Cod Piece

Around the end of the year, I scored some affordable cod fillets at HEB. I'd been on the lookout for that particular fish, even though I'd only eaten it once: It was the fish in the fish and chips my sisters and I shared at The Gage in Chicago. I had no aspirations of recreating that tasty meal, but I did want to enjoy this particular white fish again, so imagine my delight in finding some that didn't cost an arm and a leg.

Of course, once I had the fish, what was I to do with it? Outside of breaded or battered processed fish or "tuna" from a can, Mum never prepared much fish when I was a kid. I grew up with the impression that fresh fish was a hassle because it was delicate and it stunk up the house. How very wrong I was about that, I've since learned. However, that has not exactly sent me headlong into many culinary misadventures with fish. The stuff is relatively expensive, so I don't like to waste it on bummer recipes. Since this cod was a special treat, I sure as hell didn't want to muck it up using a recipe that was a total bummer.

Luckily, the one I found was a winner.

Crispy Baked Cod2 T unsalted butter
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 C panko or regular bread crumbs
2 T minced fresh parsley
1 t finely grated lemon zest
1 T Dijon mustard
1 T reduced-fat mayonnaise
4 skinless 1 1/2" thick cod fillets, about 6 oz. each
Salt

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
   
2. In a small skillet over medium-low heat, melt the butter.
   
3. Add the garlic and cook, stirring, until fragrant (30 sec.)
   
4. Add the bread crumbs, stir to coat with butter and then cook, stirring frequently, until light golden brown (about 5 min.).
   
5. Remove the crumbs from the heat, stir in the parsley and lemon zest and then let the coating cool.
   
6. Combine the mustard and mayonnaise in a small bowl.
   
7. Rinse the fish and pat it dry.
   
8. Sprinkle each fillet lightly with salt, then place them on a rimmed, foil-lined baking sheet
   
9. Brush the fillets with the mustard mixture.
   
10. Press a fourth of the crumbs onto each fillet.
    
11. Bake the fish until it is no longer translucent (cut to test) and flakes easily (10 to 15 min.).
    
12. If the crumbs aren't sufficiently browned, broil the fish 2" from the heating element until the crumbs are crisp and dark golden brown, watching carefully to prevent burning, 2 min. longer.

Yield: 4 servings

Nutritional Info
Calories: 233
Fat: 8 g
Sat fat: 4 g
Protein: 31 g
Carbs: 7 g
Cholesterol: 90 mg
Sodium: 511 mg

The Faudie's Futzings
I apologize to you, Gentle Reader, for I cannot fully remember how much I futzed with this recipe the first time I made it. That's what I get for letting my depression get the better of me and prevent me from keeping this blog up to date.

That said, I have recently made this recipe using tilapia, and I suspect I futzed the same way the second time around: I used cilantro in lieu of parsley, and I only had two fillets of each type of fish.

Yep, that's it. I didn't use fat-free Miracle Whip because I no longer buy that stuff, having realized it has far more sugar and salt than the reduced-fat Miracle Whip. I did sprinkle a wee bit of light salt on the fillets (cod and tilapia) to help differentiate flavors and draw out moisture (if that's possible).

There is one point of the recipe I can't recall how I futzed with the first time: that butter for toasting the panko. With the tilapia, I used a small bit--not the full two tablespoons--of Blue Bonnet Light, but I can honestly say I don't remember using that product when I first made this recipe. Maybe I used a bit of the hormone-free Challenge butter we use for making bread, or maybe I used a bit of olive oil instead. I doubt I used the Promise fat-free butter, for it has too much water in it to be useful in this capacity.

Speaking of the toasted crumbs, here's a tip: Instead of adding the zest and parsley to the crumbs in the skillet, put the crumbs in a shallow bowl or pie pan in which you've already placed the other two ingredients. Removing the crumbs from the warm skillet will help them cool faster, plus you won't have to worry about that warm skillet doing untoward things to your zest and parsley. Plus the wide diameter of the pie pan makes it easier to coat the fillets, if you plan to coat both sides. Which I did, seeing as how I didn't have four fillets and a lot of crumbs, which I couldn't stand letting go to waste.

I also recommend broiling the fish just as the recipe recommends. Both times, the crumbs on the baked fish weren't terribly crispy. Oh, here's another tip about those crumbs: Spray the tops of them lightly with cooking spray before popping the fillets in the oven to help them retain their crispness. That's a tip I learned from America's Test Kitchen, and I find it works quite well.

If you're a bit leery of the Dijon-mayo combo, you're not the only one. I was very uncertain about slathering it on my precious cod for fear it would totally ruin the fish. However, the stuff worked really well. In fact, it gave the fish more companionable flavor than the toasted panko. I had a bit of the schmear left over and saved it with the idea of using it on chicken. While I haven't yet done that, I do look forward to giving it a shot. I think the schmear would make a nice flavor companion to a chicken breast.

On the Side
So nervous was I about mucking up the cod that I didn't put a whole lot of effort into a side dish: I prepared some frozen broccoli pieces. Whoop-dee-friggin'-woo, I know. The green made for a nice presentation alongside the brown of the fish, but the brocc didn't exactly make one's taste buds sing.

The second time around, I wasn't so nervous because I had some experience and I was just working with serviceable 'ol tilapia. That meant I had a little freedom to whip up a side dish that required a little more effort.

The Very Best Confetti Rice2 C uncooked jasmine rice
4 C water
1 T orange zest
1/2 C dried cranberries
1/2 C slivered almonds
1/2 C sliced green onions

1. Place the rice and water in a saucepan, and then bring the water to a boil over medium-high heat.
   
2. Reduce the heat, cover then pan and let the rice simmer until it's tender (about 20 min.).
   
3. Remove the rice from heat, and let sit about 5 min.
   
4. Stir the orange zest, cranberries, almonds and green onions into the rice until blended.

Yield: 8 servings of unknown size

Nutritional Info
This recipe, from some contributor to AllRecipes.com, claims to be free of fat, which I find very unlikely. Hello, it has almonds in it. Almonds have fat. Yes, that fat is the "good" kind, but it's still fat. Even if the almonds are slivered, some amount of fat should be present in each serving.

Now, Gentle Reader, do you understand why I put little trust in the nutritional info from this Web site?

Calories: 198
Protein: 3.3 g
Carbs: 45.3 g
Fiber: 1.2 g
Sodium: 5 mg

The Faudie's Futzings
I'd never heard of confetti rice, so I have no way of knowing if this recipe indeed yields the very best confetti rice ever. I can't imagine it would if you follow it as written. Wanting at the very least a decent confetti rice, I futzed:

• I reduced the amount of water to about 2 1/2 cups. My ideal water-to-rice ratio is one and a quarter cups of water to every cup of rice. Screw that 2:1 ratio, unless you like soggy rice.
• My almonds weren't exactly slivered. I tried to sliver the whole, raw almonds I have on hand, but that didn't work so well. I ended up with some slivers...along with a lot of chunks and crumbles and tidbits of almonds. Eh, they work.
  
• I used orange-flavored dried cranberries in hopes of augmenting the orange flavor from the zest. That didn't quite work so well.
  
• I didn't use a half-cup of sliced green onions for fear the boy would reject the dish. I sliced up three green onions, which looked to be maybe a third of a cup, if that. The boy's not a fan of green onions, nor does he much like it when anyone messes with a decent pot of jasmine rice. He likes his jasmine rice plain, thank you very much.

Surprisingly enough, the boy voraciously ate the confetti rice. Unlike his father and me, he claimed to be able to taste the orange flavor on the cranberries. Maybe he was just being contrarian. I dunno. Should I make this recipe again, I'd probably not waste my orange-flavored cranberries on it and perhaps add a wee bit of orange juice along with the zest so as to make that flavor, well, noticeable to the rest of us.

If you opt to make this recipe, go with your own rice-making experience to determine cooking time and water:rice ratio. The recipe as written is, in my opinion, a loose guideline for preparing the rice. Also, I recommend fluffing the rice a wee bit before adding the other ingredients, but fluffing and stirring in the other ingredients might be too much for rice that's slightly sticky or mushy, yielding disintegrating grains, which are no fun to see or eat.