Briam: Greek Roasted Vegetables in Olive Oil
Briam is the Greek vegetable bake: courgette, potato, onion, pepper and tomato, cut thin, dressed in a great deal of olive oil and left in a slow oven long enough to give up their water and collapse into one another. It is a main course, not a side, and it is eaten warm or at room temperature with bread and a piece of cheese. This serves six.
Plate I · IllustrationRecord
What makes it ladera, not roasted vegetables
The oil, and the patience.
Briam belongs to ladera — “oiled” — the category of Greek dishes named after olive oil, in which, as Diane Kochilas puts it, the oil is the cooking medium rather than a finishing flavour, with more raw oil going over at the end. That is a different proposition from a British tray of roasted vegetables tossed in a couple of tablespoons. Here 160ml goes in at the start, for about a kilo and a half of vegetables, and it does not evaporate: when the dish is done, the water has gone and what remains in the tin is clear oil with the vegetables sitting in it. That oil is part of the dish and goes onto the plate.
The patience is the other half. A hot, fast oven browns the outside of a vegetable and leaves the inside intact. Briam wants the opposite — everything soft enough to eat with a spoon — so it goes in at 160°C fan and stays there for well over an hour. Kochilas bakes hers covered at 350°F, about 175°C, “for about 40 minutes, or until the vegetables are soft but the potatoes still likely to be al dente”, then uncovers and continues “until most of the pan liquid has evaporated and the surface of the vegetables is lightly charred”.
That two-stage structure will look familiar if you have made our Greek lemon potatoes: liquid in the tin first, then the tin dry and the surfaces colouring. Briam runs the same logic at a lower temperature and twice the length, and it makes its own liquid rather than having it poured in.
Cutting so everything finishes together
A tin of mixed vegetables has one real problem: they do not cook at the same rate. The fix is not timing — you cannot stagger a covered tin — it is the knife.
Fig. I · Cut to finish togetherDiagram
Four vegetables, four thicknesses, one finishing time. The knife does the staggering that a covered tin will not let you do with the clock.
5mmPotato — the densest thing in the tin
Slowest to soften, so it is cut thinnest and given the head start.
6mmPepper — thin-walled, quick
Holds its shape longer than it looks as though it will; barely above the potato.
8mmCourgette — mostly water
Loses volume as it gives up its water, so it is cut thicker than it needs to be at the start in order to still be there at the end.
10mmOnion — collapses to almost nothing
Cut thickest of all, and it will still be the least visible thing on the plate.
Laying the slices in overlapping rows rather than tumbling them in keeps every piece at roughly the same depth — which is what makes one cooking time possible at all.
Cut everything the same thickness and the potato is still chalky when the courgette has surrendered. Cut against density instead: the potato thinnest, the courgette thicker because it will lose water and shrink anyway, the onion thickest of all because it collapses to almost nothing. The rows matter for the same reason. Laying the slices in overlapping ranks rather than tumbling them in keeps every piece at roughly the same depth, so the tin cooks as one thing.
Why the courgettes are salted first
Because a courgette is mostly water, and in a covered tin that water has nowhere to go.
Fig. II · An hour at the sinkDiagram
The same water leaves the courgettes either way. The only question is whether it leaves at the sink, where it costs nothing, or in the oven, where it costs the browning.
The costone hour, unattended
Courgette rounds layered with salt in a colander, a plate and a weight on top, left over the sink. Nothing to watch and nothing to time closely.
What it buysa tin that can actually reduce
Under foil, everything holds at boiling point until the free water has gone. Water drawn out beforehand is water the uncovered stage does not have to boil off before any surface can colour.
Skippedthe bill arrives later
The tin sits pale and wet at the hour mark and needs another half hour it was never supposed to need — and by then the potato has been cooking for ninety minutes.
Pat the rounds dry afterwards, and go easy on the salt in the mixing bowl: some of what you used at the sink stays with them.
Everything under the foil holds at boiling point until the free water has gone. Water that came out of the courgettes in the oven is water the second stage has to boil off before anything can colour — which is why an unsalted briam sits pale and wet at the hour mark and needs another half hour it was never supposed to need. An hour in a salted, weighted colander removes a startling amount of it at the sink instead, where it costs nothing. Kochilas allows anywhere from one to eight hours; an hour is enough to change the dish.
Pat them dry afterwards, and go easy on the salt in the bowl — some of what you used stays with them.
How do you make it?
Salt and weight the courgettes for an hour, then pat them dry. Heat the oven to 160°C fan (180°C conventional, gas 4).
Put the potatoes, onions, peppers and drained courgettes in your largest bowl with the garlic, oregano, parsley, salt, pepper and the olive oil, and turn them with your hands until everything is coated. Oil a large roasting tin, lay the vegetables in overlapping rows, and scatter the chopped tomatoes over the top.
Cover with baking paper and then foil, and bake for about 40 minutes, until everything is soft but the potato still resists a little in the middle. Take the cover off and give it another 30 to 40 minutes, until the pan liquid has gone, the oil has come clear and the surfaces have coloured and caught at the edges.
Then let it stand. Fifteen minutes is the minimum, an hour is better, and room temperature is how it is actually eaten in Greece — this is not a dish that rewards being rushed to the table.
Plate II · PaintingRecord
What to serve with it
Bread, first, because there will be oil in the tin and it is the best thing on the table. A slab of feta or a bowl of thick yoghurt. If you want a second dish beside it, fasolakia is the other half of the same tradition, done in a pot rather than an oven, and a sharp Greek salad dressing over raw leaves cuts through both.
Plate III · Generated imageRecord
Where THYMELIA stands
THYMELIA is a UK house of Greek foods working two harvests: raw thyme honey from Chania in western Crete, and early-harvest extra virgin olive oil from the hill country above Kalamata in the southern Peloponnese. Dishes like this one are the reason the oil side of the house exists — a kilo of vegetables and 160ml of oil is a recipe that tastes of whichever bottle you opened. There is no shop yet, and we name no date for one. How we choose a harvest is at sourcing, and the olive-oil world from the top is at olive oil.
Recipe · Briam: Greek Roasted Vegetables in Olive OilCard
- Prep
- 30 min
- Cook
- 1 hr 20 min
- Total
- 2 hr 50 min
- Makes
- Serves 6
Ingredients
- 700g courgettes, sliced into 8mm rounds
- 700g waxy potatoes, peeled and sliced 5mm thick
- 3 red onions, sliced into 1cm rounds
- 2 green peppers, seeded and cut into 6mm rings
- 6 ripe tomatoes, coarsely chopped (or a 400g tin)
- 5 garlic cloves, finely chopped
- 160ml extra virgin olive oil
- 1 heaped tbsp dried Greek oregano (rigani)
- A large handful of flat-leaf parsley, chopped
- Coarse sea salt and black pepper
Method
- Salt the courgettes
Layer the courgette rounds in a colander, salting each layer, set a plate and a weight on top and leave them over the sink for at least an hour — up to eight if the day allows. Pat them dry. This is the step that decides whether the finished pan is concentrated or watery.
- Dress everything else
Heat the oven to 160°C fan (180°C conventional, gas 4). Put the potatoes, onions, peppers and drained courgettes in a large bowl with the garlic, oregano, parsley, salt, pepper and the olive oil, and turn them until every piece is coated.
- Fill the tin
Oil a large roasting tin and lay the vegetables out in overlapping rows — neat rows are not decoration, they hold each piece at the same depth so the tin cooks evenly. Scatter the chopped tomatoes over the top.
- Bake covered
Cover with a sheet of baking paper and then foil, and bake for about 40 minutes, until the vegetables are soft but the potato still has some resistance in the middle.
- Bake uncovered
Take off the cover and return the tin to the oven for a further 30 to 40 minutes, until the liquid in the pan has gone, the oil has come clear and the surfaces have coloured and caught at the edges.
- Rest before serving
Let the tin stand for at least 15 minutes, and serve it warm or at room temperature rather than hot, with bread and a piece of feta. It is better an hour after it comes out than straight from the oven.
Asked, answered.
What is briam?
A Greek vegetable bake — courgette, potato, onion, pepper and tomato, cooked slowly in a generous quantity of olive oil until they collapse into each other. It belongs to the family of dishes called ladera, "oiled", where olive oil is the cooking medium rather than a finishing drizzle. It is a main course in Greece, not a side, and it is eaten warm or at room temperature with bread and cheese.
Why salt the courgettes first?
Courgettes are mostly water, and in a covered tin that water has nowhere to go: it collects in the pan, holds the whole dish at boiling point, and stops it ever reducing. Salting and weighting them for an hour draws a surprising amount out before they go anywhere near the oven. Skip it and the second stage takes far longer, or never finishes at all.
What is the difference between briam and ratatouille?
Method more than ingredients. Ratatouille is generally cooked on the hob, often component by component, and served while the vegetables still hold their shape. Briam goes into the oven in one tin and stays there long enough for everything to soften into one dish, in far more oil, and it is eaten warm or cool rather than hot. Briam also leans on potato, which ratatouille does not use.
How thick should the vegetables be cut?
Thin, and to different thicknesses on purpose — the point is that they all arrive at the same place at the same time. Dense potato goes thinnest, at about 5mm; watery courgette can take 8mm; onion, which collapses to almost nothing, goes thickest at around a centimetre; pepper sits between at 6mm. Cut everything to one thickness and the potato will still be raw when the courgette has gone.
Can briam be made ahead?
It is better made ahead. Everything in it improves on standing, and Greek kitchens routinely cook ladera in the morning to eat at room temperature later in the day. It keeps three or four days covered in the fridge; bring it back to room temperature rather than reheating it hard, which overcooks the vegetables a second time.
How much olive oil does briam need?
About 160ml for this quantity of vegetables — two thirds of a cup, the measure in Diane Kochilas's version. It is not a seasoning here; it is the medium the vegetables cook in, and it stays in the tin and goes onto the plate. When the dish is done the pan liquid has evaporated and what is left is oil, clear and separated, with the vegetables sitting in it.