Italicious

Only in Italy would your husband come home from work with a recipe that he got from one of his co-workers. Maybe that isn’t true, I know a long list of American men who are amazing cooks, though I do love the fact that even though my husband’s co-workers are all men, they still talk about food at the lunch table and even exchange recipes.

Last night he came home with the idea and the ingredients for this dish from his co-worker from Lecce in Puglia, which is a fish, zucchini and potato gratin. There are a number of Southern Italian dishes which incorporate breadcrumbs into their recipes as a way of giving more sustenance to food that is fairly sparse, stemming from centuries of poverty.

Fish, Zucchini and Potato Gratin

• 1/2 lb of fish, filleted (we used perch, the co-worker said that they used mussels, I think anything would be good this way, even chicken)
• 2 large potatoes, peeled and cut into pieces
• 2 zucchini, sliced into rings
• 1 cup of pachino tomatoes cut into quarters
• 1 cup of breadcrumbs
• 1/2 an onion, chopped
• 3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• salt to taste

Preheat oven to 400°F. Chop potatoes and drizzle with 1 tbsp of the olive oil and place in a large roasting pan. Potatoes take longer to roast so you want to put them in the oven for about 15 minutes before adding the other ingredients.

In the meantime, slice zucchini, cut tomatoes into quarters, chop the onion and cut fillets into chunks, removing any bones.

After roasting the potatoes for 15 minutes add the rest of the ingredients and the other 2 tbsp of olive oil, combining them with the potatoes. Sprinkle breadcrumbs on top and return to the oven for an additional 20 minutes, or until the fish is cooked through.

~ by italicious on November 15, 2008.

Posted in potato, Puglia, seafood, secondi, summer squash, tomatoes, zucchini
Tags: potatoes, seafood, tomatoes, zucchini