10 September 2013

De la ratatouille

According to the Grand Robert dictionary, the French dictionary of reference, « ratatouille » in its modern, everyday sense means:

Mod., cour. Plat d'origine niçoise, mélange de courgettes, de tomates, d'aubergines, etc. cuites ensemble à l'huile.

It's a vegetable dish that originated in the Nice area in southeastern France, and it's a mixture of zucchini, tomatoes, eggplant, and other summer vegetables cooked together in oil. Olive oil, of course. Other vegetables that go into ratatouille are red and/or green bell peppers, onions, and garlic.

Ratatouille niçoise in the early stages of cooking

Pronounce ratatouille this way: [rah-tah-TOO-yuh], with the stress on the third syllable. It's easier to make than to say, maybe. Slice or dice an onion or two. Roughly chop some fresh ripe tomatoes. Seed and cut up some bell peppers. Peel (or don't bother to peel) some zucchini and eggplant, and then slice or chop those up. Add a couple of cloves of garlic.

Cook everything in a big pot with olive oil, thyme, salt, and pepper. Let it cook until the vegetables are soft. Some recipes say you can mash everything together. Others say you want to be able to detect the individual pieces all the vegetables. Eat the ratatouille hot or cold, depending on the weather and what you're having with it.

8 comments:

  1. I'll bet your kitchen smelled heavenly!

    Last night, I roasted a pan full of sliced little mini plum tomatoes from our garden. Yumm :) I mixed them with roasted asparagus and sauteed mushrooms and chicken. It was hot in the kitchen, but it sure smelled and tasted good :)

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  2. Looks delicious.
    Any outings planned for Heritage Days this weekend?

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  3. I second Dean France's question. What's going on near you? Not that we can get there in time....

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  4. Dean, Carolyn, no journée du patrimoine plans fo us. We're too busy sorting out things like our annual health insurance renewal, income and property tax payments, etc. Not to mention harvesting and cooking/processing tomatoes and zucchini that we are now harvesting. It is the busy season.

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  5. J'adore la ratatouille, mais j'attache beaucoup d'importance à éplucher les légumes ! On dit qu'il y a des vitamines dans la peau, mais je préfère le goût des légumes sans peau, et de toute façon on ne manque pas de vitamines de nos jours :-).

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  6. I make a huge recipe of ratatouille weekly during summer. Obviously, we love the stuff.

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  7. Looks great Ken. We have been having a LOT of ratatouille this summer...so easy to make and wonderful to eat!

    I always drool on my computer when looking at your and Walt's blogs, especially lately!

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