Zucchini Puttanesca

While it is slow in the winter and I have more help than I have work for at the restaurant, I'm trying to take off our slowest night, Tuesday, to be with Ann. Honestly, I really haven't done much cooking of late and it was time to get back in the kitchen, if only for 15 minutes, and make some dinner for us.

Roasted Steelhead Trout with Zucchini Puttanesca

This was a refrigerator-foraged meal. Ann told me she had some small zucchini and I had bought a side of steelhead trout on Monday. That was a start at least before I went grubbing around the refrigerator looking for inspiration. I don't know how other people's refrigerators are organized, but as a chef, my refrigerator is full of deli containers of random things.

Ultimately I found some olives, capers, sun-dried tomatoes, and grated pecorino hidden away in those deli containers. There's always garlic and sambal oelek (chile paste) in there too. And on the counter were some less than perfect grape tomatoes. Within a minute, I had already figured that I would do a puttanesca riff on the zucchini to accompany the roasted steelhead.

Really simple procedure: pit the olives, mince the garlic, slice the sundried tomatoes into small batons, halve the grape tomatoes, and prep the zucchini by cutting in half lengthwise and then bias cutting each half. Fire a big sauté pan on high heat and film with olive oil. Add the zucchini and toss a little until just crisp tender, perhaps a minute and a half. Add the olives, sundried tomatoes, and capers. Toss for another minute. Add the garlic and a bit of sambal for spice and cook until you can smell the garlic. Turn off the flame and toss in the fresh tomatoes and a couple tablespoons of the grated pecorino. Feast!