Ratatouille - what is it, step-by-step recipes for preparing vegetables at home with photos

1 hour 30 minutes

38 kcal

5/5 (2)

Getting kids to eat healthy foods can be difficult, especially when it comes to vegetables. Thanks to the creators of the cartoon about the adorable little rat Remy, he “convinced” my sons to at least try a new dish - ratatouille, although I had to tinker, looking for a recipe for its classic version with a photo similar to the cartoon version of this dish. Everything turned out to be quite simple, and now I cook ratatouille both in the oven and in the slow cooker. It's not just delicious, but also economical, especially in summer . And considering that there are only one or two calories in such a dish, it is also an excellent dietary option. Interested? Then let's cook! I will tell you three options - “reduced”, classic and “lazy”, for a slow cooker.

Simplified ratatouille

Kitchen appliances and utensils: prepare a cutting board, knife, garlic press, baking dish, container for stirring the sauce. You will also need an oven.

Ingredients

How to choose the right ingredients

• If you want to make a really delicious ratatouille using my recipe with photos, which is very easy to make step by step in the oven, choose the right cooking time. The French themselves consider this dish to be seasonal, so greenhouse vegetables are not suitable . But summer, ground ones, will be an excellent option.

• It is better to take tomatoes that are large enough and fleshy - when baking they will not give too much juice and will not “spread”.
• When choosing Provençal herbs, give preference to a product without salt - this will prevent the future ratatouille from being oversalted. In addition, make sure that the composition does not contain flavor enhancers or other harmful “chemicals”.

If the baking dish does not have a lid, you will need foil.

Step-by-step preparation

1. Wash and dry 4 tomatoes, one zucchini and one eggplant on a towel. Cut the vegetables into circles of the same diameter. There is no need to peel the tomatoes.

2. Place vegetable slices in a baking dish, placing them vertically. Try to distribute the vegetables evenly: place the tomato behind the zucchini, then the eggplant, and repeat this pattern over and over again until the pan is filled.

3. For the sauce, take 150-180 g of hot water and mix it with 2-3 tablespoons of tomato paste.

4. Peel 2 cloves of garlic, pass them through a press or finely chop them. Mix with tomato dressing.

5. Add two tablespoons of Provençal herbs to the sauce and add salt. Pour in 2-4 tablespoons of olive oil.

6. Pour the dressing over the vegetables, cover the pan with a lid or foil, and place in the oven for an hour. Bake at a temperature of 180-200 degrees.

7. Remove the lid and bake for about 10 minutes more.

Recipe video

To see how this dish is prepared, pay attention to the following video. It shows all the steps and gives cooking tips.

"Ratatouille": recipes (how to cook)

Many housewives are afraid to start making such a dish because they consider it complicated and expensive. But that's not true. The dish in question is quite easy to prepare. Moreover, its creation requires only simple components that are accessible to everyone.

As mentioned above, in the original version, Ratatouille was prepared from tomatoes, zucchini, sweet peppers, garlic and onions. Today they began to add eggplants and squash to the dish.

It should also be noted that ready-made lunch can be served hot or cold, as well as at room temperature. It is often used as an independent dish. Although sometimes housewives present it as a side dish for meat. Ratatouille can also serve as an excellent snack if eaten with crackers or bread.

So how should you make Ratatouille? The step-by-step culinary recipe involves using:

• yellow and red bell peppers - 2 medium pieces;
• vegetable oil (it is better to take olive oil) - 5 large spoons;
• fresh large garlic - 2 cloves;
• large onions - 1 pc.;
• tomatoes in their own juice - approximately 300 g;
• thyme (in sprigs) - 3 pcs.;
• fresh parsley - to your taste;
• bay leaf - 1 pc.;
• fresh green zucchini - 1 pc.;
• young eggplant, not very large - 1 pc.;
• small squash - 1 pc.;
• fresh medium tomatoes - 5 pcs.;
• salt, pepper - to your taste.

Classic ratatouille in the oven

Cooking time: 1 hour 40 minutes. Number of servings: 4-6. Calorie content: 43 kcal. Kitchen appliances and utensils: knife, cutting board, garlic press. Also prepare a frying pan or saucepan, a spatula for stirring, and a baking dish. You can't do without an oven.

Ingredients

Step-by-step preparation

1. Wash and dry 300-400 g eggplants, 250-350 g zucchini, 300-400 g tomatoes. Cut them into slices of equal thickness.

2. Place vegetables in a baking dish, alternating pieces.

3. Peel and finely chop 80-90 g of onion.

4. Pour 3-4 tablespoons of olive oil into the bottom of a frying pan or saucepan. When it warms up, add the onion and fry it until translucent.

5. Pour 100-150 g of tomato juice into the pan.

6. Peel 2-3 cloves of garlic, pass them through a press and add to the sauce.

7. Season the sauce to taste, add pepper and a mixture of herbs. Mix the sauce thoroughly.

8. Pour this dressing over the vegetables.

9. Wash and peel 100-150 g of bell pepper. Cut it into strips, which you can use to decorate the ratatouille.

10. Bake the dish in the oven at 200 degrees for an hour.

Recipe video

To see how to make ratatouille according to the described recipe, which can be called classic, in the oven, pay attention to the following video.

Ratatouille in a slow cooker

Cooking time: 1 hour 50 minutes. Number of servings: 4-5. Calorie content: 42 kcal. Kitchen appliances and utensils: multicooker, cutting board, knife, container for sauce and eggplant.

Ingredients

Step-by-step preparation

1. Wash the eggplant, cut it into slices up to 3 mm thick. Sprinkle it with salt and set it aside for 15-20 minutes.

2. Start preparing the sauce. Wash, peel and cut 100-120 g of sweet pepper into small cubes.

3. Peel and chop 70-90 g of onion.

4. Preheat the slow cooker and set the timer for 15 minutes. Pour 2-4 tbsp into the bowl. l. vegetable oil. When hot, add the onion to the bowl.

5. After two minutes, add the pepper there too.

6. Wash 200 g of tomatoes, blanch them in boiling water for two minutes. Remove the skins from the fruits and chop them finely. Place chopped tomatoes in a slow cooker. Simmer the vegetable mixture until the timer signal.

7. Rinse 200-250 g of zucchini. If necessary, remove the skin from the fruit. Cut into thin slices. Chop 200-300 g of tomatoes in the same way.
8. Stir the sauce. Add 1 tablespoon of tomato paste to it. Stir the mixture again, add herbs, add salt and pepper to taste, and add a teaspoon of sugar. Stir again.

9. Set aside half the sauce in a separate bowl.

10. Rinse the eggplant from the sauce and place the vegetable slices one by one in the slow cooker on a “bed” of tomato dressing.

11. Drizzle vegetables with 2 tablespoons vegetable oil.

12. Pour half of the remaining sauce over the ratatouille. Serve the rest with the dish.

13. Cook in simmer mode for an hour.

Recipe video

To see how to make this ratatouille recipe in the slow cooker, don't miss the next video.

How to decorate a dish

• Like any vegetable stew made from eggplant and other vegetables, this dish can be generously sprinkled with chopped herbs. Parsley, dill will do, you can take a little thyme.
• If desired, pour the sauce over the ratatouille, but be careful not to “hide” the beautifully arranged vegetables.
• Try serving the dish in portions, making patterns of pomegranate sauce on each plate.
• If you are serving the dish in a baking dish, you can place slices of mozzarella or other cheese around the edges of the ratatouille.

Peculiarities

Ratatouille is a Provençal dish that is very reminiscent of traditional Russian vegetable stew. This is partly true. However, such food is prepared somewhat differently. Vegetables for such a lunch are cut not into cubes, but into circles. At the same time, they are laid out in a spiral in the mold.

To give such a dinner a special aroma and taste, French spices, or rather Provençal herbs (including fennel, truffles, cumin, rosemary, mint and basil), must be added to it. Thanks to such spices, any dish of Provencal cuisine can be transformed beyond recognition.

Tips and tricks

• Fans of vegetable stew with zucchini and other dishes with this vegetable should remember that it actively releases juice. Never salt it before heat treatment.
• But eggplants, on the contrary, “love” salt. It is better to leave them with salt for a quarter of an hour - this will remove the bitter aftertaste.
• If desired, remove the skin from the bell pepper. To do this, you can bake it in the oven.
• Tomato juice can be replaced with crushed tomatoes , from which the peel has been removed.
• To avoid shedding tears over the onion, rinse the vegetable and knife in cold water.

Heat treatment in the oven

To bake a French dish, the oven temperature should be lowered to 135 degrees. Place them in a mold with vegetables in a heated cabinet and cook them for two hours. After this time, the foil is removed. Cook Ratatouille in this form for another 30 minutes.

If during the heat treatment process too much liquid is formed in the dish with the dish, it is carefully drained.

How and with what to serve the dish

• In the summer heat, such a dish can easily stand alone, like, for example, a vegetable stew with potatoes and cabbage. For avid meat eaters, you can offer sausages, baked meat, steak, which goes well with baked vegetables.
• An excellent combination of ratatouille will be made with rice or boiled peas . You can complement the vegetable dish with French cheeses.
• For drinks, serve light young wines and lemonade.

Analogs

The “Ratatouille” dish, the recipe for which will be discussed below, is prepared not only in France, but also in other countries. As a rule, such food has a different name in other countries. For example, in Italian cuisine this peculiar vegetable stew is called “Caponata”, in Turkish - “Imam Bayaldy”, in Spanish - “Pisto”, in Hungarian - “Lecho”, and in Catalan - “Samfaina”.

It should also be noted that even if all of the listed dishes are prepared from the same ingredients, they may have noticeable taste differences. This is due to the fact that the types of vegetables used, the herbs, herbs and spices used, as well as the technology for creating vegetable dishes play a big role in the process of preparing this dinner.

Other preparation and filling options

• Traditionally, this dish is prepared purely from vegetables, but if desired, you can add sausage or boiled meat. The result will not be the usual vegetable stew with meat, but something more refined. By the way, vegetable stew with minced meat is made using the same principle.
• You can cut zucchini, tomatoes and eggplants not only into circles, but also into cubes. In this case, the food will need to be cooked longer and the taste will be less pronounced.
• Typically, cooks use Provençal herbs for dishes , but you can experiment with Italian, Greek, or create your own mixture.

Ratatouille is a great “summer” option for busy housewives who are watching their figure. However, both men and children enjoy it with pleasure. Do you like this dish? Share in the comments the secrets of its preparation that French chefs never dreamed of!

Origin story

Ratatouille is a dish that was first mentioned in a 1778 cookbook. Experienced chefs report that this unusual dish was originally prepared by poor peasants in the area of ​​modern Nice. They made it in the summer from fresh vegetables.

Ratatouille is a French dish. His original recipe included tomatoes, zucchini, onions, peppers and garlic. As for the modern version, eggplants and sometimes squash are also used to create it.