As we were leaving the Jersey shore after a wonderful vacation with my family, we picked up a couple cases of fresh Jersey Beefsteak tomatoes. I figured I would make a big pot of sauce with these glorious tomatoes that are only available fresh for such a short time in the summer.

I’ve done this before but must have forgotten how much work is involved peeling the skins off, coring them, and removing the seeds before using them to cook. I’ll write a post about this experience but as good as Jersey tomatoes are for slicing and serving with mozzarella cheese, I’m not sure my sauce was any better than when I make a big pot with quality, canned plum tomatoes. Hmmm, I sense a taste test in my future.

Cod with Fresh Tomato Sauce

While reading my September edition of Food & Wine, I came across this recipe for cooking cod fillets right in a fresh tomato sauce and serving it with Arborio rice. The article was about what cookbook author Jessica Theroux learned while traveling around Italy looking for a way to “learn about food, life and perfect pasta” for her cookbook, Cooking with Italian Grandmothers. This recipe was inspired from that journey.

And since I had a big container of fresh Jersey shore tomato sauce in the refrigerator that I needed to use, so I thought I would give this a try.

The recipe says it takes 30 minutes of active cooking and a total of 1 hour. If you already have a sauce made, this qualifies as a Reluctant Gourmet “quick & easy” recipe and takes just 30 minutes.

If you don’t have homemade sauce made with Jersey Beefsteak tomatoes lying around, you could also substitute your own favorite commercial brand or doctor up some plain canned tomato sauce to save time.  I used my sauce, but next time I want to try their recipe. It looks easy enough to make and includes saffron threads.

Let’s talk about Arborio Rice

Arborio Rice is stubby, short-grain rice that I typically use for making risotto.  It is said to have originally come from Italy and is named after the town of Arborio in the Po Valley, but I have recently read that it is now grown outside of Italy.

Because of its higher starch content, the grains tend to be more creamy and sticky when cooked thus making it perfect for blending with other ingredients. The distinguishable “bite” comes from a defect called chalk where, according to Cook’s Illustrated, “During maturation, the starch structures at the grain’s core deform, making for a firm, toothy center when cooked.”

In this recipe, you don’t cook the Arborio rice like you normally do for making risotto or even like you are most likely accustomed to when preparing long grain rice. You cook it like it was some form of pasta:  start with a large pot of water, add seasonings, boil the rice, and then drain when cooked. This is a first for me but it works, as you will see.

Substitutions and Omissions

As usual, I didn’t have all the ingredients on hand so I made one substitution.  I used lemon zest instead of orange zest, and I left one out, the fresh parsley that was called for. I don’t think the lemon for orange was a big deal, but my photo of the dish would have looked much better if sprinkled with chopped parsley.

I also didn’t follow the directions carefully and cut my lemon zest into thin strips and not 1-inch wide strips as the recipe calls for.  This made removal more difficult at the end when you were supposed to discard them. So, in this case, do as I say and not as I do: Read The Recipe Carefully More Than Once!

Thoughts

This is an excellent recipe that you can prepare at home in very short order, especially if you have a fresh tomato sauce available. The fish turns out flaky and tender and the rice, because of the cloves, has its own unique flavor.  I’ll post their sauce recipe in case you want to give it a try.

Cod with Fresh Tomato Sauce and Arborio Rice
Serves 4

Ingredients

Sauce

• 6 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 5 large garlic cloves, minced
• ¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper
• 3 pounds fresh tomatoes, coarsely chopped
• 1/8 teaspoon saffron threads, crumbled
• 5 oregano sprigs
• Salt and pepper

Arborio Rice

• Zest of 1 orange, cut into 1-inch wide strips, plus some finely grated zest for garnish. (I substituted lemon)
• 5 bay leaves
• 3 whole cloves
• 1 cup Arborio rice

Fish

• 1 to 1 ½ pounds fresh cod or halibut (ask your fish person to cut the fish so it’s the same thickness if you can) Cut the fish into 4 or 5 fillets.
• Chopped parsley, for garnish

Timing

The sauce takes about 35 -40 minutes in total.
The rice takes about 15 – 20 minutes in total.
The fish takes 10 – 12 minutes to cook in the sauce.
Time appropriately!

Make the sauce

Heat up a large fry/sauté/skillet until hot. Add ¼ cup of the oil and let it get hot but not smoking. Add the garlic and crushed red peppers and cook until the garlic is golden but not burnt, about 1 minute.

Add the tomatoes and saffron and cook over medium heat until the tomatoes begin to soften. This should take about 5 minutes.

Add the oregano and season with salt and pepper.

Let this cook over medium-low heat for about 30 minutes until the sauce breaks down and starts to thicken up. Be sure to stir and break up the tomatoes with your wooden spoon.

Prepare the Rice

While the sauce is simmering, bring a large pot of salted water to boil. Add the orange zest strips, bay leaves, cloves, Arborio rice and 1 tablespoon of olive oil to the water. Cook the rice for about 15 minutes until it is al dente.

Drain and remove the zest strips, bay leaves and cloves.

Place the rice back into the pot and toss with 1 tablespoon olive oil. Season with salt and pepper, to taste.

Cook the Fish

When the sauce is complete, place the cod into the tomato sauce and cook (I guess this is braising) until the fish begins to flake and become opaque throughout. This takes 10 to 14 minutes. Be sure to turn the fish after about 7 minutes.

Serve

I used bowls to serve this dish. I plated some Arborio rice in the bowl, added some sauce and topped with a fillet of cod. If I had had some fresh parsley, I would have chopped it up and sprinkled it on top of the dish for flavor and appearance.

This dish is so easy to make, and I’m already thinking of some alternatives.  Not always is a quick meal a good meal, but this really tastes great. Give it a try, I think  you’ll like it, too.

My wife and kids went fishing a couple of days ago on a commercial party fishing boat called the Miss Avalon down here at the Jersey shore. I’m not much of a fisherman except for some fly fishing out west. I learned as a kid I can handle the bay but not so much the ocean as my wife also came to learn for herself.

Both my girls had a blast and each caught a fish as you will read about in Meg’s description of the fishing trip. I missed seeing both expressions when they reeled in their first fish especially when the boat mates got my youngest to kiss her first catch. We cooked up the fish that night for dinner and I a photo recipe of their catch of the day.

Here’s my wife’s fish story. - RG

Ever since we started planning our summer vacation at the beach, our 11 year old Maddie has been asking to go “deep sea” fishing.  We had one boating experience last summer that had us all reaching for the Dramamine so it took some convincing.  But she’s persistent.  And as luck would have it, other friends at the beach had the same interest, so we headed off at 8am in good company, on the Miss Avalon.  It promised to be a true fishing adventure on the high seas (aka five miles off Cape May).

The trip out took about 90 minutes, mostly spent at the bow of the boat focused on the horizon, to keep my stomach in check.  With the wind in our hair and the spray of the sea on our faces, we were just minutes from belting out a rousing chorus of ‘Barnacle Bill the Sailor’ when the boat ground to a halt and the captain instructed us to drop our lines.

The water was supposedly teeming with porgy, sea bass, fluke, flounder, and skate, but the fish were hardly biting, and those that were seemed to end up on John’s line, a few rods down.  Meanwhile, the boat was rocking and drifting and in no time I made the first of a handful of trips to the ‘head’ (see “nautical terms for bathroom”), having left that Dramamine at home.    But my girls held their own, with rod and reel AND stomach, and waited patiently for a nibble.

Suddenly, my older daughter Nell yelled “fish on!” (the proper terminology for “I have a fish on the line and I need help!) and started reeling it in on the straining rod, with every ounce of strength she could muster.  One of the ship’s mates rushed to her side and helped her pull in what appeared to me to be a gigantic sea bass (gigantic defined as 1lb after filleting, see photos).

Turns out it WAS big, at least big enough to win second place in the pool. First place was $106, collected from the passengers as the price of entry into said pool.  Second place prize was a free fishing excursion on the Miss Avalon.   (Reminded me of the old joke:  first prize is one week in Philadelphia and second prize is TWO weeks in Philadelphia.)

Maddie was excited for her sister but more determined than ever to get her catch of the day.    And sure enough, several minutes later she reeled in a flounder!  It being the first fish she ever caught, she was told to kiss it on the lips for good luck, an opportunity her sister chose to forgo but that Maddie saw through to completion.  Too bad I didn’t have the camera on that!    Actually my friend Kim deserves the photography credits, I was too nauseated to do anything more than absolutely required to prevent my children from falling overboard.

Our work completed, the captain headed back to port while the mates cleaned and filleted the fish, and I counted the minutes until I could get my hands on a ginger ale.  Turns out the girls were the only ones in our party to catch anything, so we felt pretty lucky.  And, the Reluctant Gourmet was really thrilled to cook up his daughters’ fresh catch for dinner, with a light coating of flour and old bay seasoning, sauteed in butter and olive oil with lemon on the side.   A spectacular meal, topping of an excellent adventure.

One pound of sea bass, 12 ounces flounder, and a full GI cleanse:  $114.  Watching my daughters catch their first fish:  Priceless.

Pan Fried Flounder and Sea Bass

This is a quick and easy dish to make at home and extremely tasty if you can find fresh sea bass and flounder. We cut it up into smaller pieces because it reminded us of how our Bermudian friends Will and Linda prepared fresh “catch of the day” fish when we visited them a couple of years ago - just dip in some seasoned flour and pan fry in olive oil and butter.

Start by cutting the fish into pieces or you can leave it as whole filets if you like a more traditional serving. Dredge in some seasoned flour. I used Old Bay seasoning since it was in our rental house.

Heat up a fry pan, cast iron works great for a fish fry, add some butter and oil and let it get hot but don’t let it smoke. Add the floured fish and fry for a couple of minutes each side.

Remove the fish when done and drain on a plate covered with a couple of paper towels.

Do the same with the flounder. I used tongs on the sea bass because it was sturdy but used a spatula on the flounder since it started to fall apart.

Fry and drain the flounder on paper towels.

We served the girl’s catch of the day fish fry with what else? - Fresh local Jersey corn, tomatoes, mozzarella and basil with fresh pressed extra virgin olive oil and aged balsamic vinegar. A nice bottle of  Chardonnay completed the meal.

Everyone enjoyed the meal especially my daughters because they caught the fish. There’s nothing like fresh fish right out of the ocean. As my wife said, this meal was “Priceless”!

My wife put this recipe together and I took pictures of it. She adapted it from a cookbook, Fish & Seafood that was part of a series called What’s Cooking. I think I picked it up on sale at Costco years ago. It was published in 2000.

There are some amazing looking recipes which is why I bought it but I think this is the first recipe we tried from it. Not sure why, but I often buy cookbooks that look good and have a couple of recipes I want to try but never get around to trying them.

A chef told me once if he finds ONE great recipe in a cookbook, it’s worth the price. I’d personally like to find two, three or four really good recipes that I’d make again to call it a successful purchase. What’s Cooking – Fish & Seafood looks like it has more than that and if they are as tasty as this one, I’m in luck.

Catalonian Cooking

Catalonia is a part of Spain that borders France and the Mediterranean Sea. It was colonized originally by the Ancient Greeks and has a long cultural history.  I guess you can say its food is Mediterranean and because of its location on the sea, seafood is very important.

What really gives Catalan food its uniqueness are the sauces for their fish and meat dishes.  According to www.aboutbarcelona.com, “There are five main types: sofregit (fried onion, tomato and garlic); samfaina or chanfaina (sofregit plus red pepper and aubergine or courgette); picada (based on ground almonds, usually with garlic, parsley, pine or hazel nuts, and sometimes breadcrumbs); aioli (pounded garlic with olive oil, often with egg yolk added to make more of a mayonnaise); and romesco (an almond, tomato, olive oil, garlic and vinegar sauce, also used as a salad dressing).”

Is your mouth watering yet?

This dish uses two of these classics – the sofregit (sofrito), where the onion & tomato are slowly cooked and then garlic is added and picada, a combination of almonds, garlic and bread.  Don’t get nervous with all the different names and ingredients. This is not a difficult recipe.

Ingredients

The recipes calls for many different types of seafood. Some of them like shrimp and lobster we had frozen in the freezer. The rest you should be able to find at any good fish market but don’t be afraid to substitute. If you don’t know what to substitute for any particular item, ask your fishmonger.

• 5 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 large onions, finely chopped
• 2 ripe tomatoes, skinned, deseeded and diced
• 2 slices white bread, remove the crusts
• 4 toasted almonds
• 3 garlic cloves, chopped roughly
• 12 oz. of cooked lobster (we just happened to have some cooked leftover lobster from a previous dinner)
• 7 oz cleaned squid (we omitted this item – not sure the girls would appreciate it although they love calamari)
• 7 oz. monkfish (also sometimes referred to as “poor man’s lobster”)
• 7 oz. cod fillet, no skin
• 1 tablespoon all purpose flour
• 6 large shrimp
• 6 langoustines (also know as Norway lobster or Dublin Bay prawn - a crustacean that looks like a small lobster or big crayfish. We didn’t use them in our version of this recipe. I’m not sure I could even find them around here.)
• 18 live mussels, cleaned and beards removed
• 8 live clams, cleaned
• 1 tablespoon of fresh parsley, chopped
• ½ cup brandy
• Salt and pepper, to taste

How to Make Spanish Fish Stew

Preparing the Sofrito

Add 3 tablespoons of oil to a large frying pan and add the onions.  Cook  the onions gently on low – medium heat for 10 minutes until they are caramelized and golden brown. If they start to stick to the pan, you can add a little water. Add the tomatoes and continue cooking until they break down.

Preparing the Picada

Heat 1 tablespoon of oil in another pan and fry the bread slices until crisp. Add the bread to a food processor along with the almonds and 2 garlic cloves and process until it forms a fine paste.

Preparing the Seafood

If you are starting with an uncooked lobster, boil it until done and then remove the meat from the tail and the claws. You can mess with the other part of the lobster, but I would save it for making seafood stock for bisque or soup.
Slice the squid into rings if you didn’t buy them already sliced.

Cooking the Seafood

Dust the cod, lobster and monkfish with a little flour. Brown all the seafood separately in a frying pan with the remaining oil. Start with the cod, then the monkfish, lobster, squid and finish with the shrimp. Once browned, add all the seafood to a large flameproof casserole pan.

Now you add the clams and mussels to the top of the fish, sprinkle with the remaining garlic and parsley. Add the brandy to the pan (off heat and be very careful) and ignite. Keep your hands and face away from the pan so you don’t burn yourself.

When the flame goes out, add the pan back to the stove, add the tomato mixture (sofrito) and just enough water to cover the seafood. Bring this to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 3 to 4 minutes. When all the mussels and clams have opened, you are done. Be sure to discard and mussels or clams that didn’t open.

Finish by stirring in the bread mixture, taste and adjust seasonings with salt and pepper.  Let this continue simmering for 5 minutes to make sure all the fish is tender and good.