Our Homemade Ratatouille Is Way Less Fussy Than You'd Expect

Delish

Originating in Nice, France, ratatouille is a humble dish composed of various vegetables stirred and stewed together until they begin to melt into each other.

Transcript

00:00 Hey everybody, it's Justin here in the Delish Test Kitchen.

00:03 Rabbitouille is one of those like peasant dishes

00:05 that is actually so much more than that.

00:07 It is a mixture of incredibly fresh summer produce

00:10 like I have right here,

00:12 and everything cooks together down in a beautiful stew,

00:15 and they get melted together,

00:16 and it's so warming while also being fresh, delicious,

00:19 and incredible showcase of all these

00:22 delicious springtime, summery flavors.

00:25 And it comes together super easily.

00:26 Let's do this.

00:27 (upbeat music)

00:30 I imagine one of the first things you're thinking

00:32 when you saw this recipe or other ones like it online,

00:34 why doesn't it look like the perfect little dish

00:37 that I saw in the movie with the rat chef?

00:39 I love that movie, but that's not what this dish is,

00:41 and it's not an actual traditional rabbitouille,

00:43 believe it or not.

00:44 That is a fancier French dish called confit bieldi,

00:47 where they thinly slice a bunch of veg,

00:49 and they cook it in a baking dish under a parchment,

00:51 and it takes a lot of steps.

00:52 This is like the true, real deal, provincial,

00:56 French, easy to make summer dish

00:58 that is gonna become a staple in your home.

01:00 As long as you have a bunch of things from the garden,

01:02 you're gonna throw it in there,

01:03 and it's going to be delicious.

01:04 We're gonna start by breaking down our veg,

01:06 and the first thing we're gonna tackle is eggplant.

01:08 You can see that these aren't the huge,

01:10 humongous Italian eggplants that you usually see.

01:13 Those tend to end up being the most bitter

01:15 and not as delicious.

01:16 The smaller they are,

01:17 the more tender, and sweet, and nice they are.

01:20 Eggplant retains a ton of moisture

01:22 that comes out during cooking,

01:24 and can make anything that you cook with it

01:26 very watery, and kind of bitter, and gross.

01:29 So the best way to combat that

01:31 is to salt it before adding it.

01:33 So we're going to dice this up into half-inch cubes,

01:37 then get it into a colander with a bunch of salt,

01:39 toss everything nicely,

01:40 and then we're gonna let it sit for 30 minutes.

01:43 You're gonna see that some of the water

01:44 is gonna drain out into a bowl,

01:46 which you can then toss,

01:48 and then we can actually use the eggplant

01:49 so it doesn't leach out all that moisture

01:51 while we're cooking.

01:52 Next, we have onions and bell pepper.

01:54 You can use whatever color you want.

01:55 I like using the red.

01:57 It's sweet, delicious, adds a little bit more flavor.

01:59 You're gonna wanna remove the seeds

02:00 and the ribs from the pepper,

02:01 and then you should be able to cut these up

02:03 kind of roughly, just like the onions.

02:05 Give them a nice chop.

02:06 Honestly, my favorite part of this dish,

02:10 and one of my favorite things to eat in the summer,

02:12 is summer squash or zucchini.

02:14 You can get the green or the yellow.

02:15 That adds a really nice color here.

02:17 They kind of taste the same.

02:18 I sort of use them interchangeably,

02:20 so I wouldn't stress too much

02:21 if you only have one or the other.

02:23 We're gonna cut these in half

02:24 and get beautiful little half moons as well.

02:27 Finally, you're gonna take a beefsteak tomato

02:31 and you're gonna cut this probably the finest of everything

02:33 'cause this is gonna melt into the sauce

02:35 and kind of make a tomato sauce for the stew.

02:37 What would a fresh summer stew be

02:40 without a ton of fresh herb action?

02:43 We're gonna have thyme that we're gonna take off the stalk

02:44 and chop up, as well as rosemary.

02:47 Treat the same way.

02:48 And then we're gonna get some basil.

02:50 We're gonna roll it up into a little roll

02:52 and make a chiffonade, just a fancy word for ribbon.

02:55 And then I promise,

02:56 this has been the most work you're gonna do all day.

02:58 All of that chopping is really just the majority of it.

03:00 Now we get to make the stew.

03:01 Now we could be lazy and just throw everything

03:03 we just chopped right into this pot and cook it up,

03:05 but it's not gonna be as good.

03:08 That would still taste delicious,

03:09 especially if it's with good produce,

03:11 but we wanna like build layers of flavor and texture.

03:14 And weirdly enough, the best way to do that in this case

03:17 is to cook all the veg with veg that cooks in a similar way.

03:20 So we're gonna do the onions and the bell pepper

03:22 at the same time, take that out.

03:23 Then the zucchini, take that out.

03:25 And then the eggplant.

03:26 A lot of these things have a lot of moisture,

03:28 and if we were to put them in all at once,

03:30 all of them are gonna get too crowded

03:31 and it's gonna create like a soupy mess.

03:33 Now, since we're adding things in smaller batches,

03:35 things can get browned, get a little bit of caramelization,

03:38 help build more flavor,

03:39 and then we can bring it all together

03:41 into a beautiful tomato saucy goodness.

03:43 It takes maybe an extra 10 to 15 minutes.

03:46 I swear to God, definitely worth it.

03:48 So like any good European dish,

03:50 we're gonna start with a good glug of olive oil.

03:53 We're gonna add in our onions and our garlic,

03:55 and those are gonna cook for like five to six minutes,

03:57 just until translucent.

03:59 Then we're gonna add in our bell pepper.

04:01 That just needs to cook until like soften

04:02 and they're not just still crispy, about six minutes.

04:05 We don't want it to be mushy.

04:06 We're just looking for caramelization, color,

04:08 and a little bit of forming of flavor.

04:10 Then we're gonna lose that out of the pan.

04:13 Then we're gonna go in with a little bit more olive oil,

04:15 the zucchini, the rosemary, a little bit more garlic,

04:19 and some salt and pepper.

04:20 We're gonna cook that off until the zucchini is golden.

04:24 Then we're gonna remove that to the same bowl

04:25 where the onions and bell peppers are.

04:26 Now we're gonna go into the pot with our eggplant

04:29 that has been patted dry,

04:30 along with the thyme,

04:34 two cloves worth of chopped garlic, salt and pepper again.

04:38 It's really key that we're seasoning every step of the way.

04:40 We're adding salt and pepper each step

04:42 to make sure that everything is well-seasoned.

04:44 I'm gonna sound like I'm repeating myself,

04:45 but that's because I am.

04:46 We're gonna cook until it's golden brown,

04:48 starting to get translucent,

04:49 but not breaking down, six to eight minutes.

04:51 With the zucchini, and honestly, all of the vegetables,

04:54 you wanna do your best to not disturb them too much.

04:57 I think oftentimes when you're sauteing something,

04:59 the urge is to move it all around.

05:01 That is the antithesis of what we're looking for,

05:03 which is like browning and caramelization.

05:05 So like you can toss every like couple of minutes,

05:09 but truly for like two to three minutes,

05:11 you should just be letting this sit,

05:12 form some color and some fond, stir it around,

05:15 let it sit again.

05:16 You understand, it's a cycle,

05:18 just like this whole thing is a cycle,

05:19 but I promise it's gonna make really delicious food.

05:22 Remove that from the pan, a little bit more olive oil.

05:25 Now we're gonna go in with our chopped tomatoes,

05:27 a little bit of sugar,

05:28 and the remaining garlic, salt and pepper.

05:30 And we're cooking this tomato until it's broken down.

05:32 And this, we actually wanna create

05:34 like a saucy, stewy texture

05:36 that should take six to eight minutes.

05:38 So once your tomato is nice and cooked down,

05:41 you're gonna add in that canned tomato,

05:43 crushed tomatoes in this case.

05:45 This is now the moment

05:45 where we're building everything back together.

05:47 We're gonna add in our basil, all of our reserved veg,

05:51 and we're gonna let this cook for like eight to 10 minutes.

05:53 We don't wanna take this for 30, 40 minutes,

05:55 even though you might think

05:57 that that's building up a ton of flavor,

05:58 it's actually just gonna make things watery

06:00 and messy and gloopy.

06:01 This will keep all the veg intact

06:03 while still moving these around.

06:04 That's why we cooked everything separately.

06:06 Throughout this cooking process,

06:08 a bunch of fond is probably gonna form

06:09 at the bottom of the pan.

06:10 That's all really good stuff

06:12 that's just gonna add to the stew.

06:13 So when you add in your chopped tomatoes,

06:15 you're gonna be adding in a decent amount of moisture.

06:16 Just go in with a wooden spoon, scrape the bottom,

06:18 and you'll get some of that amazingness into your stew.

06:21 (upbeat music)

06:24 I feel like if I showed this plate to my doctor,

06:32 they'd be so happy with me

06:34 for all the veg that I'm eating in just one little bite.

06:37 (upbeat music)

06:40 My favorite ways to serve this is, first of all,

06:43 with some big crusty bread just cracked over it.

06:46 Some of the crumbs get in it.

06:47 Scoop some up with it.

06:48 So yummy.

06:49 I'm super happy with this.

06:50 It's pretty inexpensive,

06:51 especially if you're growing your own produce

06:52 or going to the farmer's market

06:54 and making a deal with the local farmer.

06:56 And I love that it's vegan.

06:58 That's a pretty big selling point nowadays.

07:00 But regardless, if you want more recipes

07:02 that utilize fresh summer produce,

07:04 stick around here on delish.com.

07:06 (upbeat music)

07:08 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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