What a handsome fish the cod is, with its greeny gray skin that positively glistens when spanking fresh. The flesh is firm and sweet-smelling, and it reeks of the sea. Unfortunately, cod isn’t always found in this condition.
In the past, cod has suffered a poor reputation. This is mainly due to some mean-minded fishmongers who have been quite happy to display tired, frozen fillets on their sad slabs, the water in the flesh weeping out over their plastic parsley.
The cooking of cod has also been misguided. All too often it is boiled or baked to death by an insensitive cook, or fried to a crisp by a careless fish-and-chip-shop cowboy. The perfect piece of cod, for me, is one that can be cut into lovely thick slices, dipped in seasoned flour, and pan-fried in foaming butter until golden, finally emerging crusty-coated and succulent. Another of my favorite ways with cod (see here) is to poach a whole fish in a tasty court-bouillon, as you would a salmon, and to serve it warm on a large dish surrounded by Mediterranean vegetables, with hard-boiled eggs and a big pot of aïoli. This is an alternative version of the Provençal classic, using fresh instead of salt cod. The texture of a fine cod cooked like this is a dream. The flakes of fish fall easily from the bone; glossy, opaque, and succulent.
salt
12 young carrots, trimmed but unpeeled
8 oz fine green beans, or haricots verts, trimmed
12 large spring onions, trimmed
1 lb small red-skinned potatoes, scrubbed
8 small globe artichokes
juice of 1 lemon
1 quantity court-bouillon (see here)
4–5 lb cod, head removed, trimmed, and scaled
24 canned snails (optional)
4 hard-boiled eggs, peeled and halved lengthways
1 quantity aïoli (see here)
parsley and lemon wedges, to garnish
olive oil and coarse sea salt, to serve
Fill a large stainless steel pan with water and bring to the boil. Add plenty of salt. Add the carrots and cook until just tender. Lift out with a slotted spoon and reserve. Bring the water back to the boil and cook the beans for 3–4 minutes. Lift out with a slotted spoon and refresh in ice-cold water. Drain and reserve. Do the same with the spring onions. Cook the potatoes until tender in the same water. Lift out and reserve. Trim any tough-looking outer leaves from the artichokes, add them to the boiling water with the lemon juice, and boil for 20–30 minutes, or until a leaf pulled from the middle comes out easily. Drain the artichokes and reserve. Keep the cooking liquid hot, ready for reheating the vegetables. Do this either in a colander suspended over the water or in a steamer if you have one.
Bring the court-bouillon to the boil and add the cod. Bring back to the boil, then simmer for 5 minutes. Remove from the heat and leave for about 30 minutes, then lift the cod out. Place the fish on a large oval plate that will accommodate the fish as well as the vegetables. Wrap the whole plate in aluminum foil and keep warm in a very low oven. Meanwhile, reheat the vegetables and, if you are using them, heat the snails in a small pan.
To serve, arrange all the vegetables attractively around the fish. Intersperse with little clumps of parsley, the snails, the eggs, and the lemon wedges. Serve the aïoli and a bowl of coarse sea salt separately. Have a bottle of olive oil (preferably the one that you used to make the aïoli) on the table for dressing the vegetables.
This wonderful feast looks magnificent and is lovely eaten outside; I like eating it with plenty of cool, light red wine.
Try to find the French lentils called lentilles de Puy for this dish, as their flavor is far superior to that of other lentils. They are slate gray in color and are becoming more widely available in supermarkets.
The combination of moist and succulent flakes of fish, the earthiness of the lentils, and the sharp punch of the sauce gives this dish a fine balance of flavors. This is one of the most satisfying plates of food I know, both for texture and flavor.
1½ lb cod, scaled, filleted, and cut into 4 pieces
juice of 1 lemon
8 oz lentilles de Puy, thoroughly washed and drained
1½ cups water
½ chicken stock (bouillon) cube
1 clove
1 bay leaf
1 small onion, peeled
salt and pepper
a bunch of flat-leaf parsley, leaves only
10 basil leaves
15 mint leaves
2 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
1 tbsp Dijon mustard
6 anchovy fillets
1 tbsp capers, drained
½ cup extra-virgin olive oil
salt and pepper
1 lemon, cut into wedges
extra-virgin olive oil
sea salt
pepper
a few sprigs of flat-leaf parsley
First cook the lentils. Place them in a stainless steel or enameled saucepan, cover with the water, and add the bouillon cube. Push the clove through the bay leaf, then into the onion. Add the onion to the pan. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer gently for 30–40 minutes or until the liquid has been absorbed and the lentils are tender. Season now rather than before, as salt added at the beginning of cooking can make the lentil skins tough. Keep warm.
Meanwhile, make the salsa verde. I usually make this in a food processor, but traditionally it is made with a pestle and mortar. In fact, some people find a pestle and mortar preferable, as it bruises and coaxes the juices out of the herbs and garlic, rather than pulverizing the living daylights out of them. However, I quite like the homogenization achieved in the processor. With the pestle and mortar method, the sauce is much more like a dressing.
Put the herbs, garlic, mustard, anchovies, and capers into the food processor with a few tablespoons of the oil. Process for a few minutes, occasionally stopping to scrape down what is thrown up against the sides of the bowl. With the machine running, add the rest of the oil in a thin stream, as if you were making mayonnaise; in fact, the finished sauce should look like coarse, green mayonnaise. Season with salt and pepper.
Poach the fish in lightly salted water, following the directions in Basque Chiorro (see here), but do not remove the skin. This is purely on aesthetic grounds, as I think the fish looks nicer unskinned.
To serve, place a portion of fish on each individual plate with a wedge of lemon. Pour a little olive oil over the fish, sprinkle with a little sea salt and a grinding of pepper, and tuck in a couple of sprigs of flat-leaf parsley. Serve the lentils and salsa verde separately.
Of course, you can deep-fry any fish, but to my mind, cod works best, and is quintessentially British. Sealed in by a crisp, golden batter, the flakes of fish cook to pearly white perfection. This batter recipe is the best I have ever come across. It retains its crispness like no other; perhaps it has something to do with the potato flour and the beer.
oil for deep-frying
four 6-oz cod fillets
seasoned flour for dusting
1¾ cups all-purpose flour
6 tbsp potato flour (fécule)
1 egg yolk
2 tbsp oil
1 cup milk
salt and pepper
To make the batter, blend all the ingredients together, sieve, and leave to rest for 1 hour.
Heat oil for deep-frying to 350°F. Dip the cod in the seasoned flour, then immediately into the batter and deep-fry for 5–7 minutes, depending on the thickness of the fillets. Serve with french fries (see here), lemon, vinegar, watercress, tartar sauce, ketchup… or what you will.
This recipe comes from the Chez Panisse Cookbook. It is an inspired combination that contrasts soft and moist flakes of fish with a perky raw “chutney.” The chutney should be made a good hour or more in advance so that the flavors may develop and mature.
3 tbsp finely diced carrot
3 tbsp finely diced red bell pepper
4 tbsp finely diced red onion
1 garlic clove, peeled and finely chopped
3 tbsp finely diced gherkins
4 tbsp finely diced green olives
1 tbsp finely chopped capers
5 anchovy fillets, finely chopped
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
½ cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 heaped tbsp finely chopped flat-leaf parsley
salt and cayenne pepper
Mix all the relish ingredients together in a large bowl. Taste after l hour, and adjust the seasoning if necessary.
Strain the court-bouillon into a clean pan and bring to the boil. Drop in the cod fillet, bring back to the boil, and switch off the heat. Leave for 10 minutes, then remove and skin the fish. Divide the relish among four plates, and carefully arrange the flakes of cod over the top. If desired, drizzle a little extra olive oil over the fish, and grind over some pepper.
This is in my top-ten list of favorite things to eat. It uses salt cod, which is a little difficult to find, but if you have an enterprising local specialty food store, then you might be in luck. I have made it using fresh cod, but the final flavor lacks the characteristic pungency that you get with the real thing. The dish is a speciality of Provence, Nîmes in particular, where it is most often eaten at religious festivals, particularly Easter and Christmas Eve.
Always look for a nice piece of salt cod from a center cut, where the fish is at its thickest and most succulent. It must be soaked thoroughly, preferably under gently running water for 24 hours or so. Many recipes recommend removing the bones after cooking; I find it easier to wheedle them out with a small pair of pliers beforehand.
The olive oil for this dish should be of the finest quality.
1 large potato, weighing about 6 oz, peeled and cut into large chunks
salt
¾ cup plus 2 tbsp olive oil
¾ cup plus 2 tbsp milk
3 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
1 lb salt cod fillet, soaked, drained, and boned
juice of 1 lemon
black pepper
olive oil
12 slices of bread, cut diagonally from a baguette
black olives
Boil the potato in salted water until cooked. Drain and dry out in a warm oven. Mash while still hot, and keep warm. Heat the olive oil gently in a small pan. Put the milk and garlic in another small pan and heat until warm. Meanwhile, put the cod in a saucepan of cold water, bring to the boil, then switch off the heat. Leave for 5 minutes, then remove to a plate. Take off the skin and place the fish in a food processor. With the motor running, alternately add the olive oil and garlicky milk until a thick, sloppy paste is achieved. Pour in the hot mashed potato and quickly blend in. Don’t overprocess the mixture once you have added the potato, as there is danger of it becoming gluey. Add the lemon juice and plenty of black pepper, but add salt only if necessary.
This is nicest served in a shallow bowl, forked up into a mound, and drizzled with a little olive oil, so that it trickles down the sides. Fry the bread slices in olive oil until golden brown, then arrange attractively with the black olives around the brandade.
This makes a substantial winter luncheon dish or a most antisocial late-night snack. As with the aïoli recipe (see here), the brandade goes particularly well with a glass of red French country wine.
