Baked salmon and ratatouille

Fresh salmon fillet can be cooked either in the oven as a baked dish or on the barbeque.

If baking in the oven, then it is best with the skin off – but if done on the barbeque, leaving the skin on and cooking it until it is crispy adds greatly to the flavour. The skin of course has its own nutritional value.

The secret with ratatouille is to dice the individual vegetables fairly finely and then to sauté them separately in oil in a frying pan as opposed to adding them all together in a saucepan. The latter results in steaming or boiling the vegetables and as a result quite a lot of their flavour is lost in the fluid.

Ingredients Method
Ingredients
4
medium sized fresh salmon fillets
2
medium eggplants
4
zucchinis
1
red bell pepper
6
tomatoes
4
cloves of garlic, crushed
2
onions
Bouquet garni
Dash of olive oil
Fresh basil
Salt and pepper
Method
1.Cut the eggplants and zucchini (do not peel) into small cubes of about a centimetre each. Along with the red pepper.
2.Peel seed and dice the tomatoes.
3.Slice the onions into thin rounds.
4.Heat a tablespoon of olive oil in a large frying pan and cook each vegetable individually for about 10 minutes over a medium to high heat, browning but not burning.
5.As you go along spoon the vegetables into a pot and add the crushed garlic, bouquet garni and mix well.
6.Season to taste with salt and pepper.
7.If baking preheat the oven to 160 °C (320 °F).
8.Place the salmon fillets in a shallow baking dish with grease proof paper at the bottom and cook for 20 minutes.
9.If being cooked on the barbeque, drizzle the salmon fillets on both sides with olive oil and season with salt and pepper.
10.With the barbeque on high cook the fillets skin side down for 5-7 minutes, and then turn carefully and cook for a further 2-3 minutes. Depending on taste, this will leave a thin portion of rare salmon in the middle.
11.Whilst the salmon is cooking, cover the vegetables with a lid and simmer over a low heat for a further 20 minutes.
12.Just before serving stir in some torn basil leaves.