LT72884
Head Chef
Is the tilte of the movie a play on words or is there a dish with that name. But what ever it was, it looked good. Wonder if any one has duplicated it yet.
I had no idea it was a real dish. im so going to make this. i do not know if i would ea it though. to many veges for me. I would put some sort of meat in it like italian sausage.yes it most certainly is a real dish, and a good one at that. with hundreds of variations, there is no TRUE or exact authntic style. It essentially is a French Provencal Stew of vegetables. Cooked with lots of extra virgin olive oil ( not butter)
Its served in the summer time as either a main course or as a side dish. (got to have crunchy french bread with this!)
its a melange of the vegetables that are fresh at that time.
In ratatouille they did a very nice job of this. What the rat did was take a pheasant dish and elevate it to haute cuisine. The snobby critic when taking a bite of the dish was immediately taken back to his youth. He obviously grew up poor in the country and ratarouille was a comfort food for him. The rat was able to capture the simplicity of the original dish, but brining it to a more sophisticated level.
recipes abound, but variations are:
some completely leave eggplant out, while others use it as the main vegetable. (after tomatoes)
some salt the eggplant first, let rest, then squeeze out the fluids, they pan fry till crisp, set aside then stew the rest of the vegetables and herbs and fold the eggplant in at the last,
some just stew all together with olive oil, and provencal herbs, maybe even a dash of white wine if you have it.
vegetables include tomatoes, green and red peppers (bell peppers), zucchini, onion, and garlic
you can do your own version this spring by going to your local market and gathering up the local Utah vegetables. stew them with lots of garlic, basil, and parsley.