Search for cod with mushrooms - 6 results found

cod with mushrooms; cress with wild garlic; yellow tomato

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‘Pan-Seared Cod with Mushrooms’: It’s a fascinating recipe, but I have to append a bold note to my copy: ‘do not try this again unless you really do have low-sodium stock.’ I can’t say I wasn’t warned, since the instructions had made it very clear; it’s just that I haven’t yet been able to locate a [good] vegetable stock described as low sodium.

I’ve made 2 adjustments to the original recipe: First, I used a quarter of the amount of mushrooms it suggests, as once before; and second, I used lovage rather than the parsley or chives indicated.  I also could have gotten away with maybe half the stock specified, since I included far fewer mushrooms than the site had instructed.

Once served, at least initially, the cod was more salty than either of us would prefer, but a squeeze of lemon and some good fresh bread (‘rustic classic’ from Eataly, sliced) allowed us to appreciate the food, and the wine, and in the end the salinity seemed to have disappeared.

I’ll still say it’s a good recipe, and not just because it’s something of a novelty, but it probably has to be used with some caution.

  • two cod fillets (totalling 15 oz) from P.E. & D.D. Seafood, prepared roughly along the lines of this recipe, with the changes noted above, using oyster mushrooms from Blue Oyster Cultivation, flakes of dried Itria-Sirissi chili (peperoncino di Sardegna intero) from Buon Italia, vegetable broth made from a concentrate manufactured by Better Than Bullion, ‘Kerrygold Pure Irish Butter‘ from Whole Foods, juice from a delicious, rather sweet lemon grown locally by Fantastic Gardens of Long Island, and lovage from Two Guys from Woodbridge
  • four yellow tomatoes (hydroponic) from Shushan Valley Hydro Farm, halved, seasoned with salt and pepper, pan grilled, then sprinkled with chopped thyme from Forager’s and chopped oregano from Stokes Farm
  • some very peppery wild cress from Lani’s Farm, wilted a bit with olive oil over a medium flame together with finely-chopped wild garlic, also from Lani’s Farm, then seasoned with salt and pepper, and finished with a drizzle of olive oil
  • the wine was an Oregon (Willamette Valley) white, Underwood Pinot Gris 2014
  • the music was Georg Phillip Teleman’s ‘Orpheus’, René Jacobs directing the Academy for Ancient Music Berlin and the Berlin RIAS Chamber Chorus, with Ruth Ziesak, Werner Güra, Maria Cristina Kiehr, Isabelle Poulenard, Axel Köhler, Hanno Müller-Brachmann, Dorothea Röschmann, and Roman Trekel

cod with ramp fruit, golden oyster mushrooms; okra

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I’m getting used to incorporating mushrooms into meals, and I no longer fear taking on the responsibility.  I love them, they can alter any dish with a minimum of fuss, are close to foolproof, can often be prepared at least slightly in advance of joining other food ingredients, and most varieties will be easy on your wallet.  With the help of supplies from our local farmers and foragers at the Greenmarket, I’m learning to have fun with them.

The preparation of this meal with cod involved some Golden Oyster mushrooms; it was based, roughly, on a recipe from “I’ll Have Seconds!“.  The most significant change was my introduction of some ramp fruit (the seed blossoms of the woodland ramp) to the olive oil just after it had heated, and just before adding the mushrooms.  Also, and pretty noteworthy, the mushrooms I had weighed less than a fourth of the amount specified in the recipe, but these Goldens still did themselves proud (and the flavor of the cod remained undiminished).

The dish was delicious. I’m certain to revisit the formula, probably using more mushrooms, but next time I’m also going to be more careful about the amount of salt I bring to the dish.  It was only late the next morning that I realized the reason for the saltiness was my reduction of a cup of stock made from an excellent prepared vegetable base, but one which appears not to have been low-sodium (just found out they now have both ‘reduced sodium’ and ‘organic’ versions).  Without intending to, I had boiled it down too far while I had been escaping from a hot kitchen.

That would also explain why the picture at the top of this post shows a bowl with a sauce rather than the broth which appears in the image on Emily’s blog.

The okra can (almost) be spotted inside a black bowl on the upper left.

  • the cod came from P.E. & D.D. Seafood, the ramp fruits from Berried treasures, and the Golden Oyster mushrooms from Blue Oyster Cultivation; for the herbs I used a combination of chopped parsley from Lani’s Farm and tarragon from Stokes Farm
  • purple okra from Lani’s Farm, sautéed in olive oil with crushed dried chiles in an iron pan over a high flame, then seasoned with salt
  • the wine was a California white, Scott McCleod Chardonnay 2014 Russian River Valley Sonoma County
  • the music was a number of works being streamed on Q2 Music WQXR

sautéed sea bass; chestnut mushrooms, chilis; purple kale

I’m still not used to my forays with some of the finer kinds of white fish ending up as splendidly as lately they sometimes have. This was one of the very best.

It all started in the Union Square Greenmarket, as always.

That image is of only one of the 3 or 4 reservoirs of iced seafood that I faced when I arrived.

I through up my hands looking in frustration looking at the huge variety, so I texted Barry a list of just some of what was at the fish monger’s stall that morning, and asked, “skatefish, monkfish, tuna, swordfish, small bluefish, scallops, pollock, cod, black sea bass, squid, lemon sole, or flounder?”

He decided on the bass.

I also picked up some of the most beautiful mushrooms and kale I had ever seen.

  • two 8-ounce Black Sea Bass fillets from Pura Vida Seafood Company, washed, dried, seasoned on both sides with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, sautéed for 2 to 3 minutes over a fairly brisk flame with butter and a little olive oil inside a large, vintage thick-copper oval long-handled pan, skin side down, then turned over and the other side cooked for about the same length of time, removed when done and arranged on 2 warm plates (I had them inside the oven, set to its lowest temperature), otherwise covered at least a little to retain their warmth, then, with 2 tablespoons of butter added to the pan, 4 ounces of chestnut mushrooms [Chestnut mushrooms are the mushroom everyone wants, they just don’t know it yet.“] from Ramble Creek Farm‘s stall in the Union Square Greenmarket, that had been cut up, mostly just into 2 pieces (just detaching the lobes from the stems), sautéed, stirring, until lightly cooked, seasoned with sea salt, freshly-ground black pepper, adding a pinch each of 2 crushed dried peppers, one hot and one with no heat whatsoever (hickory smoked Jamaican Scotch bonnet from Eckerton Hill Farm, and home dried habanada pepper), a couple tablespoons of chopped parsley from Phillips Farms, and a tablespoon and a half of the juice of an organic Whole Foods Market lemon, the mushrooms stirred some more, everything in the pan then spooned onto the plates at one end of the fish (the skin of the bass is too beautiful to cover up)
  • some 5 ounces of purple winterbor kale from from Central Valley Farm, the leaves stripped from their stems, washed in several changes of water, chopped roughly, wilted in a little with olive oil in which 2 garlic cloves from Chelsea’s 8th Avenue Foragers Market, flattened then sliced in half, were allowed to heat until pungent, the greens seasoned with salt, black pepper, and a drizzle of fresh olive oil

local hemp pasta, shallot, oyster mushrooms, 2 chilis, sage

Just after midnight Tuesday I tweeted, aware of the possible ambiguity, “we had local mushrooms and hemp pasta tonight; now enjoying a little California rosé as a chaser, listening to @WilliamBasinski” (we had turned to the Basinski after the Vaňhal symphonies that had accompanied the meal itself).

The reality had nothing to do with hallucinogenics, although there was real wine.

  • nine ounces that remained from a box of Sfoglini hemp reginetti opened for an earlier meal, boiled until just before it would have reached the point when it was al dente (about 10 minutes), drained and served with a mushroom sauce made by heating 4 tablespoons of rich Organic Valley ‘Cultured Pasture Butter’ until it had stopped sizzling, after which one large sliced ‘camelot’ Dutch red shallot from Quarton Farm, and 10 small whole fresh sage leaves from Phillips Farms, and 10 ounces of separated or sliced sections of yellow oyster mushrooms from Blue Oyster Cultivation were tossed in, followed by 2 chilis (a pinch of crushed dried hickory smoked Jamaican Scotch bonnet pepper and a slightly larger amount of light colored home dried habanada pepper), the mix sautéed until the mushrooms were soft and golden brown, then seasoned with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, arranged inside 2 shallow bowls, and almost a quarter of a cup of shredded Parmigiano Reggiano (aged 24 months) from Whole Foods Market scattered on top, finished with a garnish of micro purple kale from Two Guys from Woodbridge
  • the wine was an Italian (Chianti) red, Chianti Santa Fiora Villa Travignoli 2014,from Garnet Wines & Liquors
  • the music was an album of symphonies by the classical Czech composer Jan Křtitel Vaňhal [here using the modern Czech spelling]

cod with girolle and parsley; husk cherry and corn

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We had returned from Rhode Island the night before, where we had been immersed in locavore creative cookery, so my visit to the Union Square Greenmarket the next day was even more burdened with the weight of responsibility than usual.

I should have been intimidated by the fantastic meals we had enjoyed from the kitchens of Derek Wagner (Nick’s on Broadway, as well as the oyster farm dinner the day before), and Ben Sukle (Birch).  In fact I wasn’t, mostly because, after five days away from my own kitchen, I was so anxious to re-visit the bounty of our home counties.

Among the many pleasures we encountered in Rhode Island which were uncommon or unheard of on our New York table, was the appearance, several times, of sweet corn, even more sweet husk cherries, and somewhat sour tiny cucumbers, shaped and colored like watermelons.  At the Greenmarket on Saturday my only deliberate purchase, other than the fish, was some corn (a vegetable whose origins are Mexican); the fact that I also brought home husk cherries and sour gherkins (both of Mexican origin) was totally fortuitous.  I had no plans to put them together with the maiz, but when I looked on line for ideas for serving corn (off the cob, of course), the first suggestion was to combine it with Physalis pruinosa and the little gherkins, or ‘Sandita‘.  It looked like a natural, and I had just the right amount and proportion of each ingredient.

As far as the fish portion of this meal is concerned, while cod is not found in the warmer waters of either the Gulf or the Pacific, there are a number of other white fish in those oceans.

I had also picked up less than two ounces of chantarelle (girolle) mushrooms at the Greenmarket, not knowing until later in the evening what I would do with them (Mexico does have an exact equivalent to the chanterelle mushroom). Mexican cuisine would be more likely to incorporate cilantro than parsley, but I used Italian Parsley here because I had not planned ahead.

My dinner was now fully conceived.

Even the wine had a Mexican connection, the parents of the vintner, Dalia Ceja, were field workers who became the first Mexican-American winery owners in Napa and Carneros.

  • a one-pound cod fillet from P.E. & D.D. Seafood, halved, then prepared more or less according to Martha Rose Shulman’s recipe in the New York Times, but I sautéed the cod, and used a rosé wine instead of a white with the mushrooms (to avoid having to open a fresh bottle, and because it was pretty), and I used a knife, mortar and pestle in making the parsley sauce; the mushrooms were from Violet Hill Farm, the garlic from Berried Treasures, and the parsley from Tamarack Hollow Farm
  • three small ears of bi-colored corn from Sycamore Farms, pan-grilled, cut off of the cobs, mixed with husk cherries from Tamarack Hollow Farm, and halved tiny Mexican gherkins, or ‘Sandita’, from Norwich Meadows Farm, tossed with a vinaigrette composed of olive oil, lemon juice, torn leaves off of a Full Bloom Market Garden basil plant from Whole Foods, excellent cayenne from Spices and Tease in Chelsea Market, salt, and ground black pepper
  • the wine was a California white, La Tapatia Chardonnay Carneros 2013 by Dalia Ceja
  • the music was Antoine Dauvergne’s Hercule Mourant

 

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[lower image, by Franz Eugen Köhler, from Köhler’s Medizinal-Pflanzen, in Wikipedia]