Best Cod Dishes
I love making Cod with Miso at home, but want to branch out with other cod preparations. What other ways do you prepare it ? Recipe recommendations welcomed.
Lila
Sep 14, 2004 06:35PM
28 Replies so Far
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There's a recipe in Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything for cod and potatoes. I'm away from home so I don't have the exact recipe but it's basically potatoes sliced 1/8 inch thick in the food processor or w/ a mandoline and placed in a shallow casserole dish w/ olive oil and s and p. You bake for about a half hour until golden, then place a couple fillets of cod on top, top w/ more olive oil and s and p and fresh herbs if desired and broil for 10 minutes. This is a pretty common dish so you can probably find a recipe on epicurious or allrecipes. It's very tasty.
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If you go to Amazon.com and search for Mark Bittman's book, you can look inside and see the recipe for Roast Cod or Other Thick White Fillets with Potatoes. You can't print it out or anything, but you can look at the recipe. I need to use the magnifying option to see it clearly.
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I would suggest quickly frying (2 or 3 min) the potatos in olive oil at high temp to a golden exterior prior to inserting in the dish.
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I presume you are talking about fresh cod, rather than salt cod. If you can find the latter, I highly recommend you try a classic Basque dish known as Bacalao al Pil-Pil. It's a fairly simple dish, but if it is done right it is extraordinary. (One secret of success is to find pieces of salt cod with the skin still on.)
Link: http://web.bizkaia.net/bizkaia_inform...
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I've had that in a Brazilian restaurant several time - it's called Balcahau there, and it has potatoes in it. The cod is baked in with the potatoes, garlic, and chilis. One of my all-time favorite dishes....
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The cod w/ potatos shows up in both Spanish and Portuguese cuisine with many variations, chili as you note, olives, too.
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Oh yea - forgot about the olive. My friends at that restaurant were hesitant to order it b/c it is called "salted cod" in the description. They were thinking "salty cod." I surmised that this arose from the desire to store fish from a bountiful harvest for longer periods of time, and the taste caught on after a while. My dish wasn't salty at all......
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The Basques have been great fishermen for centuries. They used to catch the cod off the Grand Banks and salt it there I believe. It was kept for long storage as you mention, especially aboard ships. Kurlansky has a book called Cod that's pretty interesting.
I've made a basque cod dish (fresh cod) that is served over mashed potatoes with mussels. The mussels' broth is added as a sauce, but chorizo and some herbs are added to it. I don't have the recipe, but it's on the NYT site (in their archive I'm sure). It's done by the Chef from Le Bernardin. (I don't have his name either.) The result is excellent.
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During the age of discovery (1500s), the Galicians and Basques were the navigators of choice on ships of all nationalities. Didn't get much credit, though, did they?
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Damn, that sounds really good. Is it like a stew?
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I'm not sure whether that particular one is a stew or not, I don't think so. The only reason I mentioned it is that I was thumbing through a Portuguese/Spanish cookbook recently and glanced over that recipe really quick, using Cod, olive oil, potatoes, olives, and it may even have had eggs. I was more interested in a Port rabbit recipe using white wine and chocolate of all things. I can post the other one if you think you might want to look at it.
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Maybe I just need to get the cookbook - I'm a collector of regional cookbooks, and I don't have a good Basque cookbook. Or one at all!
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The real (and I mean REAL) Spanish Basque dishes use ingredients such as hake, sea bream, sardines, anchovies, salt cod, clamari, and tuna. I really don't think good versions of these ingredients are available in the United States (as far as I know, maybe up north somewhere). The ones you know about are FAR inferior to what they use, so attempting to cook Basque, at least their seafood, you'll end up not really grasping what it is all about. There are some meat dishes that may be more accessible, I am going to look into these myself. I have found several Spanish Basque cookbooks, but they are in castellano (translated from their unique language, Euskadi), they have a seperate and distinct culture within Spain and France. One of my grandparents was from Guernica, in the heart of Basqueland, and I can tell you those people are different. I always thought she was a little insane, but it is just the way they are. I found a recipe or two that might be doable if you are interested. It appears that the ones recognized in Spain, at least, as being "authentic", have not been translated to English and would be difficult to follow even if you knew spanish, as ingredients over there, even the common ones here, have different names that may be hard to cross-reference. And of course, the raw ingredients here just don't measure up, most of them, at least.
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Good lord, I'd love to hear about those recipes. I'm willing to do research involving translation and mail ordering if you want to share. My email address is above.
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Unless you can read spanish, the previously mentioned The Basque Table cookbook looks like your best option, amazon has it. I am going to look into obtaining this one in spanish, which seems to pop up regularly on sites and chats related to the subject:
Cocina Vasca. Director de la edicion Joaquin Berasategui. Editorial
Sendoa. ISBN 84-85846-33-8.
Unfortunately, amazon is not in spain yet. I have in the past had luck looking into the france and uk amazons, but no go this time.
Did you have a chance to investigate the link I provided last time? Run it through the Google translator and you may be able to make sense of the recipes. You click on the left menu (ie meats) and a new listing of recipes and photos comes up in the center of the page. This site is great. Also, on the ingredients, you can click and a photo of the ingredient and a description come up, in case you need to identify it visually. I have never seen a site this good, but admit I usually rely on the printed matter.
Note that the recipes are in general not really complicated, relying on the highest quality of ingredients and the skill in cooking them to perfection as major factors in getting good results. I would suggest you focus on the dishes where that particular meat is available in high quality in your area. I am going to pick a rabbit or oxtail recipe from that site to try first, I'll post a translation in a few days.
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I think Gerald Hirigoyen's "The Basque Kitchen" is the best Basque cookbook available in the U.S. He is from the French portion of the Basque country, and he has some great non-traditional dishes along with some "classics."
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I have had a chance to examine both the Basque Table and this book (Basque Kitchen) and agree tha BK is probably the better of the two, but both leave a lot to be desired. The BT has several recipes I have seen that represent other than Basque regions. They are also very simple with minimal use of seasonings, which may be authentic, I don't know, I have just begun studying this cuisine, but would make cooking the dishes here in the US too dependent on the quality of raw material. The quality level of raw ingredient here would make for poor results. The BK has color pictures, which are always helpful and the dishes are provided with the basque titles, which would allow for cross referencing and comparison with other books. The BT has dish titles in Castellano only. I am a little suspicious of some of the ingredients in the BK, though, pancetta is used frequently, as is butter. I think the Basque use other sources for their fat. The recipes look like they would work just fine, though, and I think would provide better results than BT, but I am generalizing here. There is a book called Basque Cuisine by Editorial Sendoa which is in English and published in Basqueland, but is essentially not available either here or from UK Amazon. It pretty much must be ordered from Spain, the copy here and there that comes up with a Google search was being sold by Beaudin rare books and is no longer available.
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If you can read Spanish, I recommend:
La joven cocina vasca, Martín Berasategui
Also, the restaurant Arzak has a cookbook.
In English, I've seen a book called "The Basque Table" that looked promising.
But I totally agree, most of the raw ingredients (particularly the sea creatures) just aren't available or of the same quality in the US. Certain (or most?) food just doesn't travel well from its natural habitat...
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Take a look at this site. Pictures of a huge number of basque dishes.
Link: http://www.gastronomiavasca.net/recip...
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Actually, no. The cod is served on a bed of mashed garlic potatoes. I think the cod is cooked in olive oil. The mussels are cooked as normal, but the chorizo is added later. The mussels and their broth are added to the pan-cooked cod and mashed potatoes.
I'll try to find the recipe at home tonight. Here's a link to an article about the restaurant. The chef from this restaurant (I don't know if he's the current one) is the author of the recipe.
Link: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract...
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Cod is still huge here in Spain. Two of my favorite applications are buñuelos de bacalao (cod fritters--similar to caribbean accra) and "carpaccio" de bacalao.
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Cod fritters are really popular in Miami and are AWESOME. My grandmother was Zamoran and unfortunately, I can't remember her cooking Cod much, but remember her saying eating it would make you smarter!
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"carpaccio?" Is it raw or something?
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One of my favorites is from "Rick Stein's Taste of the Sea" which seems to have been published in both the UK, and the US as part of a PBS cooking show. If you can find this little book somewhere, it is worth buying.
The prep I love is "Roast Cod with Aioli and Lima Beans" which is presented in the recipe as roasted cod (high heat) served with well seasoned cooked dried lima beans and a vegetable and fish stock sauce, as well as hard boiled eggs and Aioli. The original recipe is incredible if complex, but I simplify it to just roast the cod, and sometimes serve it with seasoned canned limas (from dried, or cannelini), but most often serve it with cooked green lima beans, plus the aioli (skipping the aditional sauce).
It's rich and feels like a winter dish to me, and I have served small portions successfully for weekend luncheons, along with a bright, fresh salad (with citrus in the winter) for several successful luncheons.
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Cod Cakes (coddies as we call them in Baltimore)are really nice. Serve with mustard and saltines.
I change my recipe every time, but Google has a number of good ones.
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being greek cod holds a special place in my heart.
appetizer: Taramousalata is a wonderful paste/dip made with cod roe, garlic, oil and many variation with anything extra. finding a recipe should be easy-peasy japanesee!
entree: "bakalyiaro with skordalia" friend cod fillets with a super garlicky paste with potatoes to add body.
Every summer when I go to Greece, my trip officially starts when I am sitting at the port city of Rafina, waiting to take a ferry to the cycladic islands, and savoring a portion of bakalyiaro and a beer.
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LOL, your use of the word "paste" is actually interesting enough for me to try it as "paste".
Taramosalata is awesome!
Fried salt cod (or fresh cod - even better) with a side of Skordalia is a CLASSIC Greek dish enjoyed throughout Greece these days. It reminds us of the days of famine. Oh, I miss Greece so...
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Wrap smallish pieces of cod in prosciutto, dab with a very small amount of olive oil and roast at 375 till done (7 - 10 minutes probably, depending on size and thickness of fish). Great with mashed potoates and green beans (well, really, what isn't?).
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