Mediterranean Baked Cod

We were looking for a lighter seafood/fish dinner tonight, and a quick flip through Paul Johnson's Fish Forever (Wiley and Sons, 2007) turned up a meal that looked both good and easy to make. It was true on both counts.

The recipe, page 97, was Mediterranean Baked Cod, which was a simple baked fish in mediterranean ingredients (leeks, fennel, tomatoes and white wine).

Baked Cod Ingredients (with cauliflower)

Step 1 was to bake some sliced fennel and leeks in olive oil and salt and pepper (for 10-15 minutes). When this was done, white wine, saffron and lemon juice was added to the pan, and then the cod was placed on top of the veggies, which were then topped with tomatoes, more olive oil, salt and pepper. This was baked for a good 20-25 minutes at 400 degrees (not the 10 minutes at 350 degrees as stated in the recipe).

Leeks and Fennel

The result was a lovely tender white fish in a saffron tomato broth. We served it with a mashed garlic cauliflower and some crusty bread for mopping up the broth. The ultimate arbiters of success, the children, pronounced it good. Me and Amp loved it.

Mediterranean Baked Cod

Although it was deemed good, Grace's final words on the subject were: "it would be better with halibut". Brat. :-)

Halibut with Pumpkin Seed Mole

Fish Forever by Paul Johnson

We have been eating more than our fair share of meat recently and have burgers on the grill planned for a family get together-tomorrow, so we were looking for a nice light seafood dish today. It was agreed that I should make something with halibut, a wonderful white fish that everyone in the family seems to enjoy. In the past, I have done Giada's "Halibut with White Beans and Radicchio" a few times, but I had the time today to try something new. I pulled Paul Johnson's terrific Fish Forever off the shelf, looked up halibut, and found a fantastic looking recipe. Fish Forever (Wiley & Sons, 2007) is an IACP Cookbook of the Year award winner, and I have used it a few times in the past with good results. I always love trying out new recipes when I have time, and I was looking forward to making this.

The recipe I would be making was "Halibut Baked in a Pumpkin Seed Mole Sauce" (page 152). Moles are Mexican sauces, and can cover a very wide range of flavors. This particular mole was comprised of toasted pumpkin seeds, blanched tomatillos, onion, serrano chiles, cilantro, coriander, cumin and a few other things. Basically, the ingredients were prepped, put into a blender and then pureed into the consistency of a thin salsa.

Mole ingredients

At this point, the recipe said to spread some of the mole on the bottom of a baking dish, put the fish on top, layer the rest of the sauce over the fish, and then bake for 20 minutes or so. After I made the mole, I tasted it and was afraid that it would be too spicy for the kids (specifically the little one). So I changed direction at that point and decided to simmer the mole sauce by itself in a sauce pan while poaching the halibut separately, adding the two together at the end for those who wished.

Pumpkin Seed Mole

The fish was cut into servings and then poached for twelve minutes in a combination of water, a nice Chardonnay, a couple of bay leaves, 12-15 whole peppercorns and a heavy pinch of salt.

I served it with plain white rice (as suggested) and grilled zucchini. The mole sauce seemed to have mellowed quite a bit during the 25 minutes or so that it simmered, and my worry about it being too spicy seems to have been unfounded in the end. The kids loved it. The adults loved it. Even Grace thought it wasn't too spicy. Live and learn, I suppose...

Halibut with Pumpkin Seed Mole

This was a winner of a recipe. It was easy to make, didn't dirty too many pots and pans with regards to clean up, and was absolutely fantastic. Poaching the fish kept it extremely moist and tender, and I really couldn't have asked for a better result. This recipe goes on the short list of fish recipes I would make any time. The only potential downside is that halibut is pricey, but a pound and a half fed all four of us, so it wasn't too bad. And compared to the cost of eating even a mediocre meal out....

What's for Dinner? - Baked Salmon

The rest of the gang is doing their own thing at the moment, and I feel like writing something...so...what was for dinner?

We have been making a lot of recipes from Giada at Home by Giada di Laurentiis since getting it for Christmas, but tonight we went back to an old favorite; Jacques Pepin's Oven-baked Salmon with sun-dried tomato and salsa mayonnaise. The recipe is on page 118-119 of Fast Food My Way (Houghton Mifflin, 2004). Pepin is one of my culinary heroes, and this book is full of easy to prepare meals that we come back to time after time.

2 pound Salmon filet, oiled and seasoned

Everyone in my family loves salmon, and we generally make it one of three ways - on the grill with a hoisin glaze, grilled (plain) with a tomato, green onion and caper relish, or this way. Given that we got another 3 inches of snow between 10am and 3pm today, and that there is now well over a foot of accumulated snow between me and the grill....

Macadamia and bread crumbs

Pepin's recipe coats a (large) salmon filet with a macadamia nut breading and then bakes it in the oven (we go very heavy on the breading). While it is baking, a sun-dried tomato salsa mayonnaise is made using simple store-bought ingredients that combine to make a fantastic sauce to accompany the fish.

Ready for the oven

We served it tonight with an olive oil and roasted garlic couscous and garlic wilted spinach. And a Jacob's Creek 2012 Adelaide Hills reserve Chardonnay. Jacob's Creek is a huge output wine factory, but a good quality one, and this particular Chardonnay is an excellent value.

Done...

Pepin is a brilliant chef (his Techniques book is a chef-wanna-be must have), and this is a fantastic recipe that requires almost no prep, no fuss, has a very short cooking time, and creates a special occasion worthy end result.

So that was what was for dinner...

Halibut with White Beans and Radicchio

Figuring we had eaten enough red meat for one week, I flipped through a few cookbooks today in hopes of finding a new seafood recipe that I thought everyone would like.

I ended up at Giada de Laurentiis' Sea Bass with Beans and Radicchio, on page 80 of Giada's Family Dinners. After a side trip to Home Depot to pick up a few items for a furniture refinishing project we are in the middle of, I stopped by Whole Foods to see what they had in the way of a nice white fish that would work well with this recipe. It came down to a choice between Chilean sea bass and halibut, and the halibut won.

It was an easy recipe to make, as many of Giada's are, but was absolutely fantastic. Even Grace loved it, and she's the one who claims she doesn't like fish. Tonight she did.

The recipe was simple, and in three easy parts. The halibut was served on a bed of white beans, shallots and wilted radicchio. The fish was dredged in flour, pan seared and then finished in the oven. The shallots were softened, to which the radicchio was added to wilt, after which the white beans were added along with some fish stock and salt and pepper. This was all simmered together while the fish cooked. After the dish was assembled, the fish was topped with a liberal spooning of a lemon vinaigrette. This was a simple blend of lemon juice, lemon zest, flat leaf parsley, garlic, salt, pepper and olive oil.

Giada's recipes continue to get very high marks from me. They are simple and straightforward to cook, but yield very good results without a whole lot of hassle. Perfect. You could do this dish on a weekday with no trouble. It gets very high marks for taste, ease of prep and minimal kitchen mess. The only downside is that halibut and sea bass are both pricey. To make this dish more economical, you could just as easily make it with snapper or tilapia or another less expensive white fish.

The entire meal took about a half hour to make. Highly recommended.

Whole Red Snapper

With my wife's sister and her family in to stay with us for Memorial Day weekend, we decided to try something that they have been wanting to do for a while; cooking a whole fish. This is a common thing in the Philippines, but not as much so here. I've eaten whole fish, but never cooked one myself (at least anything larger than a trout).

Prepped and ready for the grill

I bought a 4.5 pound red snapper from Whole Foods, and had them clean it, scale it and remove the fins. Prepping it was easy since it was already cleaned. All I did was slip a knife between the filet and the backbone on one side to enlarge the cavity, and then stuffed it with lemon slices, leeks, and fresh dill sprigs. I tied it with butchers twine to hold it together and placed it directly on the grill. The grill was at about 400F, and all I did was oil the bars, lightly oil the outside of the fish, and sprinkle with kosher salt. The fishmonger said the skin was tough enough to hold up to the direct grilling, so there was no need for foil or anything. After 15 minutes, I rolled it over. After another 15 minutes I pulled it off the grill after checking that the flesh on the inside was opaque and flaky.

On the table

We served it by simply placing it on a platter, drizzling a little basil infused olive oil over it, and then let people dig in. It was so tender and juicy that chunks fell off easily and you could just scoop portions out with a fork and serving spoon. Red snapper is a very mild white fish, and would be a good thing to serve to people who are not hard-core seafood eaters.

Ravaged...

It was absolutely delicious, very very easy, and as you can see, there were no leftovers. One 4.5 pound red snapper fed four adults and a couple of children.

Work involved - stuff, tie, grill, eat. As easy as that.
Time - 10 minutes to prep, 30 minutes to cook.
Cleanup - Super easy. A cutting board and a knife, or if you can work on the fish wrapper, only a knife.
Rating - 9 out of 10. Simple seasoning highlights the delicate flavor of the fish, and that coupled with the almost non-existent prep and cleanup effort makes this a huge winner.