The secret of Hélène’s ratatouille is to cook the vegetables separately in the oven, intensifying their individual flavors. This may seem like using a lot of pans, but it is mostly waiting time. She assured me, “You can just let vegetables cook themselves and gently stir them all together.” The word “ratatouille” is related to the word touiller and the Latin tudiculare, meaning “to stir,” “crush,” or “toss.” After being cooked, the vegetables were originally assembled in a rectangular earthenware tian casserole, then gratinéed, and served hot or cold on the Sabbath. Now the cooked eggplant, pepper, zucchini, and tomato may be served together, or separately as individual salads. Ratatouille is similar to the Middle Eastern and North African dish tchoukchouka (see page 94), meaning “to shake up,” in both Hebrew and Arabic, and to other very old Mediterranean dishes of zucchini and eggplant. Hélène seasons her version with a hot but not fiery Basque pepper called piment d’Espelette, from Espelette, a town near her native Toulouse. If you don’t have piment d’Espelette, you can use hot paprika or New Mexico red chili powder.
Recipe information
Yield
8 to 10 servings
Ingredients
Preparation
Step 1
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.
Step 2
Heat the olive oil in a large skillet. Add the onions, the garlic, and the salt, and cook over medium-high heat until the onions are just translucent, 5 to 7 minutes. Remove three-quarters of the onions to a bowl. Add the zucchini to the pan with the remaining quarter of the onions, season with a little salt and freshly ground pepper to taste, and cook for a few minutes, until the zucchini begin to brown. Transfer the zucchini-and-onion mixture to an 8-inch square or circular baking pan.
Step 3
Sauté the red and green peppers separately just until they begin to brown, with a third of the remaining onions, then the eggplant with another third of the onions, and then the tomatoes with the remaining onions. Transfer each vegetable to its own baking pan.
Step 4
Cover the four pans with aluminum foil, and bake in the preheated oven for 1 hour. Uncover the pans, sprinkle each with a teaspoon of the sugar and a bit of hot pepper, and stir. Cook for an additional hour, uncovered. If there is any liquid in the pans after the second hour, drain the vegetables and reserve that liquid. Gently toss the vegetables together.
Step 5
Place the reserved liquid in a small saucepan, bring to a boil, and reduce until it is thick and can coat the back of a wooden spoon. Stir this reduction into the ratatouille. Taste, and adjust the seasoning if necessary. Serve at room temperature.
