Ratatouille – Provencal Vegetable Stew (Step-by-Step DIY Recipe)

Inspired by Emily in Paris, which reminded me of Ratatouille (the movie), I decided to scour the internet for a ratatouille recipe which I could recreate. To be honest, I had ZERO idea what ratatouille was prior to my research. I just remember thinking it looked like a really pretty dish and the French critic seemed to really love it. So let me share some of what I learned about this dish before we get started.

Ratatouille is a vegetable stew apparently, that originated from Provence (South of France). It typically consists of eggplant, summer squash (e.g., zucchini), tomato, onion, garlic, and bell pepper all stewed in olive oil. Upon reading the recipes, I was suddenly unsure if I really wanted to push through with this because it’s literally all veggies… and I am a self-proclaimed meativore. Unfortunately, by this point, I had already expended so much effort researching this recipe and buying the veggies, I decided I had nothing to lose. Even if I didn’t like it, at least it’s healthy and very low carbs. But surprise surprise, I REALLY LIKED IT. Even more of a surprise, my family loved it as well! (Honestly, they’re very vocal when they don’t like one of my dishes, and my mom had even set aside mapo tofu so that “in case we don’t like the soup Goldie is creating, we have other dishes as well”). Well, guess what – every single drop of ratatouille was sopped up and we didn’t even touch the mapo tofu. Ha! Take that, doubters (which included me haha) :p

Okay, without further ado, let’s get started.

 

DELECTABLE FOOD FOR THE DAY: RATATOUILLE (Provencal Vegetable Stew)

DIFFICULTY: Easy but incredibly time-consuming

SERVING SIZE: Good for 4 people – paired with rice

PREPARATION TIME: 1.5 hours (there was so much slicing that needed to be done. Everyone used a mandolin, which would have sped things up dramatically, but I didn’t have one…)

BAKING TIME: 1 hour

 

INGREDIENTS

 

STEP-BY-STEP INSTRUCTIONS FOR RATATOUILLE

Step 1: Prepare the veggie topping

• Slice the eggplant, tomatoes and zucchini into approximately 1mm rounds, then set aside. You want to make sure your circles are of similar size and thickness. For my failed slices, I just diced them up and dumped them into the vegetable stew (See Step 2)

• I would recommend you chop up the eggplant and zucchini first, so you can pre-salt it. I don’t know if this really made a difference. But the different recipes I read said salted eggplant would produce greater depth and sweetness to the dish, since you remove the water content in advance so when cooking, energy is spent caramelizing the innate sugar within the vegetables as opposed to evaporating the moisture within. No idea if it’s true, but anyway, just place your diced veggies into a strainer over a bowl, sprinkle salt over it, mix well, and leave it for ~10-15 minutes. You’ll see water pooling at the bottom – which I guess is the moisture “strained” from the veggies

Step 2: Prepare the tomato stew

• Crush the tomatoes. Essentially, you slice the tomato in half, then use a grater to grate the tomato into small bits. I highly recommend you use large tomatoes to make your life easier. Alternatively, you can also just buy tomato paste or pre-crushed tomatoes. I cheated a bit and did half-half, crushed 10 tomatoes then made up the rest by using Del Monte Tomato Sauce (made from real tomatoes daw HAHA). Anyway, the texture of the crushed tomatoes and tomato paste/sauce is very different, and the crushed tomato texture and taste is really much better but waay more hassle to do

• Dice one onion, mince 4 garlic cloves, dice 2 bell peppers, and prep the basil

• Heat up the sauce pan over a medium-heat fire. Saute the onion and garlic first – for ~2 minutes, until you really start smelling it

• Put in the bell pepper and saute for another ~4 minutes, or until it’s soft

• Add the excess diced veggies (eggplant, tomato, zucchini) if any. You add these last because they cook much faster compared to the others. If you add at the same time, these may end up mushy

• Season with salt and pepper, then add the crushed tomatoes. If you have a sweet tooth like me, you may want to stir in some sugar as well. Stir until the ingredients are fully incorporated. How much crushed tomatoes is needed? Generally you want it to just slighly cover the veggies (onion, garlic, bell pepper, et al), but the sauce should NOT overpower the veggies

• Throw in some crushed / chopped basil as well – honestly, I didn’t taste this, but it’s part of the recipe. If you don’t have basil, feel free to skip

Step 3: Prepare the herb seasoning

• Chop up fresh basil and parsley, then mince the 1 clove garlic
• Measure out 4 tbsp olive oil, then mix in the basil, parsley, garlic, salt and pepper

Step 4: Arrange the ratatouille

• Place the tomato stew onto the pan and smooth it out

• Arrange your sliced veggies in an alternating pattern (for example: zucchini, tomato, eggplant) on top of the stew from the outer edge to the middle of the pan.

• Spoon the herb seasoning over the vegetables

Step 5: Bake the ratatouille

• Cover the pan with foil and bake for 40 minutes at 180 deg C. This will allow the veggies to cook without charring
• Afterwards, uncover the pan, then bake for another 20 minutes, until the veggies is softened

Step 6: Bon Appetit!