Pan-fried meagre slices with ratatouille

By Cucina Caruso

Serves 2

Ingredients

This is a French recipe that is extremely simple and very tasty. You prepare two dishes at the same time in two separate pans. One pan is used to saute a mixture of diced vegetables. The other is for cooking slices of meagre in very little olive oil for about 5 minutes. You combine the two when serving. All you need for this delicious dish is half an hour.

4 slices of fresh Greek aquaculture meagre
1 eggplant, diced into 1 cm cubes
2 courgettes, diced the same
1 onion chopped into 1cm pieces
1 red pepper chopped into 1cm pieces
1 green pepper chopped into 1cm pieces
1 tsp rosemary
1 garlic clove, crushed
80 ml + 40 ml extra virgin olive oil (80 ml for the ratatouille and 40 ml for the fish)

Method

1. Prepare the vegetables

Dice or chop into 1cm pieces all the vegetables and crush the garlic clove.

2. Cook the ratatouille

In a large pan on medium heat, heat the 80ml of olive oil and add the chopped vegetables. Add the rosemary, salt and pepper and stir every 3 minutes. To sauté the vegetables to perfection – tender but not too soft and nicely caramelized- it will take about 20 minutes of frequent stirring.

Note: Do not add water to the vegetables because they will become too soft. If you want to cook them faster, add some white wine or some ouzo after the first 10 minutes.

3. Cook the fish

In a large skillet or pan add 40 ml of olive oil and turn the heat up. When the oil is hot, add the slices of fish. Flip them over after 2 minutes and then again after 4 minutes. Check them and leave them for a 1 minute further or until the flesh is easily separated from the central bone. Depending on how thick the slices are, 5-6 minutes should be enough. For the fish to be ideally juicy the interior temperature needs to reach 60 degrees C.

Serving:

Place two slices of fish on each plate and add the ratatouille next to them or on top. Simply sprinkle with a little fleur de sel and some freshly ground black pepper.

This is a colorful light dish with refined flavor.