Pan roasted halibut with brown rice, spinach, and tomatoes
This recipe is a great example of cooking something healthy using ingredients from a local farmers' market. After months of waiting, I scored the season's first organically grown farmers’ market tomatoes and just had to use them in something.
Early-season tomatoes aren't yet the luscious, juicy, drip-out-of-your-mouth tomatoes you can look forward to eating sliced and served simply with basil and mozzarella, but they sure taste good in this dish.
The halibut can be baked or grilled, however, I like pan roasting it because you get crunchy brown parts.
This is really good.
Servings: 4
Ingredients
- 4 portions halibut, about 6 ounces each
- 4 cups baby spinach, tightly packed
- 2 to 3 tomatoes, seeded and coarsely chopped
- 2 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
- 1 cup cooked brown rice
- 3 tablespoons Meyer lemon juice
- 8 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- Kosher salt
- Freshly ground black pepper
Directions
- Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
- Cook the brown rice per instructions (usually it's 1-1/2 cup water per 1 cup rice simmered covered for 45 minutes.)
- Whisk lemon juice into 5 tablespoons of olive oil. Season with salt and pepper. Coat the halibut with a little of the dressing.
- In a sauté pan with an ovenproof handle, heat 2 tablespoons olive oil over medium-high heat. Cook the halibut for about 4 minutes on the first side and 2 minutes on the other side. Finish cooking it for about 5 minutes in the oven.
- While the halibut is resting, use a saucepan to sauté the garlic briefly in the remaining olive oil.
- Stir in the cooked rice. Stir in the spinach leaves and tomatoes. Cover and cook briefly until the spinach wilts.
- Divide the rice and vegetables onto serving plates. Top with the halibut.
- Drizzle each serving with the remaining dressing.