Working with tahini is an act of faith and perseverance. You must be able to hold fast to your conviction that everything will turn out fine. ​

When it's fresh, sesame seed butter is smooth and a bit runny. That can deceive you into believing that making a sauce with it will be a breeze. (Not-so fresh tahini can be dry and clumpy, like the last bit of peanut butter at the bottom of the jar. It will require extra patience.)

​Tahini is bitter on its own; so most recipes are going to call for the addition of water, citrus juice or oil. But when tahini meets liquid, it typically seizes up... appears to break.... becomes something scary, nothing like the lusciousness it was moments before. 

I love messing around with super nutritious esoteric ingredients, using them to reinvent more familiar dishes in a cleaner way. I’ve used chia seeds to try to get somewhere close to my grandmother’s banana pudding. I’ve used flaxseeds to mimic an egg.  I am completely comfortable with the idea of pureed cashews as a “cheese.” In the pursuit of optimal health, I am not afraid to take risks.
 
But sometimes I wish it could be like the old days, when we didn’t have to think so hard about what foods were healthy; we just had a repertoire of dishes that were familiar and we never questioned them. My grandmother had a repertoire of family heirloom recipes built entirely around seasonality, with little regard to nutrient content. I envy her free reign with butter and cream atop all of those garden vegetables; all that bacon grease stored on the stovetop in a coffee can.
 
As our knowledge of the connection between our food and health expands, we are forced to look at our family’s traditional foods with new eyes. And so for people like me, with an extra keen interest in nutrition and a willingness to experiment, things can get interesting. 

​Socca is an example of a dish that makes me happy because it hits all the notes of a clean diet, but it is a time-honored classic. Chic pea flour is hardly a familiar ingredient here in the states, but it’s been used since ancient times all over the rest of the world. There are variations of this crepe like, oven baked, four ingredient flatbread in Italy (farinata or torta de ceci)…in Gibraltar (calentita)…in Uruguay (faina) and northern India (cheela).
 
It is gluten free, dairy free, sugar free and soy free only by coincidence, not design, making it so easy for me to adore.

Chic pea flour, also know as Besan or Gram flour, can be found in any Indian grocery store or ordered on line. I have started to see it in regular grocery stores here and there. It is a denser, heavier flour so take the time to sift it before adding in the water. 

You're making a pancake batter so a whisk is your tool of choice. The batter will be thin and should be lump free. If sifting the dry flour didn't yield you a smooth batter, go ahead and put the wet batter through a sieve as well. 

Rosemary is a traditional Provencal herb of choice, but there are no limitations here. I have used chives, cilantro or thyme. The objective with the fresh herbs is to lend flavor notes to the Socca. (And I like the phytonutrients they lend as well.) Chic pea flour has a bitter earthy flavor that needs balance from the floral herbs. 

It is customary to let the Socca batter sit for several hours before cooking. I have used the batter immediately and seen little difference in the results. But I like that I can make the batter ahead of time - even in the morning before heading to work - and cook the Socca whenever I'm ready to eat. 

The key to Socca is a super hot pan. So set your oven to at least 450 and let it preheat. Once it is preheated, heat a dry 9 to 12 inch cast iron pan for about 5 minutes. 

Remove the heated pan from the oven and swirl in a couple of tablespoons of olive oil. Then the batter. Make sure you coat the pan well with the batter. The oil will mix in and float on top. That's what you want. 

Put the Socca on the top oven rack and let it bake for about 5 minutes until it is well set. Then turn your broiler on for another 2 minutes or so until you see the top browning. Carefully remove from the oven. Slide a thin spatula around the edges and then underneath to loosen; and then onto a plate or cutting board. Always serve Socca immediately. 

There is something about this dish that really plays on my fantasy of living in the French countryside. It’s a traditional Provencal summer dish, the ingredients of which could be gathered solely from one well-planned garden in July and throughout most of August.  The ingredients are not exclusive to the south of France; my own grandmother would have grown the traditional zucchini, eggplant, tomatoes and peppers in her garden in rural Kentucky.

It’s the abundance of herbs that inspire the romance around this dish for me.  (My grandmother didn’t grow many herbs). Any combination of summer herbs: basil, parsley, thyme, rosemary are typical. I’ve read some French cooks even add fresh lavender, which I’ve yet to try. Some fantasies may best be kept elusive.
                                                      
Perhaps the romance lies in how ratatouille represents what is best about French country cooking: simplicity. It’s really just a vegetable stew. There is a brilliant humility about it. ​

Like so many other iconic national dishes, ratatouille has some essential ingredients - eggplant, zucchini and tomato - along with possible other elements that vary from cook to cook. These elements are usually guarded like a dark family secret.

My recipe includes balsamic vinegar: not a traditional ingredient to ratatouille, although some cooks do use it.  It is a sweet and tart contribution.

The vibrant colors of the ingredients reflect the depth of phytonutrients inherent in this dish: yet another reason to love it. For example: the deep purple eggplant (anthocyanin), the red tomatoes (lycopene), and the green zucchinis (chlorophyll). Instead of the usual red or green bell peppers, look for the orange or purple or yellow for beta-carotene and Vitamin C (source here).The aromatics (garlic and onions) bring allyl sulfides and bioflavonoids, for cancer prevention (source here). And those beautiful herbs I love bring in polyphenols and endless other beneficial nutrients (source here). I think it would be fair to call ratatouille a power dish - nutritionally speaking. 

​You can put a ratatouille together in various ways. I love the beautiful photos of the dish done with layers of sliced vegetables arranged in a circle, like a tian.  But I am suspicious of how well the flavors meld presented like that. The success of a good ratatouille is the synergy between the ingredients, the melding of flavors. That’s what makes it a stew.

However, that does not mean that the cubed vegetables (as this recipe suggests) should collapse into each other completely. Mushy and unrecognizable is not the goal. 

The secret to maintaining the integrity of each vegetable is two-part. First, take the time to sear the zucchini and eggplant to give them a nice crust. Second, don’t cook the ratatouille too long.

​NOTE ABOUT THE EGGPLANT: The eggplant can be cubed with the skin left on, if you like.  Some find the skins of eggplant bitter and if so, you can remove them. You can also take the time to salt and let the eggplant drain for half an hour to further remove any bitterness. Be sure to rinse and dry the cubed eggplant if you do this step.

NOTE ABOUT THE ZUCCHINI: Make sure you let the zucchini (and eggplant) get a nice brown crust. Don't overcrowd the pan while searing the vegetables; you may need to do it in several batches. It's worth the effort: you gain some texture to the vegetables that will keep them from becoming mushy.