Crusted Cod with Wilted Spinach and Mashed Potatoes

This week’s challenge was an open-ended fish challenge, i.e., make fish tasty for someone who doesn’t particularly care for it. I have been told I will see more of these challenges as the year progresses. This first time, I decided to play it somewhat safe with a crunchy baked whitefish.

The results? My husband thought this dish had a lot of flavor and that I rescued fish from its major flaw: blandness. He gave it a 7/10, but placed it below the last two dinners, because it was still fish. I devoured my portion; I am a fish eater, and I thought everything on this plate worked particularly well together. My toddler gave it a thumbs down, though, and even went so far as to spit his fish out on the table; he did inhale all the spinach, though, which was definitely a big surprise!

I chose cod fillets for this meal, but any similar whitefish would work. Halibut is another good choice for diners who aren’t wild about fish.

Cod is easy to cook and not too fishy of a fish, so it pleases almost everybody. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have a lot of flavor. Although I didn’t want to fry it, I knew that encasing it in a crunchy topping would make the fish much more palatable. But I needed more. I consulted a few cookbooks and finally settled on combining the cooking technique from Thomas Keller’s Ad Hoc at Home wild cod recipe with the flavor suggestions from a similar recipe in High Flavor, Low Labor by J.M. Hirsch.

The recipe called for the fish to be slathered with a “secret sauce,” a mixture of ketchup, mayonnaise and mustard. That may sound a little gross — it did to me — but once I tasted it and realized it was a pour man’s approximation of remoulade sauce, I knew I was on to something. I added more flavor to the panko crumb topping: lemon zest, parsley and Parmesan cheese. If you are not familiar with panko bread crumbs, they are traditionally used in Japanese cooking. I chose them because they are light, crunchy and brown well. I recommend that everyone makes them a pantry staple.

Finally, I paired the fish with some favorite sides so nobody went hungry: garlicky wilted spinach and mashed potatoes. I almost always serve mashed potatoes with fish, particularly if there aren’t many fish lovers at the table. Those who find fish too light can fill up on yummy potatoes, and besides, I like to mix the flaked fish in with the creamy goodness. I’ll post my tried-and-true recipe for mashed potatoes tomorrow.

Crusted Cod with Wilted Spinach

Yields: 4 servings

For the fish:

• 1 pound cod fillet or similar whitefish fillet
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Olive oil
• 2 tablespoons mustard
• 2 tablespoons ketchup
• 2 tablespoons mayonnaise
• 1 cup panko bread crumbs
• ½ cup Parmesan cheese, grated
• Zest of 1 lemon
• 2 tablespoons parsley, minced
• Lemon wedges to serve

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

Cut the cod fillet crosswise into 4-6 even portions. Season with salt and pepper on both sides. Blend together the mustard, ketchup and mayonnaise in a small bowl. Brush this mixture on each side of each fillet. In a shallow dish, combine the bread crumbs, cheese, zest and parsley. Dip each fillet on both sides into the bread crumbs, pressing down to make sure they adhere.

Heat a generous amount of olive oil in an oven-proof pan large enough to hold all of the fillets over medium-high. When the oil is very hot, add the fillets and let brown for 1 minute. Carefully flip them and let brown 1 minute more.

Transfer the pan to the oven to finish cooking the fillets, which can take 10-15 minutes, depending on their thickness. The fillets are done when they are opaque all the way through and flake easily. Serve with lemon wedges on the side.

For the spinach:

• 8 ounces baby spinach
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• Olive oil

While the fish is cooking, wash the spinach and dry it. Heat a small amount of olive oil in a pan over medium with the garlic clove. Add the spinach and toss until it wilts, about 2-3 minutes. Serve alongside the fish.

Challenge #3: Fish!?!

My husband is not a big fish eater, but for this week’s challenge, he asked for a fish dish that he would like to eat. He left it open-ended purposely, so the choice of fish and how to prepare it are up to me. I could go the easy route and get something I know he’d like, such as tuna. Or I could make it a bit more difficult and perhaps try a white fish. I guess I’ll wait and see what looks good at the market this weekend. Results will be up next week.

My Favorite Coleslaw

Here is the coleslaw recipe that goes with yesterday’s barbecued chicken (as well as with burgers, picnics or anywhere else you typically have coleslaw). I have grown less and less fond of an overuse of mayonnaise in my salads. This coleslaw is based on a recipe from Thomas Keller’s Ad Hoc at Home, which uses sour cream as the base and just a touch of mayonnaise for richness. I find it much lighter and yummier than mayonnaise-based coleslaws.

This recipe is intended to serve 2-4 people, but I always end up making more coleslaw than we can possibly eat. Here’s one idea for what to do with the leftovers. A night or two later, make chicken tacos, using leftover coleslaw in place of the lettuce. If you have leftover barbecued chicken, that would also go well in tacos, or you can poach or roast a chicken breast for them. Add avocado and shredded white cheddar, and you’ve got a very tasty taco.

By the way, the recipe can be doubled or quadrupled, if you’re making coleslaw for a crowd. The original recipe I modified made 9 cups! Just remember that this recipe makes ¼ cup dressing total (3 parts sour cream to 1 part mayonnaise), so adjust accordingly.

Coleslaw

Yields: 2-4 servings

To make the dressing, combine:

• 3 tablespoons sour cream
• 1 tablespoon mayonnaise
• ½ teaspoon dry mustard
• ½ tablespoon sugar
• ½ teaspoon celery seeds
• 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar

Whisk to blend. Refrigerate until ready to use, or store up to 3 days.

For the coleslaw, prepare:

• 1 carrot, peeled and grated
• 1 cup cabbage, sliced (I used green cabbage, but a mixture of green and red is also nice.)
• Fresh lemon juice to taste
• Salt and pepper to taste

To easily slice the cabbage in a food processor, use the slicing disk, rather than the grating disk. Core the cabbage and cut it into wedges. Place the wedges horizontally in the feed tube of the food processor and slice. This produces long, thin strips that seem heartier than finely grated cabbage. (However, it seems to work better to grate the carrot with the grating disk, as the sliced carrot will be too thick.) The vegetables can be grated a day ahead and refrigerated.

When you’re ready to serve, toss the cabbage and carrot together in a large bowl. Add the dressing and toss to coat. Season to taste with lemon juice and salt and pepper.

I feel that it’s okay to add or substitute any other crunchy vegetables I have in my fridge for the carrot. I have used red onion, romaine lettuce, celery and even zucchini successfully.

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• A Down-Home Meal: Barbecued Chicken and Coleslaw (simplycooking.wordpress.com)

A Down-Home Meal: Barbecued Chicken and Coleslaw

This week’s challenge was to make barbecued chicken and coleslaw: a summer meal in the middle of winter. I really enjoyed this meal. It was comfort food with a down-home feel, and it brought a little sunshine to all this winter weather we’ve been having. I think everyone else at the table liked it too. Even my toddler asked for a little of everything on his plate, and though he didn’t eat very much, that is still an improvement.

I have made the coleslaw recipe many times before, but this was an opportunity to really perfect it, and I think this was the best batch I have ever made. I’ll post that recipe tomorrow. (How come it is impossible to make coleslaw except in prodigious batches? I have some ideas for what to do with the leftovers, which I’ll also post.)

But let’s talk about the barbecue. I have never made barbecue sauce before, and I didn’t really know how to start. So I picked up How to Cook Everything, of course. Mark Bittman’s recipe for barbecue sauce begins with 2 cups of ketchup, which I thought might be overwhelmingly sweet. I consulted a few other recipes and Bittman’s long list of variations, and finally decided on a base combination of 1 part ketchup, 1 part tomato paste, 1 part hoisin sauce and 1 part stock to thin it out some. To this I added apple cider vinegar and bourbon (although I think dark beer would also work well).

All of the recipes I looked at called for chili powder as the main seasoning, but I decided to use Penzey’s BBQ 3000 mix instead, since I have a large bottle of it in my pantry (given to me as a gift). Chili powder can be substituted but will make the sauce a bit hotter, I think. To that I added salt, pepper, toasted onion powder and garlic powder.

The sauce tasted good, but it was still very sweet and lacked a certain depth. I consulted all the recipes again and decided to throw in a couple of spoonfuls of mustard (I used Coleman’s yellow) and Worcestershire sauce. That was better, but one last finishing touch was required. A few dashes of Tabasco did the job nicely. I let the sauce simmer for about 30 minutes to meld the flavors.

My husband really liked this sauce, so I consider it a big success for my first attempt. He wants me to make it the standard for barbecue sauce in our house.

I dug up some old instructions for oven-barbecuing chicken, which basically consists of browning the chicken first, then slathering it with sauce and baking it until done. A quick broil at the end adds some “char.” I used bone-in, skin-on breasts, so if you add thighs or legs, your cooking time may be longer.

To serve, I pulled chicken off the bone and plated alongside the coleslaw and the traditional white roll. I reserved about half the sauce for dipping.

Oven-Barbecued Chicken

Serves: 2 but this recipe probably makes enough sauce for 4 large pieces of chicken

For the sauce, combine:

• ½ cup ketchup
• ½ cup tomato paste
• ½ cup hoisin sauce
• ½ cup stock (chicken or vegetable)
• ½ cup bourbon (or substitute dark beer)
• ¼ cup apple cider vinegar
• 2 tablespoons Penzey’s BBQ 3000 mix (or substitute 1 tablespoon chili powder or to taste)
• ½ teaspoon toasted onion powder
• ¼ teaspoon garlic powder
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
• 2 teaspoons mustard
• 1-2 dashes Tabasco

Bring to a simmer. Let simmer over low, uncovered, 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. In a large, oven-proof skillet, drizzle 2 bone-in chicken breasts with a little olive oil, and sprinkle on both sides with salt and pepper. Brown both sides over medium-high and remove from the heat.

Pour about half of the sauce into a bowl. Reserve the remainder and keep warm on low heat, covered. Slather the chicken thickly on both sides with the sauce. Bake until the chicken is almost cooked through, turning and re-basting as needed. This can take 20 minutes or more, depending on the size of the chicken pieces.

When the chicken is almost done, turn on the broiler and cook a further 5 minutes, turning once. Serve with the reserved sauce on the side.

Challenge #2: A Summer Meal in the Winter

My husband has issued this week’s challenge, and it’s for a meal I typically associate with summer: barbecued chicken and coleslaw. I guess I’ll have to recreate barbecued chicken in the oven, since there’s a thin layer of ice covering the grill and everything else outside. I’ve never really made barbecued chicken before, at least not from scratch, so this will be new territory for me. Fortunately, I do know how to make a mean coleslaw, although I may dress it up a little for the challenge. Tune in next week for the results!

Italian-style Chopped Salad with Chicken and Parmesan Crostini

Sorry it’s taken me so long to post this. The week has not been off to a great start, thanks to an ice storm that has left me housebound with a semi-sick toddler. Here is the dish I developed to meet my husband’s challenge last week for a satisfying salad that works as a meal.

The verdict:

• Husband: thumbs up! Comments: “delicious,” “flavorful,” “satisfying,” so I guess I scored on all counts.
• Toddler: thumbs down! He didn’t even try the deconstructed version I made for him. Comments: “I don’t like tay-mos,” which is a bold-faced lie, by the way.
• Me: thumbs up! Would I make this again? Definitely!

I love chopped salads, so I decided to start from there, and I went with Italian flavors because Italian is my husband’s favorite cuisine. The salad even has all the colors of the Italian flag: red, green and white. I thought it looked great on the plate. I wanted to combine a lot of textures and bold flavors in the dish, and also to incorporate some protein and bread to make it really satisfying as a meal.

For the base of the salad I used two greens, romaine and butter lettuce, which I sliced into ribbons. I wanted to use baby spinach, but when I got to the store that day, absolutely all of the salad greens were gone. We were scheduled to have an ice storm, so I figured that had to have something to do with it. I’ve heard of runs on milk and bread in the face of adverse weather, but not runs on salad, so I guess people really are eating healthier these days. I grabbed the only lettuce that was left: a head of butter lettuce. Fortunately, it worked out, because my husband loved both the lettuces I used.

The rest of the components suggested themselves: broiled chicken for heft; green beans for crunch; grape tomatoes and picante peppers for acid and brightness; mozzarella cheese for a creamy contrast; and Parmesan crostini fill in for the bread. The recipe follows. Please note that I didn’t measure exact amounts, so use your best judgment if you decide to make it. As written, this recipe feeds 2, but it can be easily doubled or tripled.

Italian-style Chopped Salad

For the chicken:

Place 1 boneless chicken breast in an oven-safe pan. Salt and pepper both sides, and drizzle with olive oil. Sprinkle the top with grated Parmesan, dried oregano and the zest and juice of ½ lemon.

On the stovetop, cook the chicken uncovered over medium-high heat until it is halfway cooked through. Turn on the broiler and transfer the pan to the oven. Finish cooking the chicken through — the top should be browned and the Parmesan melted — and set aside to cool. Slice thinly.

For the dressing:

Combine in a jar:

• the remaining zest and juice of the lemon
• 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
• 4 tablespoons good-quality olive oil
• 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
• ½ teaspoon dried oregano
• ½ teaspoon onion powder
• ¼ teaspoon garlic powder
• salt and pepper

Shake to combine well and set aside. You may have to mix the dressing again just before dressing the salad.

To assemble the salad:

Trim 2 large handfuls green beans and snap in half if the pieces are long. Blanch for a minute or two in boiling water, then transfer to an ice bath.

Wash and halve about half the contents of a container of grape tomatoes.

Cut 1 ball of fresh mozzarella into cubes.

Thinly slice a small handful of peperoncini or piquante peppers packed in vinegar.

Thinly slice into ribbons 1 small head romaine lettuce and ½ head butter lettuce. Toss in a bowl with half the dressing.

Place some salad greens on each of two plates. On top arrange the green beans, tomatoes and sliced chicken. Drizzle the remaining dressing over. Scatter the peppers and mozzarella over the top.

The crostini:

Cut 4 thin slices of bread from a French baguette. Place on a baking sheet and drizzle with olive oil. Mound freshly grated Parmesan on top. Put under the broiler for 1-2 minutes (watch closely!) until the cheese is melted and the crostini have browned. Serve immediately on the side of the salads.

First Challenge of the New Year

My husband has issued his first cooking challenge of 2011, due this weekend. I think you’ll all agree that it is appropriate for those of us who over-indulged during the holidays.

He has challenged me to make a salad, preferably including chicken, that will satisfy him as a meal. This is a bit of a personal challenge, since I am acquainted with my husband’s tastes in salad greens (limited) and dressing (the zestier, the better). I will probably end up combining ideas from many different recipes. Look for the results early next week.