Deconstructed Ratatouille Pizza, made from classic ratatouille ingredients; eggplant, zucchini and peppers, thinly sliced on top a pesto covered pizza crust.
What Is Ratatouille?
Ratatouille is a rustic, French countryside dish incorporating many favored summertime garden ingredients.
When you grow lots of tomatoes, zucchini and eggplant during the summer months, you often end up with more than you can eat.
Ratatouille is the resolve for such an overgrown garden.
The veggies are simmered and reduced, like a stew, with many of the Herbs de Provence; thyme, basil, marjoram, oregano and of course a little wine.
This European summer stew, condenses a large mass of veggies and serves beautifully with crusty bread, over pasta or freeze small batches for the winter months.
In this way, we can enjoy our summer garden all over again.
Deconstructed Or Constructed
If the rustic French version of a summer garden is condensed veggies into a lovely spread, how about we showcase them in a new way!
Let’s construct those same lovely summer garden vegetables, while they still look plump and colorful, into the most beautiful topping for a pizza; a Ratatouille Pizza!
After all, a Mediterranean Ratatouille Crostini is the reduction of summer’s vegetables on top of a crostini, for a lovely appetizer or tapas dish.
So why not roast the same vegetables in visibly large strips and serve them constructed over a homemade pizza dough, the same dough I like to use for making a Stromboli!
Homemade Pizza Is The Best
Who doesn’t love pizza! Thick crust or thin, there is something totally scrumptious about well thought out toppings over a homemade crust.
When a pizza crust is homemade, what goes into the dough can be as thoughtful as what goes on top.
With an easy to make (really, all my kids make this dough, and have since they were teens), Homemade Bread dough, the rest is easy!
I will often add grated cheeses, sometimes garlic and always herbs to make the pizza crust just as much the star as the toppings.
What better way to compliment the roasted ratatouille ingredients on this pizza than to use garden fresh herbs in the crust too!
Green Sauce For A Deconstructed Ratatouille Pizza
Tomato sauce ain’t the only sauce in town!
In fact, once you’ve had ‘green’ sauce on your pizza you will realize where the real flavor in your pizza is coming from.
Pesto, salsa verde and Chermoula are all green sauces that have no tomatoes in them.
For this pizza I chose the Moroccan Chermoula sauce. It’s fast to make and keeps in the fridge for days.
Chermoula is a puree of parsley, cilantro, garlic, lemon, olive oil, smokey spices and a little heat.
Nothing fancy and no cooking. Just toss the ingredients into a food processor or blender and in one minute you have a scrumptious sauce.
Make plenty. Have some on your pizza and on another night try roasting a Whole Fish or lamb with Chermoula.
If you’ve any leftover, freeze it for all your cold weather soups and stews.
Think Ahead Ratatouille
While my first ratatouille was made at the end of summer from garden veggies or my local farmer’s markets, this pizza was created on a chilly spring evening.
Making this pizza assured me of which vegetables and herbs I will be planting in my garden this summer.
In fact, the seeds have already been started indoors so I can experience the excitement of the months ahead and the many batches of ratatouille I will be making.
Ingredients Needed
- Easy Pizza Dough – or store bought
- Eggplant
- Zucchini
- Multi-colored mini peppers
- Chermoula
- Olive oil
- Butter
- Smoked paprika
- Coarse salt
- Sumac
- Garlic
- Manchego cheese
Equipment Needed
- Baking sheet pan or pizza pan
- Rolling pin
- Cutting board
- Chopping knife
- Saute pan
- Slotted spatula
- Food processor
- Oven
Deconstructed Ratatouille Pizza
Equipment
- Large skillet
- Pizza pan, or baking sheet pan
Ingredients
- 1 Pizza dough Homemade or store bought
- 1 Eggplant medium
- 2 Zucchini medium
- 1 lb Multi-colored Mini peppers
- 1/2 cup Pesto Homemade or store bought
- 1/4 cup Olive oil or as needed
- 2 tbsp Butter
- 1 tsp Smoked paprika Homemade or store bought
- 3 tbsp Coarse salt to de-bitter eggplant and season
- 1 tsp Sumac
- 2 Garlic cloves crushed
- 1/4 cup Manchego cheese or other hard cheese, grated
Instructions
- Slice the eggplant in half, lengthwise. Then cut lots of thin strips, keeping the shape of the eggplant visible. Sprinkle 1 -2 tablespoons of salt on both sides and all to sit an hour to de-bitter the eggplant. Pat dry.
- Slice the zucchini and peppers in the same way and set aside. They do not need to be de-bittered.
- Heat a large saute pan with 1 tablespoon of oil and 1 tablespoon of butter. Stir in 1 clove of crushed garlic, 1/2 teaspoon paprika and sumac and quickly glaze both sides of the eggplant. Remove from the pan.
- Add more oil, butter, garlic and seasoning and glaze the zucchini and then the peppers in the same way as the eggplant. Remove.
- Preheat the oven to 400.
- Roll out the pizza dough and press into the pan of choice, round or a rectangle baking sheet. Crimp the edges.
- Spread the pesto evenly across the dough.
- Decoratively layer the glazed vegetables across the top of the pesto covered dough. Sprinkle the cheese.
- Bake until the crust is golden, about 20 minutes.
Video
I believe the table... that place that draws people to gather, is the most powerful symbol of togetherness. All that happens before the table is set, the planning, the gathering, the preparing, are all an intricate part of the dance that create the mood of celebration to share with friends and loved ones.