BAKED COD WITH GARLIC BUTTER

Baked cod in garlic butter

Let’s talk a bit about buying cod fish

Are you familiar with buying raw fish? There are some terms you may want to know before you buy a piece of fish from your grocery store. Fish marketed as previously frozen or previously frozen at sea, means it arrived at your store frozen. If you see the term fresh, it means it has not been frozen. The term wild, indicates it has not been farm raised. I buy what is on sale, so I have purchased fish in each of these categories. When buying from a large grocery store, they are about the same. Years ago, fresh fish was much better than previously frozen and fish caught wild, was better than farm raised.

So what type is the best ?

So much has changed in our food supply in the last two or three decades, and the way fish are handled at sea and the farming of fish is no exception. As one would expect, regardless of whether it is farm raised, wild, frozen or fresh, the fresher it is, the better it is. Alas, mass distribution sources, such as grocery stores, have middlemen, extensive transport and additional handling that pretty much ensures that you are not getting a fish caught that day, or the day before, which is the peak time to cook fish.

The process of flash freezing at sea, is an effort to capture same day freshness until it is delivered to your grocer. But, try as they may, there is nothing like fish cooked on the day it was caught. If you have a local shop that specializes in fresh seafood, they are the most likely to have the freshest fish you will be able to find. Sometimes seafood restaurants sell seafood uncooked as well as cooked. Both would commonly deal directly with the fisherman or a distributor located at the dock. If you have hunted down the freshest of seafood, I would say buy fresh and wild. In any case, get the freshest fish available to you, and cook it on the day you buy it.

How do you know it is fresh ?

There is one universal rule you can live by, when it comes to buying raw fish; IT SHOULD NOT SMELL FISHY! Fish doesn’t smell “fishy” until it has been hanging around in the wrong environment for too long. Fish that is fresh enough to eat, doesn’t have an odor. Don’t worry about not being able to detect the odor of fish gone bad. There is a reason for the expressions “that sounds or looks or seems fishy”. It is synonymous with “it stinks”!

As a final note, I will share a tip that a waitress at a seafood restaurant once gave me. She said “don’t order seafood at a restaurant on a Monday holiday”. She explained that Friday afternoon’s catch is delivered to the restaurant on Saturday. They don’t get deliveries on Sundays or holidays. So on a Monday holiday, the fresh seafood being served was caught 3 days ago. I never would have thought of that. There are exceptions to every rule. On the coast, I would imagine there are restaurants that can get fresh catch, daily. But, even at those restaurants that claim daily catch, you may want to ask on a Monday holiday if it was caught today.

Preparing the cod for baking

When buying a cod fillet, you get a piece that is shaped kind of like a “Y”. There is a fat side that gradually gets thinner as it tapers to the tail, and the other side of the “Y”, is much thinner. I don’t know if you will be able to tell there is a difference in thickness in the picture without me making note of it. In the following pictures, we will show you how we prepare fillets for baking.

The tail is really thin. Cut it off and get rid of it. (If you happen to be planning on making a fish chowder or stew sometime fairly soon, you could freeze the tail for that purpose.) Not us, we are tossing it out.

Then cut off the top of the longest side. This will be the thickest part of the fish. Cut it at a point where that piece will be uniform in thickness. That part is known as the captains cut.

For the middle piece remaining, the thinner side of the “Y” on the left, we tuck beside and under the thicker part of that side. The goal is to make a piece that is about the same thickness as that primo cut that you cut from the top of the fat side.

What is a captains cut of cod ?

That primo section of the cod fish, the captains cut can be purchased already cut and ready to cook. I bet I don’t need to tell you that a captain’s cut of cod is dramatically more expensive, per pound, than the fillet. In fact, in some cases you could buy 2 fillets and cut off the captain’s cut yourself and still spend less than 2 pieces of the captain’s cut. The captain’s cut in the seafood case at my grocery store, looks like it is thicker/fatter than the usual fillet also. It looks like they use the best cod they have to make those captain cut pieces, and well they should for the price. If you can afford it, by all means buy the captain’s cut. It’s too expensive for my pocketbook though.

Despite the several steps we have shown in the pictures, this whole process only takes minutes.

Here’s what YOU WILL NEED:

This is WHAT TO DO:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Place cod (or another white fish you prefer) in a glass baking dish or oven safe skillet. Fish can easily pick up unwanted flavor or texture from using metal baking pans. When using the term glass for the baking dish, we also mean it to include enamel coated baking dishes, ceramic baking dishes, oven safe pottery dishes, etc.

Mince the garlic cloves. Put butter in a small microwave safe cup or bowl, add the minced garlic to the butter and heat in the microwave until butter is melted. I cut the butter into cubes, and use 30 second increments to melt the butter. Lightly salt and pepper the fish, pour melted butter with garlic over the top and then sprinkle seasoned bread crumbs over that.

Now you are ready to bake

Put the fish in a 350 degree preheated oven and bake for 20 minutes.

When the fish is done, it will be white in the middle and it will flake along the grain of the fish when you put a fork in it. Undercooked fish is still wet. If it is not easily flaking, put it back in the oven for another 5 minutes. Don’t leave it in without checking for any longer than 5 minutes. Overcooked fish is dry and tasteless.

Serve