Ratatouille

Like most of you, we love to travel and discover new places and new dishes. With the current quarantine situation our travel plans have all been canceled but our wanderlust and sense of discovery are still very strong - this is why we decided to start the Traveling Through Food weeks - if we can’t travel there let us at least make other countries dishes and try something new!

Our first week is dedicated to France and the ever popular French Cuisine. Many of us have eaten french dishes - but have you ever cooked any? French cuisine sounds like a lot of work and we have decided to guide you through some of our favorite dishes this week to show you that it’s actually not that hard at all!

We start this week with Ratatouille, a classic vegan dish which originated in Nice. Ratatouille is usually served as a main dish but can also be eaten as a side with some meat, fish, or grains (quinoa). We love ratatouille because it’s easy and because the flavours blend so well together.

Prep Time: 20 Minutes

Cooking Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients for 2 people (we used a 22cm casserole)

• Eggplant - 1

• Roma Tomatoes - 5

• Zucchini - 1

• Yellow Squash - 1 (if you can’t find one you can go without)

• Onion - 1

• Red Bell Pepper - Half

• Yellow Bell Pepper - Half

• Garlic - 1/2 Cloves

• Crushed Tomatoes/ Tomato Sauce - 200ml

• Olive Oil

• Salt

• Pepper

• Fresh Basil

How to:

1. Start by washing and cutting the eggplant, zucchini, yellow squash and tomatoes into rounds (around 2mm thick) and put them aside.

2. Pre-heat the oven at 180 degrees so that it is ready for later.

3. Now you start making the sauce that goes on the bottom of the casserole: In a pan heat some olive oil and throw in the diced onion once it’s warm. Once the onions are golden add the garlic, and the diced red and yellow bell peppers. Let them cook for around 5 minutes and add the crushed tomatoes/tomato sauce. Let this cook for another 5/7 minutes. Add some fresh basil and transfer your sauce to an oven casserole. Lay it flat so that it’s evenly spread.

4. Arrange the veggies on top of the sauce (eggplant, yellow squash, tomato, zucchini, eggplant…) until the casserole is fully covered.

5. In a small bowl mix some olive oil, salt, pepper, fresh basil and season the top of your vegetables with is.

6. Cover the casserole with foil and bake for 40min, after this time bake the vegetables for 20min again.

7. Take the ratatouille out of the oven and enjoy :)