Recipe: French Ratatouille

Ratatouille is a common vegetable stew that originated from southern France. There is traditionally no particular cooking method for the ratatouille. Famous French chefs like Roger Vergé or Gui Gedda recommend lightly frying each vegetable separately to give them a crispy and toasty flavor.

In the Pixar film, Ratatouille, right at the climax, the little chef, Remy the rat, prepared the celebrated version of this simple dish to impress the food critic, Anton Ego. The dish in reality was a version of another similar dish called the confit byaldi developed by French chef Michel Guérard (founder of nouvelle cuisine) in 1976. For the film it was realized by American chef Thomas Keller who was the food consultant for the film. However Keller's version (or Guerard's confit byaldi) would miss out on the main idea of ratatouille, its crispness and the fact that each vegetable retain their own particular flavor.

Now let me come to my innovation. To retain the taste of the original ratatouille, we must fry the vegetables separately. However to impress Anton Ego and the viewers, it is better to finely chop the vegetables and arrange them in a pattern on a baking tray. So why not combine both the approaches, the French and the American.

Ingredients

• Zucchini x 2
• Eggplants x 1
• Bell Peppers x 2
• Garlic x 6 cloves
• Onion (yellow) x 1
• Tomatoes x 6
• Tomato Puree x 250 grams
• Dried Herbes de Provence x 3 teaspoons
• Extra Virgin Olive Oil x 9 tablespoon
• Fresh Thyme x15 strands
• Fresh Bay Leaves x 10
• Salt: to taste
• Freshly Ground Pepper x 1 teaspoon

Method

Step 1

Chop the eggplant and zucchini in thin slices

Step 2

Take a flat non-stick pan and shallow fry the eggplant for 1 minute at medium heat.

Step 3

Change the side and keep for another minute.

Step 4

Remove them from the heat and keep aside. Do not fry too much because they will Be cooked later in the oven.

Step 5

Do the same for the zucchinis (shallow fry for a couple of minutes).

Step 6

Chop the bell peppers in circular rings (discard the seeds and the central portion).

Step 7

Shallow fry them in the similar way As the zucchini and eggplants.

Step 8

Finely chop the onion and the garlic.

Step 9

Pour 1 tablespoon oil on the a frying pan. When It Is warm, add the chopped onion and garlic. Season It with salt and pepper.

Step 10

Fry them till they turn golden brown in colour.

Step 11

Chop the tomatoes in thin circular Slices.

Step 12

Take the fried onion and garlic in a bowl. Pour the tomato puree on It.

Step 13

Add 2 teaspoons of herbes de provence.

Step 14

Stir and mix well with a spatula.

Step 15

Oil a nonstick deep bottomed baking pan.

Step 16

Pour the prepared mixture (onion, garlic, tomato puree, herbes de provence) Into the baking pan.

Step 17

Place about 8 strands of fresh thyme and 3 bay leaves.

Step 18

Arrange the fried vegetables and the tomatoes in a circular spiral pattern. Then place the rest of the fresh thyme strands and the bay leaves on the top and the sides of the vegetables.

Step 19

Sprinkle 1 tablespoon of herbes de provence on the vegetables, then pour 3 tablespoons of olive oil over the vegetables.

Step 20

Season with salt and pepper, then cover it with a butter paper so that the vegetables do not get charred.

Step 21

Place it in a preheated oven for 40 minutes at 180°C.

Step 22

Enjoy!

[This recipe originally appeared on Instructables by mitantig]

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