A few years back, I finally watched Pixar’s Ratatouille, well after the DVD release. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed a movie about rats, though maybe I shouldn’t be seeing as how I loved Secret of Nimh as a kid. The kids loved it, so of course I ended up seeing it about 30 times in two weeks, but with a topic so close to my heart, I didn’t mind as much. Especially the final cooking scene with Remy and Colette making his famous dish ratatouille.
OMG, tears. Seriously. But anyway, a couple years ago I went searching and searching for the recipe and eventually found this one published by the New York Times called Confit Byaldi. According to Wikipedia, this fancy version of traditional ratatouille was first created by French chef Michel Guérard. It involves cooking very thinly sliced veggies over a bell pepper and tomato mixture called piperade and then baking it in the oven for a WHOPPING 2 1/2 HOURS.
With that in mind, do not do what I did and start baking your veggies at 9:30 PM.
Here’s a screenshot of the final dish, which quite frankly, looks absolutely amazing. I’d scoured the internet and YouTube trying to find a large photo of the dish but came up empty handed, so I ended up screencapping my own and it helped so much in figuring out what the sauce is. I’d thought olive oil and balsamic vinagrette looked wrong, but as you can see, it totally looks it in this photo. The tomato on top is even dripping some excess piperade if you can believe it. The details they put into this my goodness!
My very first recommendation before you attempt this is to buy a mandoline
This is my first plate of ratatouille, which had several mistakes I noticed right off the bat. For one, leaving the veggies with 1/4 showing is too much. You need to layer them much closer together so barely a lip is showing. You won’t be able to bunch them up for the bottom very nicely.
Two, while baking this for two hours may leave you with an amazing burst of flavor in your mouth (inciting that involuntary “MMMmmmMMmm” you see in the film), it’s too long to work well for presentation.
See? Too much space. I needed to layer them much closer together.
A couple things were different in the movie than in the recipe. For instance, Remy layers what looks like sauce onto the bottom of the pan before putting the vegetables down. I took the piperade and pureed it, which gave me a rather orange sauce, but still tasted great. I covered it in a piece of parchment paper that I traced with the dish first.
This is my second attempt, which involved stacking the veggies more on top of each other and cooked for half an hour less than the first batch. Sadly, while it helped presentation, it ultimately killed the superb taste of the first batch.
In the end, I think the taste matters more and so layering the veggies out more and cooking it for the full two hours is the way to go if you want to serve up some truly delicious ratatouille.
Note that my recipe differs slightly from the original because I don’t find it necessary to buy three different colors of bell peppers. I should also mention that this dish isn’t realistic for the movie, unless they’re saying Anton Ego was sitting outside waiting for his dish for four hours, which is about how long you’ll need to cook this.
[amd-zlrecipe-recipe:5]
Im gonna try it for sure!
I discovered your site today and browsed through it with delight.
Of course I had to read this recipe as I happen to live in Paris, cook myself for pleasure and need and happen to now about Mediterranean cuisine that I favor above others.
There is a secret to ratatouille and you obviously did not know it.
I assume you have access to my email from this message.
If you are interested I will share it with you.
You will then try and tell me if it changes anything .. or just everything. 🙂
Congratulations on this beautiful and very inspired Blog.
I think I may well try one or two things from here myself.
Very Best regards from Paris.
Yann.
(no, not Rémy)
I need secret ingredient ASAP
Yann,
I would like the secret ingredient as well, please.
Yann what is the secret? (:
My guess is salting the eggplant first to remove bitterness and juice, and then cook as normal. I did not make this version but I just had some decent ratatouille. I do not like eggplant or bell peppers but I ended up loving the dish. I made mine the simpler stew style.
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YUCK!!!
you monster
This sh!t has got to be the all-time insanely orgasmically tastiest thing I have have ever tasted, AND I HATE ZUKES!! Of course I have only tried the smitten kitchen version so far but will give confetti bole or whatever a go too. Now I can’t freaking wait for summer!
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You are wrong it takes around 30mins to cook it, my dear. You chose the long winded way.
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