Original Italian name: Tiella Verdure
Place of origin: Apulia, Puglia (Southern Italy)

Every time when I cook something from Italian cuisine I know exactly the taste of the dish promise to be rewarding the effort.

This time I decided to cook  new vegetables dish which I am completely unaware of the final result. I have various vegetables in the fridge and though to give them a go in a baked form of using the recipe from Southern Italy Puglia.

I tend to cook usually following the original Italian recipe but this time felt confident enough to make  a bit of my own interpretation.

Tiella is said to be Spain origin, according to its name, which sounds odd to Apulian ears, is similar to the Spain word Paella. The original recipe, with rice and mussels, is also very similar to the Iberian specialty. The word Tiella was later used to describe all dishes made in a pot of a particular shape. The Tiella, prepared with mixed vegetables, is a common first course in Apulia, and it can be served as an alternative to pasta. Personally to me this vegetable dish is also a wonderful side dish to many meat dishes.

I took tomatoes, eggplants, zucchini for cooking this Vegetable Bake. I did not have  Mozzarella recommended for this recipe so I used mix of soft and hard cheeses instead. I combined breadcrumbs with basil and sprinkled over vegetables and cheese. After that I simply baked the mix. And the result… was extremely fabulous! Delicious, tastefully, original flavour of fresh vegetables! I used light extra virgin olive oil for this dish and get very rich vegetable taste without any oily tones. To be honest, just one thing I’d change -I’d cut number of tomatoes a bit in my dish.  So the next time I would make 50-50 proportion between eggplants and tomatoes.

Ingredients (serves 4-6)

400g tomatoes, thickly sliced
2 eggplants, diced
2 zucchini, diced
2 red or yellow bell peppers, sliced
300 g Mozzarella cheese
1/3 cup of fresh breadcrumbs
1 bunch of basil, chopped
fresh oregano, chopped
salt and pepper to taste

Method

Preheat the oven to 200 C.

Finely slice the vegetables. Crease a casserole dish with olive oil, and fill with layers of vegetables and Mozzarella, until they have been used up. Every layer should be season a little with salt and pepper, sprinkle with breadcrumbs, olive oil, basil and Mozzarella cheese.

Combine the breadcrumbs with oregano, season with salt and pepper, and sprinkle over the vegetables and cheese. Finally, drizzle with olive oil and bake in the oven for about 1 hour.