Bluedot Living will regularly run recipes and tips from Pascale Beale, the popular Santa Barbara-based chef, teacher, and cookbook author.
Beale has long been a proponent of cooking with in-season ingredients. “Every season has its own stars, I believe it’s worth waiting for them,” Beale told Bluedot contributing editor Catherine Walthers in this conversation.
She is also passionate about using every last bit of food in your pantry, and in her regular cooking classes (available online), she stresses to make the most of what you’ve already got. “There is so, so much food waste,” she told Walthers. “Learn to make the most of leftovers, the carcass from a roast chicken kept to make stock for example. I like to do something called a TDF (Tour de Frigidaire), something made out of all the little bits and pieces left in the fridge.”
This recipe first appeared on Beale’s website, where she wrote:
Ratatouille is a dish that is dear to my heart. My mother taught me to make this when I was a little girl. I’d sit on the kitchen counter and help chop zucchini and tomatoes while she would cut up the onions and eggplant. She showed me how to cook all the vegetables separately just as her aunt had showed her. I treasure the idea that at least four generations of my family have been making this dish, almost unchanged, for nearly the past hundred years. We often serve ratatouille with roasted chicken or grilled fish for dinner and if you have some left over the next day, it’s marvelous in an omelet.
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RECIPE: Roasted Branzino with Ratatouille
- Yield: Serves 8
Ingredients
For the ratatouille:
- Olive oil
- 4–5 medium yellow onions — peeled, halved and thinly sliced
- 1 large or 2 medium eggplant — diced into 1/2 inch cubes
- 4–6 zucchini — diced into 1/2 inch cubes
- 8 –10 medium tomatoes (Romas work well) — cut into small pieces
- Salt and pepper
- 1 bay leaf
For the fish:
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- 2 large handfuls flat leaf parsley — finely chopped
- 4 green onions — ends trimmed and finely sliced
- 2 tablespoons chives — finely chopped
- 1 large handful cilantro — finely chopped
- 3 tablespoons dill — finely chopped
- Zest and juice of 2 lemons
- 3 whole Branzino (10 – 12 oz each) — cleaned and scaled
- Salt and pepper
Instructions
For the ratatouille:
- Pour a little olive oil into a large heavy-bottomed saucepan or Dutch oven over low-medium heat. Add the onions and cook until soft and lightly browned. About 8-10 minutes.
- While the onions are browning, in a large skillet over medium heat, pour a little olive oil and sauté the eggplant until soft and browned. Approximately 8 – 10 minutes. You may need to do this in batches. Add the cooked eggplant to the onions. Add salt and pepper to taste.
- In the same large skillet, pour a little more olive oil and add the zucchini. Cook until lightly browned, about 5 –7 minutes. Add the cooked zucchini to the eggplant-onion mixture.
- To the same skillet add a touch more olive oil and cook the tomatoes over high heat for 2 –3 minutes, letting any juice evaporate. Add the tomatoes to the eggplant-zucchini-onion mixture.
- Cook all the vegetables together with the bay leaf, a large pinch of salt and some pepper for 30-40 minutes, uncovered. Remove the bay leaf just before serving. Spoon the ratatouille onto a large serving platter.
For the fish:
- Combine all the ingredients, except the lemon juice and the fish in a medium sized bowl.
- Make four parallel, ½-inch deep cuts into both sides of the Branzino. Insert some of the herb mixture into each of the cuts and into the cavity of the fish. Place the prepared fish onto a lightly oiled baking dish or sheet pan. Sprinkle with a good pinch of salt and 4-5 grinds of pepper. Roast in the center of the oven for 20 minutes.
- Place the cooked fish on the ratatouille, pour a little lemon juice over the fish and serve immediately. Filet each fish and serve with a good helping of the ratatouille.
