You cook aubergine, courgette, pepper, tomato and onion each on its own, then bring them together in olive oil and basil. Every piece should still be itself; it should not be a jam. Serve it warm, not hot: it tastes of a Provençal summer, and better still the next day.
Nice claims it, as it claims most of the southern vegetable kitchen. The method — each vegetable cooked apart, then assembled — is the only way the pieces keep their own taste.
Salt the aubergine first. Do not stir the final stew into a mash. Tear in the basil off the heat, and rest it. A Côtes de Provence rosé is the correct glass.
Method
- 01
Salt the aubergine cubes and leave them 20 minutes to weep, then pat them thoroughly dry — this is how they brown instead of stew. Cook them in olive oil until golden on all sides, then lift out. Repeat with the courgettes, then the peppers, adding oil as the pan goes dry. Each vegetable must be cooked apart, or you will have jam — and don't be timid with the oil; this is Provençal cooking.
- 02
In the same pan, with whatever oil and browned bits remain, soften the onion until it is translucent and sweet. Add the sliced garlic, then the tomatoes and the bouquet garni. Cook to a thick sauce, about 15 minutes, until the tomatoes have collapsed and the oil begins to separate at the edges. This sauce is the binding, not a drowning.
- 03
Return the vegetables to the pan, season with salt and pepper, and stew them together gently for 15 minutes. Stir as little as you can; you want each piece still itself, not a mash. It will look a little chaotic, and that is correct. Taste a cube of aubergine; it should be silky, not spongy.
- 04
Discard the bouquet garni. Tear in the basil off the heat — heat turns it black and dull — and rest the ratatouille 10 minutes so the flavors settle. Serve it warm, not hot, or at room temperature the next day, when it is even better. Do not stir it into a mash on the way to the table.
