Ratatouille

About the dish

Ratatouille is a summer vegetable stew from Provence in southern France, most closely tied to Nice. It brings together eggplant, zucchini, sweet peppers, tomatoes, onion and garlic, cooked in plenty of olive oil with herbs such as thyme, bay and basil.

Cooks have argued for generations about method. Many brown each vegetable separately so that each keeps its own texture and color, then combine them with the tomatoes to simmer briefly. Others cook everything together for a softer, more unified stew. Both are traditional. Eggplant soaks up a great deal of oil, so it is often cooked on its own first.

The flavor comes from sweet, slowly cooked peppers and onion, the bright acidity and savory depth of the tomatoes, and the faint bitterness of eggplant, all carried by olive oil. Ratatouille is eaten hot, warm or at room temperature, and it is widely held to taste better the next day. The thin-sliced, neatly layered vegetable dish often seen in pictures is a modern restaurant variation on a dish called a tian.

Written from general cooking knowledge, as background on a dish from the game’s recipe book. It is not a tested recipe.

The flavors it leans on

• Sweet
• Sour
• Savory