I Smell A Rat

Great lunch today...Spice-Rubbed Halibut With Grilled Vegetable Ratatouille from page 308. 

Speaking of ratatouille, I can't help but think of watching a recent episode of Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations.  In it, he traveled to Provence, and agreed to make dinner for some locals.  Big mistake.  He went to all of the local shops, sampled cuisine, and set about making dinner.  I love Anthony Bourdain, and would anything he cooked any day of the week and twice on Sunday, but he attempted to make ratatouille for the locals, which was hilarious.  The locals thanked him for dinner, and when Anthony Bourdain pressed them for their opinion on his ratatouille, they all agreed that he made very good vegetables.  He laughed it off and I laughed my rear end off.  Okay, so I prepped my ratatouille that I would never serve to a Frenchman.

While the grill was warming up, I also made the rub and coated the fish.

Of course I sampled the rub and agreed that Weber apparently knows a thing or two about rubs.  Well done again, my good sirs. 

All of the vegetables had different cooking times, so I took a minute and mapped out on paper when each would be flipped and then removed from the grill.  I took my digital timer (yes, I'm a dork) outside and when I had placed all of the vegetables on the grill I started my timer.  When all was said and done, I had nicely grilled vegetables for my ratatouille.

The next thing to do was allow them to cool and then cut into half-inch bits.  In the meantime I placed the fish on the grill.  I then warmed some olive oil in my sautee pan, added the garlic for a bit, and then added my grilled vegetables along with the basil and balsamic vinegar.  I then had what the people in Provence would call nice vegetables.  :)  The fish came off of the grill and I was ready to plate!

Here we go!

DOH!  I forgot the lemons!  Each plate was supposed to have half a lemon to squeeze onto the fish; which, believe me, it could have used.  The fish was cooked perfectly, but there was a small problem.   The diet that I have been mentioning recently involves eating an oily fish at least three times a week.  Thus, I have become quite used to oily fish.  Halibit is quite dry, and I felt like it needed a sauce or something as I was eating it.  It was nice, but still required something to take it to the next level.  The squeeze of lemon would have sufficed, but if I use this again, I would use some sort of basil-tomato salsa for the fish, which would match nicely with the ratatouille.  As for the ratatouille, all I have to say is that company will be seeing this as a side in the very near future.  T'was awesome.   As a side note, the white Chateauneuf-du-Pape that I had along side it paired BEAUTIFULLY with the meal.  I highly recommend anyone else do the same.