Barnaby Does Istanbul: Ratatouille a la Italiana

Another adaption of the genius working over at Smittenkitchen.com. (http://smittenkitchen.com/2007/07/rat-a-too-ee-for-you-ee/)

The first time I made this was in my kitchen last summer with my good friend David, who helped me with the most crucial part of ratatouille: to slice the eggplant, squash and red bell pepper in very thin slices.

As we begin to flirt with Spring here in Istanbul, I thought I might invoke the Summer spirit by making this dish. The only thing I added was a dollup of pesto to the base of the pan, forcing the great French and Italian cuisines to combine. It was delicious, these two culinary power houses should combine their forces more often.

So ratatouille is REALLY simple.

First, preheat your oven to 375 degrees Farenheit.

Now place:

1 cup tomato sauce

1/2 medium onion, sliced

3 or 4 cloves chopped garlic

pesto (optional)

in the bottom of a large baking pan.

Then you are going to slice very thinly (1/16 of an inch):

1 medium eggplant

1-2 squash

1 red bell pepper (I used some tomatoes, because they don't really have bell peppers here in Turkey - if you are going to use a tomato, make sure it's isn'y mealy)

Once you've thinly sliced the vegetables, place them in the dish, alternating eggplant, squash, pepper...push them up together so they are very tightly packed.

As you come to the edge of the pan, just keep your alternating pattern going around the corner and bring it around the outer edge of the pan, as if you were forming a big circle that than comes into the center...