AN ANIMATED film about a rat who yearns to be a chef has put the spotlight on a French vegetable stew called ratatouille (pronounced rat-a-too-ee).

In the Disney Pixar movie Ratatouille, Remy the rat prepares the dish for a hard-to-please critic, who responds with a glowing review.

The movie gives the dish a gourmet touch but it is actually a peasant dish that originated from Nice, a city in the south of France.

The hearty stew comprises chunks of eggplant, capsicum and tomatoes cooked until tender in olive oil with onions, garlic and herbs such as basil, thyme, parsley and oregano.

It can also be a side dish, with the vegetables cut in smaller pieces.

A LifeStyle check of eight French and Mediterranean restaurants showed that two - Esmirada and Au Petit Salut - serve it regularly.

The film's distributor, Buena Vista International, is also working with Shatec, the Singapore Hotel Association Training and Educational Centre, to craft a classic French menu as a tie-in with the movie.

The four-course meal priced at $30 with service and taxes will feature ratatouille as an accompaniment to lamb chops.

It will be available for three weeks from Thursday at Shatec's Charcoal restaurant in High Street and Rosette in Lloyd Road.

Mr Guy Hoh, deputy director of marketing at Shatec, says: 'The movie's content is very apt for a culinary school, and will also help draw patrons to these student-run restaurants.'

Esmirada, a Mediterranean restaurant in Orchard Hotel, serves the dish as an appetiser ($9).

French restaurant Au Petit Salut in the Dempsey Road area, which is well-known for its traditional, rustic French fare, serves oven- baked Atlantic sea bream on a bed of ratatouille ($29).

Chef Patrick Heuberger says he would occasionally make the dish with fresh vegetables grown on his family farm in Annecy in France.

He says there are many variations on the basic recipe. His own includes saffron, for example.

Demonstrating it for LifeStyle, he first heats up some extra virgin olive oil in a cast-iron pot, then adds chopped onions and garlic for flavour.

Finely diced vegetables go in next, starting with the ones that take longest to cook: eggplant, then capsicum, tomato, and, finally, zucchini. He stirs the vegetables constantly for about half an hour, and this is what gives the dish its name.

In French, 'rata' is the colloquial term for food or grub, while 'touiller' means to stir.

He adds thyme, basil and saffron for added fragrance and continues stirring before letting it simmer for a few more minutes.

The result: a tasty and fragrant vegetable stew any critic would swoon over.

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