I have always wanted to make a tian provençale, but it looked like an intimidating thing to make. It’s not, really, and you can make it, too, in about an hour, including bake time.
Tian is pronounced tee-yawn, except that you say it all really fast and you don’t pronounce the ‘n’ at the end. The word tian refers to the earthenware platter that’s used to make this dish. It’s usually lacquered, and mine is on the bottom, but it has a teflon coating on the inside. Tian is considered a typically provençale summer dish, and is usually served as a side to grilled fish, beef or lamb.
You’ll need a medium-sized eggplant and zucchini, 4 large tomatoes, and two red onions. I’m showing more vegetables below because I expected to use two eggplant and zucchini, but finally they didn’t fit in the pan.
You’ll also want to have some bay leafs, sprigs of thyme, garlic, dried oregano and olive oil on hand.
Take your tian (the platter, not the prepared dish) and cut a piece of garlic in two. Drizzle just a little bit of olive oil in the bottom of your dish and rub the two halves of the garlic in the olive oil to cover the bottom and sides of the pan. Don’t think that this doesn’t make a difference, this little touch, because it does. The garlic smell comes out while baking and permeates the entire dish.
Preheat your oven to 180°C, or about 350°F. Slice all the vegetables thinly. You want to try and find vegetables that have roughly the same diameter. It’s hard. Our zucchini are always the skinniest (although they do sell round zucchini here and I could have bought those instead).
You don’t peel the vegetables first, unless you see brown “scars” on the zucchini or something – peel those off. Then all you have to do is alternate the slices, end to end, in the tian. Like so.
One trick you can do, if some of the slices are smaller than others, is to wedge a slice of zucchini under the smaller portion to pop it up so all the slices look to be about the same.
Now give a quick sprinkle of dried oregano and a more generous sprinkle of sea salt. You’ll want to crush 2 cloves of garlic and spread them over the top, along with 8 sprigs of fresh thyme and 5 bay leaves tucked in various places. Finally, you drizzle olive oil all over the dish.
You can make variations of tian, such as adding slices of new potatoes, but in that case you’ll need to cover it with foil for 45 minutes and cook it an extra 15 minutes uncovered. The potatoes should not be too thick. You can also sprinkle parmesan on top.
But what we’re making today is tian — plain ole traditional tian.
You bake it for 45 minutes, and it looks like this. You will probably have a lot of juice at the bottom of the pan, which is normal. Use a slotted spoon to remove the vegetables and leave the juice behind.
The mix of fresh and dried herbs make the vegetables in this dish taste amazing. The flavours pop and I was surprised to see that even my kids like it.
Carefully lift out the slices for individual plates and serve while still hot.
Et voilà! It even tastes good the next day.
- 1 medium eggplant
- 1 medium zucchini
- 4 large tomatoes
- 2 red onions
- 3 cloves of garlic
- 8 sprigs of thyme
- 5 bay leaves
- a sprinkle of oregano and sea salt
- about 2 tablespoons of olive oil
- Preheat the oven to 180°C / 350°F.
- Wash and slice all the vegetables.
- Grease the tian with olive oil and rub 2 halves of a garlic clove on the bottom and sides.
- Arrange the slices, alternating with each vegetable.
- Mince the two remaining garlic cloves and sprinkle that on top.
- Sprinkle oregano and sea salt on top.
- Add sprigs of thyme and bay leaves, and drizzle olive oil over the top.
- Bake for 45 minutes.
