Ratatouille sounds like a hard dish to cook and I think most people are put off by the fact that it includes eggplant. Eggplant is not difficult to cook either, but it does require some preparation work before you can cook it. I will go through this step by step and you’ll find it’s no more difficult than any other vegetable. Ratatouille makes a wonderful accompaniment to many different meals and if you are vegetarian is a great meal served with fresh bread.

This serves four people.

You will need:

• Equipment
• • A potato peeler
• • A sharp knife
• • A skillet or heavy frying pan
• • A colander
• • A bowl
• Ingredients:
• • 1 eggplant
• • 1 zucchini or squash
• • 1 large tomato
• • 2 garlic cloves
• • 1 large white onion
• • Flour
• • Olive oil
• • Salt and pepper
• • Mixed herbs
• • A bottle of wine.

First, open the wine and pour a large glass. Sip. You are now ready to cook. Next, the eggplant. Because eggplant tends to be very bitter, the first thing to do is to draw that bitterness out. We do that by salting the eggplant. Select an eggplant that has a smooth, shiny skin. Rinse and peel the eggplant with the potato peeler. Slice and then dice. Cover the pieces with a lot of salt and put in the colander in the sink. While the eggplant is sitting, prepare the other vegetables.

Peel and chop the onions. Peel and chop the garlic. Chop the tomato. Slice and dice the squash.

In a bowl add a handful of flour and salt and pepper to taste. Put the pieces of squash in the flour mix and shake up until all the pieces are coated.

Next after the eggplant has been sitting for at least 15 minutes, run the eggplant in the colander under cold water to wash the salt off. It doesn’t matter if the eggplant has been sitting for an hour or so, but 15 minutes is the bare minimum. When the salt is all washed off, take the eggplant and squeeze all the moisture out.

Next add two tablespoons of olive oil to the skillet and heat over a medium heat. When the oil is hot, add the eggplant and stir. Eggplant tends to soak up oil so you may need to add a little more.

Next add the onions and garlic and cook until soft. Next add the squash and cook until it starts top go brown. Last but not least add the tomato, salt and pepper to taste and a teaspoon of mixed herbs. Cook for another 2 or 3 minutes until the tomato begins to fall apart. If you like you can add a can of tomato sauce, but for this one I didn’t because I didn’t want a very wet sauce.

Serve with whatever you like - this is totally one of my favorite garlic recipes and I do go to town with the garlic.. In this case I served it with roast chicken with garlic pesto and potato pancakes. (see Cooking made easy – potato pancakes and how to roast a chicken)

Bon Apetit !