French Ratatouille

This dish is one every cook should know. It's the healthiest thing you could possibly eat, and it's delicious for meat-eaters, vegetarians, and vegans alike. See below for photos of how two French women cooked ratatouille, the story of how we came together, and the recipes.

Photo: Lindsay Sterling

The Story

Mushy Chunky French Classic

By Lindsay Sterling

My houseguest, a sixteen-year-old French brunette, pointed at the French toast we were serving for breakfast. “What is it?” She asked.

“It’s French toast!” I cried, baffled.  “What - it’s not French?”

“Non.” She said, as confused as I was.

Well if French toast isn’t French, what is? She offered to make us her favorite dinner from home: ratatouille. My first thought was that it’d be pretty good, but a little mushy. My mom used to make a vegetable stew by the same name throughout my elementary school years along with everything else in The Moosewood Cookbook. “You don’t understand,” my mother recently defended her obsession with Katzen’s recipes. “Before that cookbook, in the 70’s it was just meat and potatoes, ketchup and mustard.” After growing up on Katzen’s vanguard internationally inspired vegetable dishes, I went on to become an expert in international cooking. In my professional opinion as the lead investigator at Immigrant Kitchens, I believed Katzen’s ratatouille recipe, even though it delighted millions of liberated American cooks, might have missed something from the French original. And I suspected Mademoiselle Tricaud might help us find it.

I procured the ingredients she requested: garlic, zucchini, yellow summer squash, eggplant, different colored bell peppers, tomatoes, and sweet potato. “Not every one in France uses sweet potato. Just my mother,” she explained. She cut up all the ingredients and cooked them in large skillet with deep sides, starting with the peppers, onions and garlic, then adding another ingredient every five minutes or so. She served what became a red vegetable mass flecked with orange on top of fine couscous. The sweet potatoes made this ratatouille better than my mother’s (nice touch Madame Tricaud!), but even Mademoiselle Tricaud was a little disappointed. It’s not supposed to be mushy, she concluded. She didn’t know what she did wrong.

Later, I was watching my kids swim off a public dock when I heard a French mother speaking to her children in the water. I introduced my self and explained the ratatouille situation. As it turns out, she lived just 3 miles from my house and offered to show me how her grandmother had taught her to make ratatouille in Provence. Provence? Really? That’s the very place the dish is thought to have originated! Provencal cooks in the 1500’s must have tossed together ingredients they’d worked with for thousands of years – onions, garlic, herbs and olives – with new ingredients – tomatoes, peppers and squashes -- recently encountered in the new world, and eggplant from the Indian subcontinent.

In her Freeport, Maine, kitchen, French mother Stephanie Looten-Caceres proved my theory correct! Ratatouille can be truly glorious when it’s made in stages. They key is to keep the shape of each cooked ingredient in tact before tossing them all together. She did this by sautéing the peppers, eggplant, squash, and tomatoes each separately with flavorings (olive oil, herbes de Provence, garlic, onion, and black olives). Then she tossed all the cooked vegetables into a large pot where the flavors continue to meld. The result is less like a stew, as Americans have fashioned it for decades, and more a collection of chunky, cooked vegetables you spoon onto pieces of baguette, or eat with rice, couscous, or meat if you like. The name, “ratatouille,” is from the French verb “touiller,” which means to stir or toss -- not to mush. Every cook should know this dish! It’s delicious, absolutely healthy, and something meat eaters, vegetarian and vegans can all enjoy together. Oh no! I’ve become a ratatouille evangelist just like my mother.

Click at right for the recipes, how-to photos, and to learn this dish in a live cooking class Sept. 14, 2012.

copyright Lindsay Sterling 2012

See How To Do It - Ratatouille

The lovely ingredients, all from Brunswick Farmer's Market, except the herbes de Provence and the olives, from Mircucci's in Portland.

Herbes de Provence - a mixture of dried rosemary, thyme, marjoram, sometimes fennel and lavender.

This is Caroline Tricaud's method. She's 16 and made my family this delicious dinner, one her mother cooks in France all the time. 

She sauteed the vegetables in one pot, starting with the ones that took longer to cook and finishing with the tomatoes.

The sweet potato, her mom's secret ingredient, was a brilliant add in here.

Next is Stephanie Looten-Caceres's method which she learned from her Grandmother in Provence. You saute each main ingredient with onions, garlic, herbes de provence and olives, and then join all the cooked vegetables together all in a big pot.

The veggies simmer in a big pot on the lowest setting for 45 minutes so the flavors mingle.

Stephanie Looten-Caceres, with her family's specialty.

Photos: Lindsay Sterling

The Recipe - French Ratatouille

The Real-Deal French Ratatouille

As Stephanie Looten-Caceres from the Alps (and Provence) taught Lindsay Sterling in Freeport, Maine 2012

Serves 8-10
Cooking time: 2 hours

2/3 cup olive oil
8 cloves garlic squeezed in garlic press or minced
1 onion, peeled and diced
about 2 Tbsp herbes de Provence (mixed dried rosemary, thyme, marjoram, and oregano)
2 eggplants, peeled and diced into 1/2 inch cubes
3 yellow squash, peeled partly and diced into 1/4 inch cubes
4 zucchini, peeled partly and diced into 1/4 inch cubes
1 red pepper, cut into 1/2 inch squares
1 green pepper, cut into 1/2 inch squares
4 tomatoes, large dice
1/2 cup black olives (French if possible)

Peel the eggplants, zucchini and summer squash every other inch lengthwise so they keep some skin, which helps the pieces retain their shape throughout cooking. Peel and cut all the vegetables into desired shapes (listed above) and put into separate bowls.

Put a large soup pot with a lid and a large medium-to-large saute pan on the stove. Heat about 2 Tbsp  olive oil in the saute pan with a small handful of the onions and a generous sprinkle of herbes de Provence. Let these cook a couple minutes to infuse the oil with the flavorings, then add the tomatoes, along with a 4-5 black olives and about a clove's worth of garlic. When the tomatoes are cooked throughout, but still chunky, transfer the contents of the saute pan to to the large pot, and turn that on the lowest heat possible.

Repeat the same process with the squash now as you did with the tomatoes. (First olive oil and herbes de Provence, then the squash, garlic and olives). When the squash loses its firm, foamy quality and before it gets mushy, transfer the contents of the saute pan to the large pot.

Repeat the same cooking process with the eggplant. Add about a 1/4 cup water to keep the eggplant from sticking to the pan and to help steam the insides.

Repeat the same process with the peppers, omitting the olives this time.

Mix all the vegetables together in the big pot, add salt and pepper to taste, and cook covered on the lowest setting for 45 minutes to let the flavors meld. Serve with baguette, rice, or couscous, hot or cold. Stephanie also recommends freezing ratatouille for a summery treat mid-winter.

(Cooking the ingredients separately here allows each feature ingredient to keep its own texture and flavor which makes the dish more of a mixture as opposed to a vegetable spread.)

Easier French Ratatouille -- With Sweet Potato 

As Caroline Tricaud from Meudon, France, taught Lindsay Sterling in Freeport, Maine, 2012

Serves 4-6
Cooking Time: 45 minutes

2 Tbsp olive oil
1 large eggplant
2 zucchinis
4 tomatoes
1 green pepper
1 red pepper
1 sweet potato
garlic
1 yellow onion
About 1 Tbsp total: rosemary, thyme, marjorum, and/or oregano
couscous, rice or baguette

Mince garlic, dice onion (medium), and peel and cut the rest of the vegetables into 1 inch size pieces. She preferred 1/4 inch french fry shape for the sweet potato, triangles for the eggplant, half moons for the onions and peppers, and disks for the summer squashes. Cook couscous or rice according to directions on package. Drizzle olive oil into a large sautee pan on medium heat. Saute the onion and garlic in oil, then add the green and red peppers. After a couple minutes, add the eggplant, then the sweet potatoes, then the zucchini. Last, add the tomatoes. When all the vegetables are cooked, serve atop couscous or rice, or with slices of French baguette.