Ross Geach at Trerethern Farm, also known as Padstow Kitchen Garden, grows wonderful vegetables on his land overlooking the Camel estuary. The view alone makes you feel the vegetables will taste really special, which indeed they do. I cooked this for a sequence in my Rick Stein’s Cornwall series, having remembered a lovely slow-cooked vegetable dish called briam from the island of Corfu, and it works a treat. As our local vegetables don’t perhaps have the intense sweetness of Mediterranean produce, I added some chilli and feta to give it a bit more oomph.
Serves 6-8
150ml olive oil, plus extra for greasing
500g waxy new potatoes, peeled and cut lengthways into 5mm slices
400g carrots, peeled or scrubbed and sliced lengthways
2 large courgettes (about 400g) sliced lengthways
1 large onion, peeled and sliced
5–6 garlic cloves, peeled and sliced
300g tenderstem broccoli
4 large tomatoes (or 6 medium),thickly sliced
1 red or green finger chilli, sliced
Handful flatleaf parsley, chopped
A few thyme sprigs, leaves stripped from the woody stalks
200ml passata
100g feta cheese, crumbled
Salt and black pepper
Preheat the oven to 190°C/Fan 170°C. Grease a roasting tin or a shallow, lidded casserole dish with oil.
Spread the potato slices in a single layer and season well with salt and pepper.
Layer the carrots on top, then the courgettes, then the onion and garlic, seasoning each layer with plenty of salt and pepper.
Scatter over the broccoli and cover it with tomato slices.
Add the chilli, herbs and a final sprinkling of salt and pepper. Pour over the passata and the olive oil.
Cover the roasting tin tightly with foil or put a tight-fitting lid on the dish and place in the oven for about 11/4 hours.
Sprinkle over the crumbled feta and return the tin to the oven, uncovered, for a further 15–20 minutes.
Allow it to cool slightly before serving as a side dish or as a main with crusty bread or rice.
Rick’s Smart tip
You can use any late summer vegetables you have for this dish.
Extracted from Rick Stein at Home by Rick Stein (BBC Books, $55).
Photography by James Murphy
