes, oil, vinegar, sugar, herbs and capers. Check the flavour and season with salt and pepper and set aside.
Prepare the vegetables
Chop the tomato into eighths.
Skin the onions and cut lengthwise into quarters.
Skin the potatoes and cut into 1cm cubes.
Wash the aubergines, remove the stem, slice lengthways, and then cut into 2.5cm chunks.
Wash the courgettes and cut into 1cm rounds.
Remove pith and seeds from the peppers and cut into large slices. Trim the okra.
Cooking
Pre-heat a large casserole dish in the oven at gas mark 4 (180 °C; 350 °F).
Gently fry the onions and potatoes over a medium heat until the onions are just starting to brown (5 to 8 minutes).
Lightly oil the casserole dish and pack in the chopped tomato, onion chunks, fried potatoes, aubergine, courgette, peppers and okra.
Add 100 ml water, and then pour in the tomato sauce and ensure all vegetables have some sauce on them.
Cover with foil, and bake in the oven for one hour.
Remove the foil and add a little more water if the dish is dry. Bake for a further 30 minutes until the potatoes are crisp at the edges and tender in the centre of the dish.
Serve:
Serve hot from the oven sprinkled with chopped fresh herbs if available, with a glass of wine and some crusty bread.
Note
The skill in this dish is to make the different vegetables all finish at the same time, so you need small pieces of potato, pre-fried, medium chunks of courgette, and large pieces of aubergine. Onion, okra and peppers will be OK.