Ratatouille: easy and cheap recipe to lick your fingers

The ratatouille is one of the most classic and iconic dishes of Spanish cuisine. There is no place where it is not prepared, always to the taste of each house and with the available ingredients. There is no single ratatouille recipe, but rather a set of ingredients and techniques with which different versions of it are made such a simple and cheap dish.

Origin of ratatouille

Ratatouille, as we know it today, with pepper, tomato or both, did not arrive in Spain until the 18th century with the introduction of tomatoes and peppers from America and who came to replace and complement the people’s diet in times of need.

Although Columbus, on his first voyage, brought products such as peppers, there was great reluctance to consume indigenous foods, considering them “alien”, “less nutritious” or associating them with an “inferior society”. Before this, there were other ratatouille, without tomatoes or peppers, such as alboronía andalusí, based on aubergines, which is called “medieval ratatouille”.

With the popularization of tomatoes and peppers and their cultivation on the peninsula, the ratatouille became a quick and easy dish to prepare for peasants and day laborers, that they only had to cut the vegetables and fry them to obtain a very tasty, abundant and satisfying dish.

Vegetable ratatouille ingredients

You will not find two identical ratatouille recipes because each family, each house, does it in its own way. What they all have in common are ingredients and techniques:

A ratatouille can have two or more ingredients, but peppers, tomatoes, or both are always used. For example, the favorite ratatouille of the film director Pedro Almodóvar only has tomatoes and paprika, while the favorite ratatouille of the presenter Joaquín Prat has pepper, tomato, zucchini, onion and garlic. In my house the ratatouille had peppers, tomatoes, onion and, sometimes, also zucchini.

In general both tomato and pepper are essential to have a base that looks more like a ratatouille than a tomato sauce. And next to them you can add onion, zucchini, eggplant, pumpkin and/or garlic.

Sometimes some extra seasonal ingredient is added, such as mushrooms, mushrooms, potatoes, chickpeas, etc.

As a cooking mediumand always use olive oil, that can be virgin or flavored (previously used to fry garlic, for example).

The best technique to prepare ratatouille

The ratatouille is usually made in quantity, to have for several days. And although the vegetables take up a lot at first, as they cook they reduce a lot. Autumn is a good time to make large batches of ratatouille from the last tomatoes and peppers of the season and can it for the rest of the year. To get a good ratatouille:

Vegetables are fried, not cooked, fried, or grilled. That is to say, we cook the vegetables in oil over low heat, letting it bubble, getting at the same time the typical flavors of frying in the pan and confit in oil.The ratatouille They are usually made in a frying pan allowing part of the water from the vegetables to evaporate, and resulting in a creamy dish with a very concentrated flavor. It remains creamy because we have to cook the vegetables until they are very done, almost like spreading on bread. This requires a long time of cooking and stirring from time to time (and control the stove, it does not burn or stay dry). A good ratatouille melts without having to chew it.The vegetables are always cut into medium pieces, pulling small. They can be in strips, in squares or in irregular pieces. Or you can cut some in one way and others in another. The important thing is that there are no giant pieces at the end of cooking.

Main accompaniments for pisto

Being a dish only of vegetables (and healthy fats, because of the olive oil), some accompaniment is usually used. Or vice versa, ratatouille is used as an accompaniment to other dishes.

One of the most popular ingredients as an accompaniment is bread, and another is the egg, for its protein content. We can use other protein ingredients instead:

Tofu: is of the best ingredients to complement the ratatouille. Choose a hard tofu, drain it, dry it and cut it into medium cubes. Add it with the rest of the ingredients. You will see that the tofu acquires an exquisite flavor and a great texture, harder and more consistent.Legumes: It’s not that uncommon to add some cooked chickpeas, so don’t be shy. If you prefer, use beans. It is much better when the legumes are large, that way they don’t get lost in the frying pan or fall apart.Tempeh: tempeh goes very well with ratatouille, especially if we do it all at once, as in the case of tofu. Cut the tempeh as you like and add it from the beginning for extra protein and flavor.Textured: textured soy, textured pea or sunflower protein, or legume. My advice is to do it first. in a separate pan and then add it to the ratatouille halfway through cooking, that way it browns and acquires better flavor and texture, but there is no problem in adding a good handful of (for example) fine textured soy from the beginning of the ratatouille cooking.Seitan: preferably homemade fluffy seitan. You cut it into dice, Brown it first by itself and then add the rest of the vegetables. It is sublime.

Different varieties of ratatouille

There are many other preparations very similar to ratatouille (in addition to many variations of ratatouille), such as the Catalan escalivada, the Basque piparrada, the Sicilian caponata, the French ratatouille, the Serbian ajvar, the Romanian zacusca, or the Bulgarian lutenica.

All of them are exquisite dishes and some, like ajvar and zacusca, They are also used to eat with bread or toast, as a snack or snack. I recommend that, if you like ratatouille, you also try these varieties, which you will love.

Delicious ratatouille recipe

Preparing ratatouille is very easy, because we can always do it to taste. For you to try, I leave you my ratatouille recipe:

Ingredients:

2 large white onions 2 green peppers (Italian) 2 red peppers (bell) 850 g tomatoes (canned peeled tomatoes are good) Extra virgin olive oil with intense flavor (picual or cornicabra) Salt to taste (approx. ¼ teaspoon)

Preparation:

Peel the onion and chop it into medium pieces. Coat the bottom of a large skillet with the olive oil. A thin layer. Put it on medium-low heat. Lightly brown the onion, it will be about 10 minutes. While the onion is cooking, wash the peppers and tomatoes. Cut the peppers into medium pieces, getting smaller, like the onion ones. Add them to the pan and lower the fire a little. Let everything fry together for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. If you see that it dries up or browns, lower the heat further. Chop the tomatoes and add them to the pan along with the salt. Stir it well to mix. You can raise the heat a bit because adding the tomatoes will have lowered the temperature of the pan. When it starts to fry, lower it again. Cook it all together for another 30 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the mixture is smooth. If you see that too much liquid is evaporating, you can put a lid that allows part of the steam to escape. Taste it and add a little more salt if you want. Serve it hot or cold. Store what is left over in a tightly closed container for the fridge. You can freeze it in portions if you want.