Ratatouille

Do you remember my New Scary List ?

1. Macaroons
2. Beef bourguignon
3. Lamb
4. Coq au vin (Chicken in wine sauce )
5. Sushi
6. Croquembouche (Caramel-glazed cream puffs)
7. Tacos
8. Enchiladas
9. Escargots a la Bourguignonne (Snails in garlic-herb butter)
10. Ratatouille

I just manage to do the last one from my list: Ratatouille. It’s Julia Child’s recipe from her book. There are her ingredients and way of cooking, but I changed the way I put them in the casserole, because I wanted to have the plate from the movie “Ratatouille”. It looked so great, that it made me go for this recipe from my list.

Ratatouille is a French eggplant casserole with tomatoes, onions, peppers and zucchini.  This amazing dish will make your kitchen smell like heaven, a small pieces of Provence. You can serve it cold or hot and goes perfect with cold meat.

A really good ratatouille will take hours, like mine did. Each vegetable is cooked separately and then it is arranged in the casserole for the mix. In this way, you will keep the shape of each vegetable.

Ingredients:

• 1 eggplant
• 2 zucchini (yellow and green)
• 1 olive oil
• 1 ½ cup yellow onion thinly sliced
• 1 cup green peppers
• 2 cloves mashed garlic
• 6 tomatoes cut in thinly slices
• Salt
• Pepper
• Olive oil
• 1 ½ tomato juice homemade
• 3 tablespoon minced parsley

Directions:

Peel the eggplant. Cut the eggplant and the zucchinis in round thinly slices. Place the vegetables in a bowl and toss with salt. Let stand for 30 minutes. Drain. Dry each slice in a towel.

One layer at a time, sauté the eggplant, and then the zucchinis in hot olive oil about a minute on each side to brown very lightly. Remove to a side dish.

In the same skillet, cook the onions and peppers slowly in olive oil for about 10 minutes, or until tender but not browned. Stir in the garlic and season to taste.

Add the homemade tomato juice on the onions and peppers. I forgot to tell you that I add to the onions my dish signature (A teaspoon of mustard). Season with salt and pepper. Cover the skillet and cook over low heat for 5 minutes. Uncover and raise heat and boil until juice has almost entirely evaporated.

Place half of the tomato mixture in the bottom of the casserole and sprinkle over it 1 tablespoon of parsley. Arrange one slice of eggplant, yellow zucchini, tomato, green zucchini, and so on till you put all the vegetables. Finish with the remaining tomato mixture and parsley.

Cover the casserole and simmer over low heat for 10 minutes. Uncover, raise heat slightly and cook uncovered for about 15 minutes more. Be careful with your heat. Do not let the vegetables scorch in the bottom of the casserole.

Serve it cold or hot. Enjoy!