French cuisine: how to cook Ratatouille

Ratatouille is one of the most famous dishes of French cuisine, delicious and simple to prepare, it has earned a huge popularity all over the world. So, let's look at how at home to cook authentic French Ratatouille.

Ratatouille won such a great love that about him even made a cartoon of the same name, which was recognized as one of the best cartoons of the last decades. In the animated film "Ratatouille" in a very interesting and funny key tells the story of the invention of this delicious food. In General, both the dish and the cartoon about it, is praiseworthy, but the dish only if it is properly prepared.

Ratatouille is a vegetable dish (according to the original recipe), baked zucchini, tomatoes, onions and sweet peppers. Invented this dish in nice, and initially it was popular among the poor peasants who ate Ratatouille throughout the harvesting season vegetables, submitting it to the main dishes - meat, fish, poultry or rice. Today Ratatouille served in many European restaurants around the world, and to learn its preparation should every self-respecting cook.

Ratatouille is both simple and elegant - that it reflects a basic feature of the famous cuisine of Provence.

Today is the right Ratatouille is unthinkable without fragrant Provencal herbs and olive oil, as well as in its composition has entered the garlic and eggplant. In General, the recipes Ratatouille today, a lot of it's made even with chicken, rice and many other extra ingredients.

Seasoning "Provencal herbs" today you can buy in any supermarket, it includes rosemary, thyme, Basil, peppermint, oregano, savory garden, marjoram and sage.

How to make delicious homemade Ratatouille

In fact Ratatouille is a vegetable stew, among other cuisines of the world its analogues are kaponata (Italian cuisine), Lecho (Hungarian), Pisto (Spanish). However, to say that Ratatouille and Lecho - same, very incorrect, and because of that, and the other has its own peculiarities cooking, doing their dishes are unique, with individual flavor notes that nothing may be confused.

Cooking Ratatouille: features, details and secrets

• If you want to cook Ratatouille according to the original recipe, you will need only tomato, zucchini, bell peppers, onions, garlic, Provencal herbs, and salt can also be used eggplant, but this will be a more modern classic version of the dish.
• Vegetables for meals should be cut circles or pieces roughly the same size, the large size of the pieces is another feature of the present Ratatouille.
• Tomatoes should use strong, not soft, otherwise they will not be able to slice thinly, removing the skin.
• To cook Ratatouille should only fresh vegetables - frozen mixture it does not fit.
• Do not cook the Ratatouille in advance - making it the highest price of the day before, but in this case, add the tomatoes can just before serving, or because they contained acid other vegetables will lose their bright color and dishes will leave a characteristic sweet taste.

So, let's see how prepared Ratatouille in France originally.

The recipe is a classic Provencal Ratatouille

You will need: 6 tomatoes, 4-5 cloves of garlic, 1 green peppers, large courgette/zucchini and onion, 1 tbsp. seasoning "Provencal herbs, olive oil, dill, pepper, parsley, salt.

How to cook a classic Ratatouille. For the sauce, chop 2 tomatoes, peppers and onion in small cubes, put in a pan with heated oil, fry and then 10 minutes under the lid, salt and pepper, put the sauce in the form of Ratatouille on the bottom.

Cooked sauce if desired, you can grind in a blender.

The rest of the tomatoes and zucchini cut into thin circles, put in shape for the sauce, alternating and stacking mugs at each other, as would "overlap". For seasoning dishes greens with garlic chop, combine with herbs and olive oil, pepper and salt to taste, pour over the vegetables in the pan, cover with foil. To put the Ratatouille in the oven heated to 180 degrees and bake for 1 hour or less to taste.

Baking time Ratatouille - at your discretion, if you stick to the classic recipe, the vegetables will greatly softened, so if you like to be more dense, shorten the baking time.

As you can see classic Ratatouille is not complicated to make, which is quite logical - after all, who invented his peasants had not guessed that after a few centuries of their everyday dish will become so popular and will relate to high cuisine. Accordingly, all complicated recipes Ratatouille is already delights chefs working in expensive restaurants and trying to come up with their own unique variations on the theme of popular dishes.

As we have said, the recipes Ratatouille today, the sea, for example, you can cook a delicious Ratatouille and sample recipe from the book "European cuisine" And. And. the Lazerson.

The recipe for Ratatouille on the book And. And. the Lazerson

You will need: 2-3 tomatoes/tomato paste, 2 onions, 2 cloves of garlic, 2 sweet red peppers, 1-2 courgettes/zucchini, 1 large eggplant, 1 stalk leek, 1 bunch parsley, 1 pod of hot pepper, pepper, salt.

How to cook a delicious Ratatouille. Cubes chop onions, white part of leeks cut into rings, put them in a pan with vegetable oil, put out. The rest of the vegetables into cubes of 1 cm, previously scalded tomatoes with boiling water and removing them from the skin. All the vegetables to add to the onions after 6 min after the start of their fighting, pepper and salt, simmer everything for another 20 minutes Parsley, garlic and hot pepper to be ground, and salt and add this mixture for 10 minutes before end of cooking, stir.

Lazerson advises: Ratatouille can be prepared in advance and just before serving reheat, make acute, adding chili sauce or Tabasco. As you can see, some variations are even contrary to the canons of cooking Ratatouille.

Another recipe for Ratatouille, which we here is a recipe from the animated film "Ratatouille," which can be safely attributed in complexity and result to high cuisine. However, do not give up on the preparation of Ratatouille immediately after reading the words "complex" and "Haute cuisine" - having the time to cook this dish can even inexperienced cook.

The recipe for Ratatouille cartoon "Ratatouille"

You will need:

• vegetable component: 130-140 g green zucchini, eggplant, yellow zucchini, 4 tomatoes, 1 pinch of ground thyme, 2 tsp. olive oil ? tsp. finely chopped garlic, freshly ground black pepper, salt;
• sauce: 3 ripe tomatoes, on ? orange, yellow and red bell peppers, ? Cup finely chopped onions ? Bay leaf, 1 sprig secureway parsley and thyme, 2 tbsp olive oil, 1 tsp. garlic finely chopped sea salt;
• dressing: 1 tbsp. of the mixture of Provencal herbs and olive oil, 1 tsp. balsamic vinegar, black pepper, salt.

How to cook Ratatouille recipe from the cartoon. For the sauce, heat the oven to 230 degrees, cover the pan with foil, down slices to lay the peppers and bake them for 15 minutes, remove, let cool, peel and finely chop. Heat the pan with olive oil, put onion and garlic, 8 min to put on low heat until soft without color change, put the tomatoes, peeled and chopped, thyme, parsley, Laurel, continue cooking 10 minutes, the liquid should completely evaporate and vegetables is not ready fried. Put peppers in the sauce, put a little more before its softness, to salt, to get Laurel, sprigs of thyme and parsley, throw them away. 1 tbsp. of the sauce aside, the rest lay on the bottom of the form or in the pan, about 20 cm in diameter. Preheat the oven to 140 degrees. Thinly slice the vegetables for the vegetable component, put a mug of tomato, eggplant and zucchini, alternating and overlapping (leaving open each circle only 0.5 cm), the sauce on the form. For the filling, mix the chopped garlic, herbs and olive oil, pepper and salt, pour over vegetables, cover them with foil and bake for 2 hours, remove foil, bake the vegetables for another 30 minutes (if the vegetables start to burn, again cover with foil). If vegetables stood out too much moisture, they should be put directly into the form on the stove on medium heat to evaporate the liquid.

Of course, to repeat culinary masterpiece from the movie will take a lot of time, but the result is definitely worth it, try it!

To eat Ratatouille can be in cold and in hot form, submitting it as a separate vegetarian dishes or in addition to the basic meat, fish dishes, dishes of poultry, etc. the Most witty hostess come up with very interesting ways of delivery, for example, as a filling for pancakes, fried vegetables before baking and coming up with other ways to spice up the dish and make it even better and brighter.

Cook the Ratatouille for everyday and festive buffet, invent creative ways of filing and enjoy the great taste and benefits of this wonderful, tasty and very useful dishes!