Ratatouille Niçoise is a traditional French Provençal stewed vegetable dish, originated in the area around Nice, Provence. It is really a summer vegetable dish, when the eggplant and the tomatoes are at their best. It is usually served as a side dish, but also may be served as a meal on its own alongside pasta or crusty bread.

Ratatouille Niçoise is a flavourful dish yet fairly simple to make. Its flavour comes from eggplant, tomatoes, onions, zucchini, garlic, green bell peppers and seasoned with a mix of herbs like herbes de Provence. These abundant summer vegetables are sautéed in olive oil in the correct sequence and then are cooked slowly with tomato sauce.
See Recipe.

Like almost all traditional French food, a hearty dish like this that is this simple in its seasonings and ingredients, and yet rich in flavours, are distinctive of French cuisine. Sometimes the simplest things are the best.

To not experience the culture of French food is to not truly experience France. That is why I chose Ratatouille Niçoise as my sixth recipe challenge. It is one of the quintessential recipes in French cuisine. I need to understand why the French love to cook and how they do it. In many ways, an understanding of its culture of food and recipes is an understanding of France itself.

While I had the pleasure of cooking and entertaining, I decided to throw a dinner party among few good friends with the French dinner menu in mind, Roti de Porc served with Gratin Dauphinois and Ratatouille Niçoise on the side. It was a small get-together of epicures on a Saturday night, to humbly showcase my French cooking. It was fanciful in its essence yet casual in atmosphere.

I didn’t cook until Saturday which explained why I was serving three French dishes at a time, my one week’s worth of adventure in learning French cuisine.

I had absolutely my agenda prepared on that day. I woke up early as usual and began to gather and sort all the ingredients needed for the recipes.

I started with Ratatouille Niçoise as it had the most tedious preparation of the 3 recipes, seemed most likely to prepare ahead of time and to gain in more flavor when reheated.

All ingredients were sorted, washed and readied by 11 in the morning.

Tomato is the base of this recipe. I used firm, ripe, red tomatoes, about 6 medium, yielded at least 2 cups of pulp. I peeled, seeded and juiced, then set aside. Then diced the juiced tomatoes and set aside.

I scrubbed and cut the zucchini into about ¾ inch cubes. I did the same with the eggplant. I tossed them together with salt in a stainless-steel bowl and let stand for 30 minutes. Then I drained and dried the vegetables with a clean kitchen towel.

In a skillet, I sautéed the zucchini and eggplant in hot olive oil one layer at a time, about a minute on each side to brown lightly. Then removed into a wooden bowl.

In the same skillet, I tossed in the onions and green bell peppers and cooked slowly in olive oil until tender but not brown, for about 10 minutes. Stirred in the garlic and added the diced tomatoes over the onions and green bell peppers.  Covered the skillet and cooked over low heat. After 5 minutes, uncovered and poured in the extracted tomato juice. I seasoned with salt, pepper and herbes de Provence. Basted the tomatoes, onions, green bell peppers and garlic with the juice using a wooden spoon, raised heat and boiled until juice had almost evaporated.

I placed a casserole on low heat. I layered up a third of the tomato mixture in the bottom of the casserole and sprinkled over it 1 tablespoon of parsley, half of the zucchini and eggplant on top, then half the remaining tomatoes and parsley. Put in the rest of the zucchini and eggplant and finished with the remaining tomatoes and parsley. Continued to cook slowly over low heat, basting several times with the rendered juice by tipping the casserole. I seasoned carefully. Raised the heat slightly and cooked uncovered for about 20 minutes more until tomato juice evaporated slightly. Then I set aside uncovered. I reheated slowly just when I was about to serve dinner.

I served it to 8 people, alongside Roti de Porc and Gratin Dauphinois for the main entrée.

Ratatouille Niçoise was a great hit! For the amount of time it took to prepare for this dish, I would say that it was simply delightful. The texture was just fabulous. It had the color of the summer that was just perfect to serve on a hot day in March. The aroma filled my tiny kitchen wonderfully.

I will definitely make this dish again in a second!

It was fun! See you next time…à bientot!

Ratatouille Niçoise

Prep Time: 30mins

Cooking Time: 1hr

Ingredients

1 k medium peeled, seeded, juiced and diced tomatoes (canned diced tomatoes is an option)

1 k zucchini

1 k eggplant

1 teaspoon salt

5 tablespoons olive oil, more if needed

½ k diced yellow onions

½ k diced green bell peppers

3 tablespoons olive oil, if necessary

2 cloves minced garlic

Salt and pepper to taste

1 teaspoon herbes de Provence

3 tablespoons minced parsley

Salt and pepper to taste