Friday, August 10, 2007

Ratatouille

Pixar disproved my skepticism about yet another animated film revolving around animals. As soon as I watched the trailer of the uberly cute rat cooking up a storm in the kitchen, I knew I needed to watch this film on the big screen.



The show certainly wowed me with its very detailed graphics. The plot was also very interesting. I love, love, love to cook. To have a rat in the kitchen is certainly taboo in the culinary world, so it was certainly quite a twist to have a rat so gifted in cooking. Finally, to have this movie set in the romantic city that is Paris gave the show a very cozy ambience.

One of the scenes that totally stuck in my head after the movie ended was Ego trying out the delectable-looking Ratatouille that Remy cooked up. It looked deeelicious!

Once I got home, I researched the recipe for Ratatouille and decided to make my own! I have to say this dish is really good! And very simple to make, too! The recipe calls for 7 basic ingredients:

Extra Virgin Olive Oil (the very good stuff)
Tomato, sliced
Zucchini, sliced
Red Onion, sliced
Garlic
Salt and Pepper

The secret is in the quality of the ingredients. The olive oil brings out the flavor in the tomato and zucchini and these two vegetables really are a match made in heaven. Some recipes call for eggplant but since I am not a big fan of eggplant, I decided to omit that.

How to cook this dish? Simple. Place a considerable amount of olive oil on your skillet, and place the garlic and red onion when the oil gets hot. Cook until the onion becomes somewhat translucent and dump in the sliced zucchinis. Place the tomato once the zucchinis are cooked, and season with salt and pepper. I like to place it in a deep dish and bake it for a few minutes or so just to bring more flavor to it but this last step isn't really necessary.

The result of my creation:



Doesn't look like Remy's masterpiece, that's for sure, but I surmise that Remy placed some sort of thickener to his sauce. None the less, the dish is a must try :)

2 comments:

Rom said...

Lol, i was waiting for you to blog about this..

Looks yumm..

I didn't know you like to cook. =)

Underzenith said...

Yeah I love to cook! But I haven't had enough time to cook leisurely. :P