Although you can eat it as a vegetarian course or as a side dish, in the Mediterranean Catalan cuisine the most common use of ratatouille, or samfaina as we call it, is as a sauce or base. Elsewhere in this web site I give you a step-by-step ratatouille recipe as made in Catalonia illustrated with accompanying pictures too. So, you either make the ratatouille over previously roasted meat, chicken, sauteed fish, etc., or you start cooking it halfway in a different casserole. Later, you pour it over those main foods and cook the stew together until done. Each recipe specifies the exact ingredients, and the moment when you should add or start cooking the ratatouille recipe. I cooked the complete Catalan samfaina you see in the pictures for 45 minutes without adding any water, because the tomatoes were very juicy. It is the best for keeping the maximum taste of the fresh vegetables. But if the tomatoes aren't juicy enough, you have no choice but adding a cup of water approximately. You can cook the Catalan ratatouille recipe up to 1 ½ hours, in which case you also have to add a cup of water. If the tomato juices evaporate s completely, the ratatouille can easily stick and burn. As you see in the pictures, the different ingredients of this 45-minute samfaina are easily recognizable. When you cook it longer, the ingredients slowly melt together, and you obtain a mousse-like texture. It comes closer to the consistency most people have in mind when thinking of a thick sauce. Once you learn to prepare this complete samfaina, you can easily cook characteristic Mediterranean food dishes like chicken with ratatouille recipe, salt cod with samfaina, beef with samfaina, and many more. You'll have no difficulty in making the small adaptations required by each Catalan Mediterranean dish that includes the preparation of a ratatouille recipe. | Top | Mediterranean diet recipes home |
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