HOW TO MAKE RATATOUILLE

Steps:

• Vegetables are the bedrock of French cuisine, the foundation upon which all is built. Although cooking bibles like "The Escoffier Cookbook" and "Larousse Gastronomique" may not have as many recipes centering on artichokes and carrots as they do on chicken or beef, it is only because vegetables suffuse the canon and the kitchen, from the broths and sauces that serve as the base of elaborate dishes, to the garnishes that finish them.But there are a handful of dishes where vegetables are the stars. Ratatouille is beloved for its silky, olive oil-imbued vegetables, which are saturated with the summery scents of garlic and herbs. By mastering it, you will gain not only deeper insights into how to cook the vegetables in the recipe, but you will also be able to apply that knowledge to other vegetables, making you a better cook all around.Unlike much of French cuisine, ratatouille does not have a set recipe or precise technique. There are as many versions as there are cooks, each slightly different in method and ingredients.The most traditional recipes call for cooking each vegetable separately in a pot on the stove until well browned, layering everything back into the pot with a generous amount of olive oil and some tomatoes, and then letting it all slowly stew. Most cooks agree that this is the best way to ensure that the vegetables are cooked to perfection before all are combined, and the flavors left to meld.However, all that standing at the stove stirring vegetables can become tedious. Even "Larousse Gastronomique" discards that method in its official recipe, throwing everything into the same pan in stages without the benefit of that individual browning.But there is another, better way around the tedium: using your oven. This is what many contemporary French cooks do, and it's the method on which our recipe is based. All the vegetables are bathed in olive oil and roasted separately on baking pans until well browned. Then they're mixed together in one pan, covered with more oil and some tomato, and cooked again until everything condenses in flavor and practically falls apart, soaking up the good oil and tomato almost like a confit.That time spent steeping in good oil makes ratatouille one of the rare vegetable dishes that improves as it sits. It is best made in advance, and you can be flexible with the way you cook it, roasting the vegetables in stages as time allows, then combining them all even days later. It is also wonderfully versatile at the table, making a fine starter, side dish or main course, one that can be eaten warm, at room temperature or cold.
• A slowly cooked stew of eggplant, onions, peppers, summer squash and tomatoes has been simmering on hearths around the Mediterranean since the 16th century, when tomatoes, peppers and squash from the Americas met the eggplant, onion and olive oil already in residence.This basic combination of summer vegetables takes different forms throughout the region. In Catalonia, it is simmered until it is almost jamlike and called samfaina. In Turkey, it is known as turlu and may also contain potatoes, okra and green beans. Lebanon, Egypt and Greece all have versions. In Provençe, it is scented with herbs and garlic and called ratatouille.The term, which came into use in the 19th century, is derived from the French verbs ratouiller and tatouiller, both meaning to stir up. And the pleasing, percussive-sounding word captures the essence of this dish: a stirring of several vegetables that have been cooked separately before being combined.Originally, a ratatouille could be any kind of simple or coarse stew. It could include meat, or it could do without it. Nineteenth-century French military slang referred to the dish as a "rata." The first written mentions of the all-vegetable stew from Nice that we know today, also called sauté à la Niçoise, came in the early 20th century.But by 1930, ratatouille had become entrenched in the Provençal repertoire. Henri Heyraud, the author of "La Cuisine à Nice," described it as a ragoût of eggplant, zucchini, peppers and tomatoes. The use of the word ragoût here is fitting; it means to revive the taste, which is exactly what ratatouille does, giving cooked vegetables and herbs new verve when they are combined and cooked again.As Provençal cuisine became fashionable all over France (and to a lesser degree in Britain and the United States) in the latter part of the 20th century, the popularity of ratatouille grew. It has since become a summer staple to serve with simple grilled meats, or as a main course in its own right, with the requisite bottle of rosé.Above, "Still Life With Flowers and Vegetables" by Caravaggio (1571-1610).
• Sharp knives You need a chef's knife and paring knife to prepare the vegetables. And a well-sharpened knife will make all that chopping go noticeably faster than a dull knife.Baking sheets The vegetables in this ratatouille are roasted individually before they are all combined. Ideally, you will have at least four large rimmed metal baking sheets for doing so. You can get away with fewer, but you will need to cook the vegetables in batches.Large baking dish You could heap all of the vegetables onto a baking sheet when it is time to cook them together. But a large, shallow, attractive casserole that can travel straight to the table is an appealing way to serve the dish.Wirecutter, a product recommendations website owned by The New York Times Company, has guides to the best chef's knives, paring knives, baking sheets and casserole dishes.
• In our version of this classic Provençal dish, vegetables are covered in olive oil and roasted separately, then together, until they collapse into a soft, herb-scented stew. Ratatouille takes time to prepare and tastes better the next day, so plan ahead. For that reason, it's an ideal make-ahead dish for a gathering.
• There are many ways you can cut the vegetables for ratatouille, but a combination of slices, rounds and spears gives the stew an attractive look and some textural contrast. (Brush up on your technique with our guide to basic knife skills.) Eggplant is like the meat of the ratatouille, adding a savory heft and richness.You can use any type of eggplant you like, though if the skin is tough and leathery, consider peeling it first. If you'd prefer to keep the skin on, which gives ratatouille a nice texture, look for tender, young, thin-skinned eggplant. In France, cooks often use large Italian purple-black eggplants. But you can also use graffiti, Japanese, Chinese or white eggplant varieties, or use a combination of them for the most interesting and diverse texture.To prepare the eggplants, slice off the top and bottom from each. Lay an eggplant on its side and cut it in half, then cut it into 1-inch chunks or spears. Repeat with remaining eggplant.Peppers give a jammy sweetness and fruitiness to the stew pot. Choose a combination of red, yellow and orange bell peppers, or other sweet peppers. Green bell peppers, which are harvested earlier than the red, orange and yellow ones, have a more pungent, grassy flavor and less sweetness; they are not what you want for ratatouille.To prepare the peppers, lay one on its side and slice off the top and bottom. Halve the pepper, remove the seeds and cut out the white veins. Slice into 1/4-inch-thick strips. Repeat with remaining peppers. Alternatively, after trimming and seeding the peppers, you can cut them into 1/4-inch thick rounds.Zucchini is soft, sweet and very succulent when slowly stewed in a ratatouille.You can use any variety of zucchini you find - the fresher, the better. A mix of colors (yellow, dark green and pale green) makes for a particularly pretty dish. Always keep the skins on zucchini, or they will completely fall apart as they cook.To prepare the zucchini, slice off the tops and bottoms. Lay each zucchini on its side. Cutting horizontally, slice into 1/4-inch-thick rounds.Onions add a caramelized sweetness to ratatouille. Large Spanish onions or white onions (which have a high water content and some bite) are best here. Keep in mind that as the onions cook, they sweeten, so unless you want a particularly sweet ratatouille, avoid red onions, Vidalias and other high-sugar onions.To prepare the onions, halve them from the stem to the root, then peel. Next, lay them flat. For ratatouille, aim for 1/4-inch-thick slices - that is, unless you want more pronounced onion pieces in the dish, in which case you can cut thicker pieces. The thicker the slices, the longer the onions will take to roast.
• Ratatouille is a freer and easier recipe than much of what you'll find in the canon of French cuisine, requiring you to spend more time choosing the ingredients than actually fiddling with them. That said, there are some techniques that will help you get the most deeply flavored dish. Blanching tomatoes helps loosen the skin, making them easier to peel without losing any of their precious, sweet juices. The trick is remove them from the boiling water before their flesh is cooked. You want to cook only the skin.Choose tomatoes that are ripe but still firm; soft tomatoes won't hold up to the peeling and blanching. You can use any variety as long as it is flavorful and sweet. However, using large round tomatoes rather than small plum tomatoes makes the blanching, peeling and seeding go more quickly.To begin, bring a medium pot of water to a boil. One at a time, drop the whole tomatoes into the boiling water. Cover and let boil for 10 seconds. Using a slotted spoon or tongs, immediately remove the tomatoes from the pot and plunge them into a bowl of ice water to stop the cooking. Hold a cooled tomato in your hand and use a small paring knife to cut out the stem. From there, you can start to peel the skin. It should slip right off.Cut the peeled tomato in half around its equator. Set up a bowl with a mesh sieve sitting on top. Squeeze the tomato halves over the sieve so the seeds are caught in the mesh and the juices pool in the bowl. The seeds should slip out easily, but you can use your fingers to pry any stubborn ones from the tomato flesh. Discard the seeds in the sieve. Dice the tomato pulp and add it to the bowl with their juices. Repeat peeling and seeding with the remaining tomatoes.• When you are making ratatouille, the quality of the olive oil is as important as that of the vegetables. Make sure to choose a good extra-virgin oil, preferably from France. You'll be using a lot of it here.• If you don't have four baking sheets, roast the vegetables on individual sheets in succession. Transfer the cooked vegetables to a bowl as they finish cooking. This takes longer, since you can't roast all the vegetables at once. (Likewise, if you can't fit all of the baking sheets into your oven at once, cook them in batches.)• If your ratatouille emerges from the oven with a lot of excess liquid in the pan, pour the liquid into a saucepan and reduce it over the stove. Then add it back to the dish once it is reduced, to take advantage of its flavor.• Try the traditional method: Instead of roasting each vegetable on baking sheets, cook them on the stovetop. Heat your largest skillet on the stove, adding a film of oil, and cook each vegetable separately (and the onions, smashed garlic and herbs together). Cook in batches if necessary, so as not to crowd the pan. (If you crowd the pan, the vegetables will steam rather than brown, and cook unevenly.) As the vegetables soften and brown, transfer them to a bowl. (You can add all the different kinds of cooked vegetables to the same bowl.) Add more oil with each batch of vegetables, and season with salt and pepper as you go. When all of the vegetables are cooked, transfer them back to the skillet, along with the tomatoes, grated garlic and a good dose of olive oil. Simmer, uncovered, until they meld together, about 30 to 45 minutes.• You can make this dish in stages, if that suits your schedule. Roast the vegetables separately a day or two before combining them, and then refrigerate them. When you are ready to return to them, combine with the tomatoes, remaining herbs and oil and cook for at least an hour to finish.• Or make the entire dish ahead. It is best to make your ratatouille one or two days before serving so the flavors have a chance to meld and mellow. Once the dish is cooked and cooled, transfer it to a container, adding a little oil if necessary, and refrigerate for up to five days. When you're ready to serve, bring it to room temperature (this takes about an hour) and drizzle with a tiny bit more olive oil. You can also reheat it on the stove or in the microwave to serve it warm.
• Photography Food styling: Alison Attenborough. Prop styling: Beverley Hyde. Additional photography: Karsten Moran for The New York Times. Additional styling: Jade Zimmerman. Video Food styling: Chris Barsch and Jade Zimmerman. Art direction: Alex Brannian. Prop styling: Catherine Pearson. Director of photography: James Herron. Camera operators: Tim Wu and Zack Sainz. Editing: Will Lloyd and Adam Saewitz. Additional editing: Meg Felling.
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