Ratatouille

ratatouille comes from Occitan ratatolha and the recipe comes from Occitan cuisine. The French touiller means to toss food. Ratatouille originated in the area around present day Occitan Provença (French: Provence) and Niça (French: Nice); the Catalan"xamfaina" and the Majorcan "tombet" are versions of the same dish.

Directions:

Cut the eggplant into rondelles; keep separate. Peel the zucchini, cut into rondelles, keep separate. Clean the bell pepper, cut into small strips, keep separate. Chop the onion, keep separate.

·         Peel, de-seed and drain the tomatoes

Using four separate cooking pots put some olive oil in the bottom; put in the eggplant, zucchini, pepper, and onion into their own pots; sprinkle some flour onto the eggplant and onto the zucchini. Put the four pots on to cook slowly. Each cooks for about 30 minutes, but test and cook each until correctly soft.

·         In step 2, cook each vegetable one after the other, adding more olive oil when required, and mix all the vegetables once they are cooked.

 In a large cooking pot with a thick bottom, put in olive oil, chopped garlic, herbes de Provence. Squeeze the tomatoes in by hand. Cook slowly until you have a thick tomato sauce.

 Add the four separately cooked vegetables to the tomato sauce, mix thoroughly and heat. Pour off the excess oil from the top. It's ready to serve.

Recipe (12 servings makes about 4.5 litres)

1.6 kg tomato [tomate]

700 g eggplant (2) [aubergine]

500 g zucchini (2) [courgette]

700 g bell pepper (2-3) [poivron]

1 kg onion [oignon]

6 cloves garlic [ail]

Herbes de Provence (basilic,thyme, parsley)

Olive oil [huile d'olive]

Salt, pepper [sel, poivre]

140 g tomato paste