Tian? What is Tian?

One of Monsieur Titi's and my favorite veggie dishes is a tian. This is a southern Mediterranean dish common to the south of France. The word "Tian" is the square or rectangular earthen-ware dish which traditionally holds the veggies. Thus, Tian became the name of the entire dish.

I don't have an earthenware dish, so I used a metal baking pan. There's really no set recipe for this dish. Everyone in France probably has their own way of doing this. Here's what I do.

Assemble all the ingredients. Yesterday, I used 3 good sized eggplants, peeled; 4 medium zucchini, 6 tomatoes, seeded; 2 red bell peppers, 2 onions and 6 buds of garlic. My pan is a little bigger than 13"x9".

First, get all the veggies ready to go. Then, cover the bottom of the pan with good olive oil. Heat oven to 180°C or 360°F.
Do one layer with eggplants, zucchini, onions, pour olive oil and sprinkle with "Herbes de Provence". Do a second layer as the first.
When finished, put the red peppers and tomatoes and pour a little more olive oil on top.

Ready to go into the oven

The idea is to bake the veggies for a very long time. I start out with a relatively hot oven. After about 30 minutes, I turn the heat down to around 150°C (300°F) for a good hour, then 30 minutes or so from the end, I put the oven at 125°C (250°F). The tian will cook about 2 hours total. At the last decrease in temperature, I put rounds of fresh goat cheese on top.

Hot out of the oven

A close-up.

You can see from the above photo, that the veggies are all carilmelized. Serve hot. And enjoy!!!