Nori-wrapped Ginger Soy Steamed Cod

This nori-wrapped Ginger Soy Steamed Cod is marinated with sautéed ginger and garlic, green onions, soy and lemon juice, for a healthy flavorful dish. The roasted nori is a delightful added bonus!

Right after poaching, steaming fish is the most reliable way to cook it to make sure it doesn’t dry out. The trick though is how to make it flavorful as well. No one likes boring fish!

Enter the marinade. A 30-minute rest in some cooked aromatics, oils and lemon works beautifully to add a punch of piquancy while, in the case of this cod, the nori wrap also adds a little saltiness and a most welcome extra hint of the sea. The goal is to complement the cod with the cooked aromatics, not to overwhelm its delicate flavor. 

Nori-wrapped Ginger Soy Steamed Cod

This recipe is adapted from two recipes from Delia’s How to Cook, books 1 and 3. If you don’t know Delia Smith, one of Britain’s great cookery writers, you’ve been missing out. Her recipes are clear, concise and every single one I’ve ever tried has been delicious. 

Ingredients

2 1/2 in or 6cm piece ginger, peeled

1 tablespoon sodium reduced soy sauce

1 rounded tablespoon toasted sesame seeds

1 tablespoon sesame oil

1 tablespoon canola or other light oil

3 cloves garlic, peeled

2 green onions

1 lemon for zest and juice (about 3 tablespoons)

1.7 lb or 770g cod loin

fine sea salt

freshly ground black pepper

2 sheets toasted nori seaweed

lettuce leaves for lining steamer 

Optional for garnish: slice red chili peppers and cilantro

Method

Thinly slice the ginger then cut it into fine shreds. Mince the garlic and the green onions. 

Put the oils in a small pan and add the ginger and garlic. Gently cook them over a medium low heat until they are golden being careful not to let them get too dark. 

While the garlic and ginger are cooking, zest and juice the lemon into a small mixing bowl. 

Use a rubber spatula to scrape the ginger and garlic into the small bowl, along with all the oil that is left in the pan. 

Add in the toasted sesame seeds, the soy sauce and the chopped green onions and give the whole thing a good stir. 

Cut the cod loin into four equal pieces and season them lightly with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. 

Put a thin layer of the ginger garlic mixture in a small dish. Add the cod pieces and then top them with the balance of the mixture. Cover and leave to marinate for 30 minutes.

 

Cut your sheets of nori in two. Place one piece of cod upside down (so the side with the most aromatics is down) on each half sheet of nori.

Fold the ends over to close. Line a fan steamer with lettuce leaves (to stop the fish from sticking to the steamer) and place the nori-wrapped cod on top, seam side down. Repeat till all four pieces of cod are on the steamer.

In a large pot, heat 2 in or 5 cm of water to boiling. Put the steamer in the pot. 

Cover with a tight fitting lid and steam over the boiling water for 8-10 minutes or until the fish reaches an internal temperature of 145°F or 63°C.

Carefully remove the cod from the steamer and serve hot. Garnish with some sliced red chili peppers and cilantro, if desired. 

Enjoy! 

It’s that time of the month when my Fish Friday Foodies share recipes! This month we are all steaming seafood so make sure to check out the links below. Many thanks to our host, Karen of Karen’s Kitchen Stories!

• Kerala Style Surmai Fish Cutlets from Sneha's Recipe
• Ligurian Seafood Salad from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Nori-wrapped Ginger Soy Steamed Cod from Food Lust People Love
• Sand Dabs en Papillote from Culinary Adventures with Camilla
• Steamed Fish Tacos with Avocado Salsa from Palatable Pastime
• Steamed Haddock with Brussels Sprouts in Vermouth from Goats and Greens
• Steamed Salmon with Fennel from Karen's Kitchen Stories

Would you like to join Fish Friday Foodies? We post and share new seafood/fish recipes on the third Friday of the month. To join our group please email Wendy at wendyklik1517 (at) gmail.com. Visit our Facebook page and Pinterest page for more wonderful fish and seafood recipe ideas.

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Baked Cod with Asparagus Pesto

Baked Cod with Asparagus Pesto is delicious and pretty enough for company but simple enough for a weeknight family meal. The pesto adds loads of flavor while also protecting the cod from drying out as it bakes. Win-win!

We love asparagus, usually roasted or pan-fried with a little butter and lemon juice tossed in right at the end but when I heard that the theme of this week’s Sunday FunDay was pesto, I knew just what I wanted to make. 

I had seen the asparagus pesto recipe in an email from the New York Times Cooking section and had bookmarked it for “someday.” My only regret now is that it took me this long to get around to it. The pesto is so flavorful and you will have no regrets that it makes more than what you need to cover your cod in a nice thick layer. 

Ideas for leftover pesto: Stir the balance of the asparagus pesto through some cooked pasta, boiled potatoes or spread it on toasted slices of baguette and bake for a twist on bruschetta. Hum a couple of spoons in a jar and add a little more lemon juice and a splash of olive oil and water to make a rich vinaigrette. Pan fry shrimp and toss them in the asparagus pesto. I'm not kidding when I say that this stuff is good with almost everything. You might want to double the recipe. 

Baked Cod with Asparagus Pesto

This recipe was adapted from one by Mark Bittman in New York Times Cooking. It makes about 1 1/2 cups of pesto and you'll use perhaps a little more than half. See note above for what to do with the divine leftovers. 

Ingredients

For cooking the asparagus:

1 lb or 450g asparagus, hard ends trimmed

2 tablespoons olive oil

Fine sea salt

Freshly ground black pepper

For completing the pesto:

1/3 cup or 50g pine nuts

1 clove garlic, or more to taste

3/4 cup or 67g freshly grated Parmesan cheese

1 small red chili pepper

1/4 cup or 60ml olive oil

Freshly ground black pepper

1-2 tablespoons lemon juice, to taste

Water  

For the cod:

4 cod fillets (about 1.1 lbs or 500g)

Fine sea salt

Freshly ground black pepper

Olive oil for pan

Method

Put the asparagus in a large baking pan in a single layer. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle lightly with fine sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Broil (or grill) for 5-7 minutes on high. Set a timer, by all means, but do not leave the asparagus unattended or it can go quickly from roasting to burning. Remove the asparagus from the oven and set it aside while you prepare the rest of the dish. 

Toast the pine nuts in a dry non-stick skillet until golden brown, shaking the pan occasionally so they toast evenly. Remove from the pan and set aside a tablespoon or so for garnish. 

Chop the asparagus roughly. Put the pieces in your food processor and use a rubber spatula to scrape any olive oil or asparagus juice left behind in the pan to add in as well. 

Add in the bigger pile of pine nuts along with the garlic, chili pepper and the olive oil. Whiz until well combined. 

Add in the Parmesan and lemon juice and pulse again. If the pesto is too thick you can thin it with a little water or more lemon juice, according to your taste. 

Season with a little sea salt, if needed, and freshly ground black pepper and whiz again.

If you aren’t ready to bake your cod yet, spoon the pesto into an airtight container and then drizzle the top with a little more olive oil and store it in the refrigerator. 

When you are ready to cook the cod, preheat the oven to 400° F or 200°C.

Dry the cod with paper towels and place it in a lightly oiled baking dish. 

Coat the tops of the fillets evenly with a nice thick layer of the asparagus pesto. 

You will have pesto leftover. Store it in the refrigerator with a little olive oil on top, covered with cling film.

Bake the cod for 11-12 minutes in your preheated oven or until it is firm to the touch and pesto is starting to lightly brown. Put it under the broiler (grill) for 2-3 minutes to finish it off and add a little more color. 

Sprinkle the tops with the reserved pine nuts to serve. If I had been thinking, I’d have reserved four asparagus tips for garnish as well. Next time! I can assure you that I’ll be making this again. It was that good!

Enjoy! 

As I mentioned above, it’s Sunday FunDay and we are celebrating with pesto recipes! Check out all the links below. Many thanks to our host Sue of Palatable Pastime and Wendy from A Day in the Life on the Farm  for her behind the scenes help. 

• Avocado Pesto Sandwich by Mayuri’s Jikoni 
• Baked Cod with Asparagus Pesto by Food Lust People Love 
• Basil Pesto With Almonds & Walnuts by Sneha's Recipe 
• Carrot Greens Pesto-Topped Roasted Salmon by Culinary Adventures with Camilla 
• Pesto Cavatappi with Meatballs by Amy’s Cooking Adventures 
• Spinach Pesto Pasta by A Day in the Life on the Farm 
• Swiss Chard and White Bean Soup with Basil Pesto by Karen’s Kitchen Stories 
• Vegan Mint Pesto by Sizzling Tastebuds

We are a group of food bloggers who believe that Sunday should be a family fun day, so every Sunday we share recipes that will help you to enjoy your day. If you're a blogger interested in joining us, just visit our Facebook group and request to join.

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Spicy Cod and Merguez Traybake

This Spicy Cod and Merguez Traybake is a lovely combination of mild and spicy, flaky and chewy, a tasty way to enjoy both cod and merguez in one dish, not to mention fresh tomatoes and salty olives.

I like to joke that I was bilingual before I learned my second language because my first three years of school were in the British system. I learned to read and write the way they do. Year four - at an American school - was a relearning of spelling rules and punctuation. 

I spent the summer before that memorizing the whole times tables (through 12!) which apparently American kids had already learned as well. Worst summer ever for a nine-year-old! I was almost glad when school started and I could stop practising(Br.E.)/practicing(Am.E.) [In British English, "practise" is the verb and "practice" is the noun. In American English, "practice" is both the verb and the noun. And now you know my pain.] On the plus side, I still have the times tables cold. 

This recipe starts with a little vocabulary explanation of my title and an apology for those of you who already know. (I see you, my fellow American devotees of The Great British Bake-Off!) The way I’m using it here, the word traybake or sometimes tray bake as two words, is the British English equivalent of sheet pan dinner in the United States. That said, while a sheet pan dinner is always a main course, a traybake can also be something that is cut up and served as a sweet snack or dessert, like brownies or cake. 

In fact, if you browse the BBC Good Food website’s “traybake collection” there are only sweet recipes. You have to search for “savory traybakes” to get the links to our so-called sheet pan dinners. Even then, a few sweet recipes appear in the list. It’s all very confusing really.  

Now that I've gotten that off my chest and clarified absolutely nothing, on with the savory traybake! 

Spicy Cod and Merguez Traybake

The impetus for this recipe was our Fish Friday Foodies host Wendy choosing “seafood dishes that go with red wine” as our theme. This flavorful dish sure does! Do not worry too much about the exact weight of your merguez or your cod. I’ve given the exact weight of mine to give you a guideline. A little bit more or less won’t make much different to finished dish. This recipe is adapted from the British food magazine, Olive, where just to confuse matters further, they’ve called it a tray roast. Honestly. I can't even. 

Ingredients

10 1/4 oz or 290g small merguez (spicy lamb) sausages or large ones cut into chunks (Look for these at your local halal butcher. Yes, I bought mine here in the States.) 

1 large Spanish onion

3 tablespoons harissa, divided

3/4 cup or 110g red grape tomatoes

3/4 cup or 110g yellow grape tomatoes

1/2 cup or 85g dry cured black olives, unpitted

2 cod loins, 1.6 lbs or 710g total

olive oil

For garnish and serving:

flat-leaf parsley, chopped

1 lemon, cut into 8 wedges

Recommended to serve: my extra rich creamed potatoes (they are made with actual cream!) or your favorite crusty bread

Method

Preheat your oven to 400°F or 200°C. 

Peel and cut the onions into thin wedges, discarding the hard root end. Cut the little tomatoes in half and pit the olives by hitting them with the flat of a knife and removing the pits.  

Cut the cod loins into six equal pieces. 

Put 1 tablespoon of the harissa in a small bowl and mix it with 1 tablespoon olive oil to loosen. Brush the cod with the mixture on both sides and set aside. 

Put the merguez sausages in a large baking pan. Drizzle with a little olive oil and roast for 10 minutes in the preheated oven until browned on the outside. I left mine hooked together and then cut them apart with scissors, once browned. 

The merguez will release some lovely flavored oil. Stir the onions in it and roast for another 7 minutes. 

Add the tomatoes and olives into the baking pan. Dollop the harissa around and give the whole thing a right good toss with two rubber spatulas.

Spread it all back out single file.  Nestle the cod amongst the tomatoes, olives and onions. Give each piece of cod another tiny drizzle of olive oil. 

Put the pan back in the oven for 17-20 minutes or until the cod reaches an internal temperature of 145°F or 63°C and is just cooked through. This will depend on the thickness of your cod. Mine was pretty thick and it took the whole 20 minutes. 

Scatter with parsley and lemon wedges.

I served mine as I suggested above on a generous mound of creamed potatoes. If you don't have potatoes, you definitely need some crusty bread to sop up the delicious pan juices. 

Enjoy, as per this month’s theme, with a glass of your favorite red wine! 

P.S. Don't let the fancy bottle in the photo fool you, if you tried to zoom in. We enjoyed this dish with a French table wine called La Vieille Ferme that is as inexpensive as it is lovely. I included that bottle in the photo because it is special to us. It is a 1986 vintage which is what we've enjoyed every year (since 1987) to celebrate our anniversary. We aren't partial to a country or vineyard, especially since they are getting much harder to source each year. We'll be opening another one on 22 March! 

It's time for my Fish Friday Foodies to share what they've been cooking up! Many thanks to our host and organizer Wendy from A Day in the Life on the Farm for her behind-the-scenes work and this challenging theme. 

• Culinary Adventures with Camilla is serving up Crab-Stuffed Ravioli in a Spiced Pepper Sauce + 2017 Comanche Cellars Zinfandel
• A Day in the Life on the Farm is Exploring Malbec outside of France Paired with Pineapple Teriyaki Salmon 
• Making Miracles brings us Fish with Red Wine Sauce 
• Karen's Kitchen Stories shares Shrimp in Tomato and Chile Sauce
• Food Lust People Love has a Spicy Cod and Merguez Tray Bake
• Sneha's Recipe made Surf and Turf with Shrimp and Sausage Skewers

Are you a food blogger who would you like to join Fish Friday Foodies? We post and share new seafood/fish recipes on the third Friday of the month. To join our group please email Wendy at wendyklik1517 (at) gmail.com. Visit our Facebook page and Pinterest page for more wonderful fish and seafood recipe ideas. 

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Curried Coconut Citrus Cod #FishFridayFoodies

The richness of the coconut is complemented by the addition of lime and orange juice in this beautiful curried coconut citrus cod. The tender fish is poached in the flavorful sauce. Make it as spicy or as mild as you like.

When the theme for today’s Fish Friday Foodies was announced as Quite the Catch, in celebration of Valentines Day, I knew exactly which recipe I wanted to share. It comes from the great cookbook Orange Appeal by Jamie Schler (with gorgeous photos by Elva Beretta) that was released in August 2017

This first time I made this dish, I halved the ingredients list and cooked only two pieces of cod. Simple, elegant and full of flavor, yet super easy, curried coconut citrus cod would the perfect date night dinner. The problem was that we loved it so much that I kicked myself for not making enough for leftovers.

So despite this being a Valentines Day dinner suggestion, this time around, with permission from my friend, Jamie, I give you the whole fish recipe, which serves four. I skipped the recommended accompaniment of rice pilaf and served mine both times over steamed rice with sweet peas.

If you’d like a copy of Orange Appeal, move quickly, there are only seven left on Amazon! We are right in the middle of citrus season so this is the perfect time. I highly recommend it!

Curried Coconut Citrus Cod

Jamie called this dish Curried Cod Poached in Coconut Milk, Lime and Orange. Aside from shortening the name, I also substituted a hot pepper for her mild one and spicy curry powder, again instead of a milder mix. We like things spicy at our house! You do you.

Ingredients
1 fresh mild green pepper such as a guindilla, Basque fryer, Guernica, or Anaheim, stem removed (Or one small hot red pepper)
1/2 cup or 120 ml fresh lime juice (from about 3 juicy limes)
1/2 cup or 120 ml fresh orange juice (from about 1 1/2 -2 oranges)
1 2/3 cups or 400 ml thick coconut milk or coconut cream (I used cream)
1 tablespoon mild or medium curry powder (or hot!)
2 to 3 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro (coriander), plus more for garnish
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
4 (6-ounce / 170 g) thick cod fillets
1 tablespoon butter

To serve: 4 portions of cooked rice – I also added some frozen sweet peas for color and nutrition right at the end of the rice cooking time.

Method
If you prefer non-spicy food, follow Jamie’s instructions to slice your mild pepper in half lengthwise and scrape out and discard the seeds, then slice each half into 2 lengthwise strips. If you are using a red chile pepper because you like spicy food, you can slice it into circles, leaving the seeds intact.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the lime juice, orange juice, coconut milk, curry powder, cilantro, and with a light sprinkle of salt and a few good grinds of black pepper until blended.

Rinse the cod fillets and pat them dry with paper towels. Lightly salt and pepper each fillet on both sides.

Heat a wok or a deep skillet over medium heat. Add the butter. When the butter melts and begins to sizzle, add the pepper slices and gently slide in the cod fillets and cook to sear quickly for 1 minute; flip and cook the other side for 1 minute. I recommend a non-stick skillet to aid the turning of the fish.

Add the coconut milk mixture to the cod pan and bring it to a low boil. Little bubbles will start coming to the surface. Lower the heat and simmer for 3 minutes or until the cod is cooked through. Add more salt, pepper or orange juice to taste. If your fillets aren't completely covered, spoon the hot sauce over the tops of them as they cook.

Serve over cooked rice or even pasta, with an extra sprinkle of chopped cilantro to garnish. The sauce is so flavorful that you’ll want to serve this in shallow bowls with spoons so you don’t miss a drop!

Enjoy!

Check out all the other "Quite the Catch" recipes we are sharing today! Many thanks to our host, Camilla from Culinary Adventures with Camilla!

• Braised Cod Peperonata for Two by Karen at Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Curried Coconut Citrus Cod by Stacy at Food Lust People Love
• Gambas al Ajillo (Spanish Garlic Shrimp) by Caroline at Caroline's Cooking
• Heart Salmon Cakes For A Romantic Meal by Sneha at Sneha's Recipe
• Lobster Thermidor by Wendy at A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Miyagi Oysters with Pomegranate Mignonette by Camilla at Culinary Adventures with Camilla

Would you like to join Fish Friday Foodies? We post and share new seafood/fish recipes on the third Friday of the month. To join our group please email Wendy at wendyklik1517 (at) gmail.com. Visit our Facebook page and Pinterest page for more wonderful fish and seafood recipe ideas.

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