Briam Recipe (Greek Roasted Summer Vegetables)

Briam looks like ratatouille and is cooked on completely different principles. Ratatouille cooks each vegetable separately to keep its character. Briam does the opposite: everything goes into one tray and cooks together for an hour and a half until the distinctions break down and it becomes one thing.

That is not laziness, it is the intention. The vegetables release their water, the water and the olive oil combine into a sauce, the sugars concentrate and the edges caramelise. What comes out is sweeter and deeper than the sum of the parts.

The mistake is treating it as a quick roasted vegetable tray. Forty minutes gives you nice roasted vegetables. Ninety gives you briam.

Key preparation steps

1. Slice everything to a similar thickness so it cooks at the same rate.
2. Use far more olive oil than a normal roasting tray.
3. Cover for the first hour so it stews, then uncover to brown.
4. Rest and serve warm, not hot.

How is briam different from ratatouille?

Method, mainly. Ratatouille is a French dish where the vegetables are traditionally cooked separately and combined at the end, so each keeps its own texture. Briam is a single tray, baked as one, with everything cooked to complete softness.

Briam also includes potato, which ratatouille does not, and it uses considerably more olive oil. The herb is oregano rather than herbes de Provence, and there is no basil.

The results genuinely taste different. Briam is sweeter, heavier and more unified; ratatouille is fresher and more distinct.

Which vegetables, and how to cut them

Courgette, aubergine, potato, onion, red pepper and tomato is the standard set. Some households add green beans or okra in season.

Cut everything into rounds or half-moons about 5 to 7 mm thick, and keep the thickness consistent across vegetables. Potato needs the longest, so slice it slightly thinner than the rest to even things out.

Grate two of the tomatoes rather than slicing them, and use the pulp as the sauce base with the oil. Slice the rest and lay them on top, where they will dry and concentrate.

Covered then uncovered

Cover the tray with foil for the first hour. This traps steam and lets the vegetables stew in their own juices, which is what gets them completely soft and lets the flavours combine.

Then take the foil off for the last thirty minutes so the liquid reduces and the top browns and catches. This is where the caramelisation happens and it is a large part of the flavour.

Uncovered from the start, the top dries out and burns while the bottom is still raw, and you have to keep adding water, which dilutes everything.

How much olive oil?

Around 150 ml for a large tray, which is more than a normal roast. Briam is a ladera dish and the oil is not there simply to stop things sticking.

It emulsifies with the vegetable juices and the grated tomato to form the sauce that pools in the bottom of the tray, and that sauce is what you eat with bread afterwards.

Serve warm rather than hot, with feta and bread. Like all ladera dishes it is better the next day, and it is very good cold.

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