Blackened cajun cod with paprika baked wedges
I have decided that my family don’t eat enough fish. Personally, I have always had a strange relationship with fish. Growing up, a visit to the chippy always included a jumbo sausage rather than a succulent piece of battered fish. In my head, I didn’t like fish. There was an on-off relationship with fish fingers and breaded or battered fish came from the supermarket in a package and became known as ‘triangular fish’. Any hint of skin and that was it I wouldn’t eat it again.
The same happened with scampi. It became a regular favourite when I ate out. I squirted each piece with a hint of lemon and accompanied it with some tartare sauce, but one bad incident with some off langoustines and that was it, never again I said. I also remember the laughs my friends had when I once declared that the only salmon I liked was salmon from a tin. The smell of fish also puts me off eating it. It’s a well known fact that fresh fish shouldn’t smell but we’ve all had that experience of walking past a fishmongers smelling a strong offputting smell.
I’m glad to say that I’ve moved on (mostly) from my childish tastes. I now adore fish. Haddock, cod, sole, monkfish, seabass, tuna, the thought of them are now making me hungry! I must confess that I still only like salmon from a tin. There’s something about the taste of salmon that I really don’t enjoy. Even if it is disguised! Last year, as a judge for the Great Roath Bake Off in Cardiff, somemone tried to get some smoked salmon canapes past us as a bake and I had to try and disguise my distaste in front of a full room of people. Not my finest hour.
I also struggle with shellfish. I have conquered prawns and squid but apart from these, I don’t particularly like shellfish due to the taste and smell. Despite the appetising appearance of mussels and scallops, I just can’t get past that taste barrier. Maybe over time. I keep telling myself that one day I will enjoy them in a vain hope that this will somehow alter my palette. It remains to be seen.
So, as I say, I don’t think my family eat enough fish. Not surprising really, when we live in Cumbria and the sea is quite a distance away. We eat plenty of beef, pork, chicken, but fresh, healthy, succulent fish often gets forgotten. So, I decided to make fish for dinner for the whole family.
It is a real shame that there is a great deal of over-fishing in our surrounding waters. I really love cod but this is one fish which is being overfished, leading to depleted stocks. I always check that the fish I buy has an MSC stamp and that it is sustainably caught.
The cod dish I decided to make was taken from Lorraine Pascale’s ‘Fast, Fresh and Easy Food’. This is a real gem of a cook book, I have successfully mastered a number of the dishes and found they really are fast, fresh and easy. I decided to use this recipe as I wanted to experiment with adding flavour to the delicate flakiness of the cod. What better way to add flavour than adding spices. But while you might think that it will overpower the delicate fish, this recipe adds a subtle spice which balances beautifully with the cod. As always, I have made changes to the original recipe, which reflects what ingredients I had in the store cupboard, my cooking style and my preference.
Succulent spicy cod
Blackened Cajun Cod with paprika baked potato wedges
What you need
For the wedges:
6 large potatoes
2tsp paprika
Vegetable oil
For the fish:
Sunflower oil
1/2 tbsp plain flour
1/2 tbsp paprika
1tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp chilli powder
4 x125g, skinless cod fillet
Salad or vegetables, to serve
Garlic mayonnaise
Method
1) Preheat the oven to 220C. Cut each potato in half lengthways and then cut each half into four or five wedges. Put the wedges in a baking tray and sprinkle with paprika, salt and pepper and cover with oil by turning the wedges. Arrange the wedges on the baking tray and cook in the oven for 30mins. About half way through, turn them with a spatula or spoon.
paprika wedges
2) Meanwhile, prepare the fish. Put a medium sized frying pan on a medium heat and add a drizzle of sunflower oil. Put the flour, paprika, ground cumin and chilli powder on a plate with some salt and pepper and mix together. Coat the cod fillets with the spicy flour mixture and add the fish to the pan. Cook on one side for about 4mins. After cooking one side, flip the fish over and cook the other side.
Perfectly cooked
3) Check the fish is cooked through, then serve with the potato wedges,salad or vegetables and a generous dollop of garlic mayonnaise.
In Lorraine’s recipe she serves the cod as a burger, which you could do by adding the cod to a burger bun. However, I thought that with the wedges, there would be too much of a carb fest, so gave this a miss for the sake of my figure. Lorraine also added parmesan to the wedges, but because I didn’t have any parmesan, I didn’t add any to the wedges. I don’t think this made much of a taste difference. The wedges were beautifully spiced.
Lorraine also includes a recipe for aioli (garlic mayonnaise) this is a genius accompaniment. The mayonnaise goes beautifully with both the wedges and the fish. But I’m afraid I cheated.(Shush don’t tell anyone!) I bought a jar of Stokes garlic mayonnaise. It’s the best garlic mayonnaise I have found in shops. Well, my favourite was a Tesco finest garlic mayonnaise but to my disappointment they discontinued it before I could buy up a stockpile of jars. Stokes has a high garlic content and is a rich aioli. It’s even great as a dip for crisps or crudites.
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