So Many Dishes

When I think back on it, I realize that when we moved to Homestead, Florida, south of Miami, in 1976, we actually moved to seafood heaven. We were only a 30 minute drive from the Florida Keys, and we took up fishing not long after we settled in our new home. Even though we were usually just fishing from the bridges, many of which had catwalks that made it much safer, we still caught plenty of fish. If we didn’t want to go after our own, there were lots of great restaurants in the upper Keys or in the Kendall/South Miami area for delicious seafood dinners and a nearby seafood store with fresh fish at great prices if I wanted to cook. We didn’t think anything about driving to Key Largo for a weeknight dinner.

I’ve talked about yellowtail snapper, one of our favorite fish, when I’ve cooked it in recent months. Another fish that was high on our list was red snapper. We weren’t the only people who liked the sweet taste of red snapper. It was very popular on restaurant menus. By the early 1980s, there were reports that the species was being overfished. Catch limits were implemented. As a result, the price jumped noticeably at the market. With a growing family and a grocery budget that needed to be stretched, red snapper wasn’t an option for us.

When we decided that we wanted fish for Friday’s dinner, we chose a recipe from the most recent cookbook from Skinnytaste, High Protein. Yes, I’ve been cooking a lot of recipes from Skinnytaste recently, but I’ve had good luck with all of them. We settled on seared cod with roasted cherry tomato sauce. I am a huge roasted tomato fan, so I was really excited about trying this dish. However, there was no cod in the seafood case at Whole Foods. We needed a somewhat thicker fillet for this dish; the fish is seared on the stovetop but finished in the oven. A thin fillet will overcook. Red snapper was one of our choices, and that’s what we decided on.

The decision was a smart one. The sweet taste of the snapper really shone through. The tomatoes and sauce ingredients roast in the oven, and then the seared fillets roast in that sauce just enough to finish cooking, about 5 minutes. The recipe is very straightforward. The hardest part was flipping the fish. The result was delicious.

The recipe calls for serving the fish with pearl couscous, which is what we did. We picked up a cucumber and tomato salad with feta at Whole Foods when we bought the fish, to serve on the side. It also included olives and bell peppers, and turned out to be very similar to the horiatiki that I make. Truthfully, I think mine is better, but at least I didn’t need to worry about making a side.

Seared Cod with Roasted Cherry Tomato Sauce

• 1 pint cherry or grape tomatoes
• 1/2 cup dry white wine
• 2 bay leaves
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• Kosher salt and black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon sweet paprika
• 1 1/3 cups uncooked pearl couscous
• 4 thick skinless cod fillets, about 6 ounces each, or other firm white fish
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. In a 9 x 12 baking dish, combine the tomatoes, white wine, bay leaves, 1 tablespoon of the olive oil, garlic, 1/4 teaspoon of salt and black pepper to taste. Toss to combine. Bake, undisturbed, until the tomatoes have started to collapse and release their juices and you see a few charred spots, 30-35 minutes.

Cook the couscous according to package directions.

When the tomatoes are ready, remove the dish from the oven, but keep the oven turned on.

In a nonstick skillet, heat the remaining 1 tablespoon olive oil over medium heat until shimmering. Add the fish and cook on each side until golden and starting to crisp, about 2 minutes per side. Flip the fillets carefully to keep them intact. The fish will still be uncooked in the center.

Carefully nestle the fillets in the baking dish with the tomatoes and return to the oven. Bake until the fish flakes easily with a fork, another 5 to 6 minutes. Remove from oven and top with the parsley. Add additional salt if needed (I didn’t).

Spoon the tomatoes and juices over the fish and serve with the couscous. Makes 4 servings.

As usual, even though I used half the amount of fish, I used the full amount of the other ingredients. I loved having extra roasted tomatoes, and if I made the recipe to feed four, I’d probably add extra. I definitely will be making this again. Who wants to come for dinner?

Happy eating!