Easy Ratatouille (Confit Byaldi)

Welcome back to Chez Chefpo! 

Today, we have an iconic dish: Confit Byaldi! If you haven't heard of it, this is the real name for the variation of ratatouille from the 2007 Pixar movie. Ratatouille in general is just a stew that contains many of the same ingredients as the confit byaldi, and it doesn't have to be sliced into such thin slices; in fact, it's often just chunks of the vegetables. From the movie, it seems like this dish is for the intense gourmets and that it's really hard to make. However, all it takes is a some precision with the knife and a little patience!

Easy Ratatouille (Confit Byaldi)

Makes a 8" by 5" oval dish

Ingredients:

• 1/2 zucchini
• 1/2 yellow squash
• 1/2 Chinese eggplants (you'll want these because you want the size to be the same as the rest of the vegetables unless you have massive zucchinis and squash)
• 2 roma tomatoes
• 1/2 cup marinara sauce
• Olive oil
• Some herbs, like thyme
• Salt and pepper

Directions:

1. Thinly slice all the vegetables. You want the sizes and thicknesses to all be the same.
2. In the dish, put the marinara sauce on the bottom.
3. Then, place the vegetables in order around the dish in concentric ovals. If you use a rectangular pan, it's pretty much the same.
   
4. Spray some olive oil on top of the beautiful mosaic that you just created.
5. Add salt, pepper, and herbs to taste.
6. Cover it up and bake in the oven at 375° for 50 to 60 minutes.

Note: Soak the sliced eggplant in water to prevent oxidization.

Not too hard, huh? It's just the cutting that be a little time consuming. Some people make their own sauce for the bottom with sweet bell peppers and that makes it a little more complicated. Now, this dish is sometimes considered to be a main dish, but it's also literally just vegetables. So feel free to serve it as a main dish, but we like to have it alongside some of the other food groups.

Mmm.. a balanced meal

Rectangular Ratatouille

-Chefpo