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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Baked Shrimp-Stuffed Sole Fillets

Baked Shrimp-Stuffed Sole Fillets take a rather bland fish to fabulous by stuffing it with shrimp, cream cheese, garlic and jalapeño, then baking it with a crunchy garlicky panko topping. 

Flounder aka lemon sole is one of our favorite fish to pan-fry or bake whole but here in the States whole fish on the bone doesn’t seem as common. We have to make do with fillets.

My local grocery store sells fillets of sole in groups of two or three, rolled together and displayed like little coils side by side in the seafood section. Like you might roll socks but then not fold the top over. That gave me an idea. Why not make some sort of stuffing to put inside and roll them up again? A simple Google search revealed that, once again, the world had beat me to it. No matter. It was a good idea and we enjoyed the dish thoroughly.

Baked Shrimp Stuffed Sole Fillets

This recipe is adapted from one on Epicurious. The original calls for 4-6 fillets yet says it serves only four. We found with side dishes, one sole roll each was plenty. This is a rich dish!

Ingredients

8 sole fillets  (approx. total weight = 1.28lb or 580g)

For the stuffing:

5.28 oz or 150g fresh shrimp - weight after peeled, deveined

1/2 cup or 120g cream cheese, softened

1 clove garlic

1 fresh jalapeño

1 generous cup or 35g cubed baguette

1/4 cup or 60ml milk

Fine sea salt 

Freshly ground black pepper

Bread crumb topping:

1 cup or 75g plain panko bread crumbs

1 garlic clove, smashed then minced 

2 sprigs fresh parsley leaves, minced

2 sprigs fresh thyme leaves, minced

1-2 tablespoon olive oil, plus extra for drizzling the topping

Method

Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C and prepare your baking pan by brushing the inside with a little olive oil.

 

Pour the milk over the bread cubes and push them down a bit so they are covered and they can soak it all up. Cut the shrimp into three or four pieces each. Crushed then mince the clove of garlic. Slice off the stem and mince the jalapeño.

In a large mixing bowl, mash the cream cheese with a fork. Add in the soaked bread and stir well. 

Add in the shrimp, garlic and jalapeño. Stir well to combine. 

Put 1/8 of the filling on the narrower end of each sole fillet. 

Roll up and place in the oiled baking pan. 

Continue the process until all stuffed sole rolls are in the pan. Sprinkle with a little fine sea salt and black pepper. 

To make the topping, combine all the ingredients except the olive oil with fork. This helps the herbs and garlic mix in more evenly dry.

Add olive oil. Mix again with a fork to distribute the oil evenly. Top the sole rolls with panko mix. Drizzle with a little more olive oil.

Bake in your preheated oven for 20 minutes. Brown a little more on the top with the broiler, if desired.

Remove from the oven and serve immediately. I highly recommend serving this with your favorite steamed vegetables or maybe some boiled baby new potatoes with mint and a lightly dressed green salad. 

Enjoy!

T.G.I.F. and yay for Fish Friday Foodies! Today we are sharing fish and seafood baked or roasted in the oven. Check out the great recipes below. Many thanks to our organizer and host, Wendy of A Day in the Life on the Farm. 

• Sneha’s Recipe: Air Fryer Whole Mackerel Fish Roast 
• Culinary Adventures with Camilla: Crispy Salmon Bellies
• Food Lust People Love: Baked Shrimp-Stuffed Sole Fillets
• Palatable Pastime: Honey Pistachio Crusted Salmon 
• Goats and Greens: Roasted Almond-Breaded Tapenade-Stuffed Trout with Mushroom Sauce. 
• A Day in the Life on the Farm: Roasted Chilean Sea Bass One Skillet Dinner 
• Karen's Kitchen Stories : Slow Roasted Salmon with Garlic Butter and Herbs

                                      

                                               

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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Gateau de Sirop – Cajun Cane Syrup Cake #BundtBakers

Gateau de sirop - syrup cake - is a Cajun sweet treat made with Steen’s cane syrup, cinnamon, ginger and cloves. Its tender crumb is so full of flavor! And the aroma as it bakes? Divine.

The whole area around the town I was born was, and still is, sugar cane country. In fact, New Iberia, Louisiana even hosts the Sugar Cane Festival each year on the fourth weekend in September. (Not this year though, of course, due to COVID.) The festival celebrates the crop that was first planted by Jesuit priests for their own use back in 1751, near what is now New Orleans. Farmer Etienne deBoré planted his first crop in 1794 and the economy of south Louisiana changed forever.

Here's a fact you may not know about sugar cane: It's a grass. That means that when the crop is cut down, it continues to grow! New seed cane is planted regularly to replenish the stocks and to introduce variety but some cane plants can be several years old and still produce good cane.  

For all of my growing up years, during sugar cane season, my grandfather would come home with several long stalks of cane. We’d all sit outside on the back steps and he would use a sharp pen knife to peel the cane and cut it into small pieces we could chew on. 

As we bit down, the fibrous cane would release the sweetest juice, some of which would always ending running down my chin, especially if my piece of cane was big. I often ended up a sticky mess but it was so worth it!

My mother’s mother grew up not far away in Abbeville, Louisiana, home of Steen’s cane syrup which is still made the old fashioned way, by cooking cane juice down until it’s thick and rich. Nothing else is added.

Gateau de Sirop – Cajun Cane Syrup Cake

If you’ve been reading along here for a while, you might have seen my other grandmother’s copy of the Steen’s recipe booklet when I shared her fig preserves recipe. This recipe was adapted from one in that booklet. But you can also find it online. From their website comes this baking tip as well: Measure the oil first, then use the same cup to measure the syrup. The thin layer of oil remaining in the cup will help the syrup pour right out of the cup without clinging. 

Ingredients

2-3 tablespoons butter for greasing the pan

1/2 cup or 120ml canola or other light oil

1 1/2 cups or 355ml Steen’s Pure Cane Syrup, plus extra for drizzling on the baked cake, if desired

1 large egg

2 1/2 cups or 313g all-purpose flour, plus extra for flouring the pan

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

1/2  teaspoon salt

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

3/4 cup or 180ml boiling water

Method 

Preheat oven to 350°F or 180°C. Prepare a 10-cup Bundt pan by coating it with butter and then dusting it with flour. This is a sticky cake so you want to be generous with this step. Mine stuck at the bottom and I regretted choosing my Nordic Ware fleur de lis pan to bake it in. A less intricate pan would probably release more easily. I did finally manage to get it out, as you can see, but it wasn’t easy!

In a large bowl, combine the oil, syrup and egg. 

Carefully whisk to blend thoroughly. If you are too vigorous as you start whisking, the oil tends to fly around and outside of the mixing bowl. Ask me how I know. 

Measure flour, spices and salt into another bowl and sift them into the cake bowl. Again, whisk to blend.

 

Dissolve the baking soda in the boiling water then stir this mixture into the batter. 

Pour the batter into your prepared pan. 

Bake 50-55 minutes or until springy to the touch and a wooden skewer comes out clean. 

Remove the gateau de sirop from the oven and place it on a rack to cool for a few minutes. 

Loosen the edges with the wooden skewer and then invert it on a cake plate. Drizzle with a little extra syrup, if desired.

When cool, slice to serve.

Enjoy!

It’s the third Thursday of the month so that means it’s Bundt Bakers time. As you might guess from the recipe titles, we are sharing cakes made with syrup. Check them out below. Many thanks to our host, Sue of Palatable Pastime for this fun theme!

• Apple Cider Syrup Bundt by Palatable Pastime
• Apricot & Golden Syrup Bundt by Sneha's Recipe
• Banana Bundt with Arequipe Syrup by patyco candybar
• Gateau de Sirop - Cajun Cane Syrup Cake by Food Lust People Love
• Root Beer Bundt by A Day in the Life on the Farm

#BundtBakers is a group of Bundt loving bakers who get together once a month to bake Bundts with a common ingredient or theme. You can see all of our lovely Bundts by following our Pinterest board. We take turns hosting each month and choosing the theme/ingredient. Updated links for all of our past events and more information about BundtBakers, can be found on our home page.

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