How to Make Latin Ratatouille

Hola, I'm Daisy Martinez on eHow.com. Today, I'm going to be making Pisto Manchego, a delicious Ratatouille-like dish chock-full of delicious veggies from the La Mancha region of Spain. I've gone ahead and fried some potatoes to a nice golden brown, seasoned them with salt and pepper. What's better than fried potatoes? Not a whole lot, yummy. I have some olive oil here in my pan, and to that I'm going to add some onion and some sliced garlic. I'm going to go ahead and add some fresh thyme, a couple of sprigs, just to make it really bloom and blossom. I have some fresh oregano too, not a whole lot. Oregano is one of those herbs that can really be overpowering in a dish. So, about a teaspoon, and we're going to chop that, hit that. I'm just going to continue to cook this until the onions start to soften a little bit. I'm going to lower the heat because I don't want my onions to burn. Okay, now the herbs are really, really fragrant. The onion is just starting to soften up. It's starting to get a little translucent, but it still has enough bite. I'm going to go ahead and raise the heat, and to that we're going to add some beautiful, sweet red and yellow bell peppers. Do we need yellow peppers? No, but how awesome is this going to look with those yellow peppers. And Pisto is very similar to that French word, bistro, which means finely chopped vegetables, like in bistro soup where they make those beautiful little tiles of veggies. I want the bell pepper to get a little soft, but not mushy. When I eat this dish, I like each, to taste each vegetable. So, each vegetable should have its own integrity, and I like the mouth feel of a toothsome veggie, not like mushy veggies. And you guys can see that I went head and fried my potatoes to give them texture. In this pan, and I saved the oil because the oil from the potatoes adds a beautiful nuance, another level, layer to the dish. I love that. That's how I love to cook, like building it, it's a structure. Now, the peppers are heated through, and they're starting to look shiny and tender and crisp, and to that I'm going to add my zucchini. You could also add a combination of green squash, zucchini with, like, yellow Summer squash, and we're doing this at high heat, pretty much. Let's start adding our seasonings. Woo, got to get my pisto, woo. Okay, a lot of times, you'll come across a Pisto Manchego where people will put in like a can of cooked tomatoes, and make this almost like a thick, soupy, like a ratatouille. I like the freshness that my take on Pisto Manchego gives, and so once I have the vegetables heated through, I don't want the zucchini to get mushy. So, once I have the zucchini heated through, I'm going to go ahead and add my potatoes. And now, the potatoes are soaking all of those delicious juices that the onion and the garlic and the peppers and the zucchini let out. You getting the picture? It's a community effort. Woo, and that's smelling like something now. So, the very last thing that I'm going to add to my Pisto, being true to the components, but taking a little liberty with the style, is I'm going to add some sliced cherry tomatoes. I'm not going to let this stew. I'm just going to give this a quick stir, heat it through and this really is a one pot meal. You could easily make this dinner. Just a couple of minutes to heat the tomatoes, though I don't want the tomatoes to pucker up and die. We're going to turn the heat off. I like to serve this just like this but you know what would really make it perfect and just the end of everything? A couple of fried eggs on top. That would make it Spanish in a way like nobody's business. I'm Daisy Martinez, and we're doing Pisto Manchego for eHow.com.