Cod Basquaise | The Secret to a Crispy Fish

The cod Basquaise is another fish recipe from Eric Ripert. He is the chef and owner of Le Bernardin, the three-Michelin-star seafood restaurant in New York City. Chef Eric Ripert spent some time in his childhood in the Basque country, in the western Pyrenees, straddling the border between France and Spain. Tiny as it is in size, Basque country is considered to be the nucleus of world-class gastronomy. There are no less than four of the region’s eateries on the 2017’s list of the World’s Best 50 Restaurants. (By the way, Le Bernardin is on the list.) My interest in the region starts from watching Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown on San Sebastián and the surrounding Basque region. Notably, Bourdain commented that even the bad restaurants there are good.

A while ago, I baked Basque macarons, now I have a chance to make the cod Basquaise. Very exciting!

Cod Basquaise is all about crispy skin, tender flesh and a delicious sauce

In essence, the basquaise sauce is a tomato based red-wine reduction filled with bell peppers and aromatics. Chef Ripert says the sauce can be made a day ahead. I agree, not because of the time it takes — more than half an hour to cook down the sauce and to develop the flavor.

The secret to a crispy skin

Home cooks take on multiple roles in the kitchen. From sourcing the ingredients, cooking and serving and cleaning, and importantly, doing all the prep work. For this recipe, the prep work takes a long time. The requirements for the onion, garlic, red and yellow peppers and the tomatoes are: chop them evenly to the finest smallest pieces. That goes beyond the casual dicing I do. It’s serious work calling for a high-level of knife skills, attention and stamina. It’s wearing me down. However, I understand fully why restaurants, especially French fine dining, charge so much. Making a good sauce is labor intensive, time-consuming and costly.

Given that the cod Basquaise is such a phenomenal and beautiful dish, you get as much out of it as you put into it.

The method of cooking the fish is sautéing on the stovetop. A simple seasoning with salt and pepper is all it takes. In addition, there are a few tricks that’d surely elevate the game. The first is to dry the fish as much as possible. A second trick is to sear the fish and to get a crispy exterior. Eric Ripert reveals the secret sauce to get that desirable crispy skin. It is Wondra and let me tell you — it works wonder on fish. It’s like using all-purpose flour, but with a finer texture and without any lumps.

“Ripert has been known to use Wondra on anything from monkfish loins to soft-shell crab, but it’s especially good for bringing out the beauty of skin-on fillets of things like salmon or striped bass. It goes like this: Dry your fish well — you can even squeegee off excess moisture with the back of a paring knife. After dusting with salt, pepper and Wondra, you lay the skin side in bubbling canola oil and press down commandingly with a spatula (the skin contracts and buckles instantly, and you want to keep it all in contact with the pan).”

A final reminder: use a non-stick pan. It makes flipping the fish easier.

Mise en place: olive oil, onion, garlic, ham, red and yellow pepper, tomato, thyme, red wine, cayenne pepper, parsley

I need a sous chef to chop and dice the ingredients into small pieces

Print Recipe

Cod Basquaise

Serves: 4

Ingredients

• The Basquaise:
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• ½ cup finely diced yellow onion
• 1 teaspoon minced garlic
• ¼ cup small diced Serrano ham
• ½ cup small diced red bell pepper
• ½ cups small diced yellow bell pepper
• 1 cup tomato, peeled, seeded and diced
• 1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme leaves
• ½ cup red wine
• 1 tablespoon chopped parsley
• fine sea salt and freshly ground pepper
• Espelette pepper or cayenne
• The Codfish:
• 2 tablespoons canola oil
• 4 (6 ounce) codfish fillets
• 2 sprigs thyme
• 2 cloves garlic, peeled and halved
• fine sea salt and freshly ground white pepper

Instructions

1

For the basquaise: Heat olive oil in a heavy bottomed pan; add onion and sweat until tender over medium-low heat. Add garlic and continue cooking until tender; add the ham and peppers. When the peppers are soft, add the tomatoes and thyme and simmer, stirring often, over low heat for 20 minutes. Add the red wine and cook on low heat for another 10-15 minutes. Stir in the chopped parsley and season to taste with salt, pepper and Espelette pepper. This can be done the day before.

2

Heat a griddle or a griddle pan until very hot, add the canola oil. Season the codfish on both sides with salt and pepper. Add the codfish to the pan along with the thyme and garlic, lower the heat to medium and sauté until the fish is golden brown on the bottom, about 6-8 minutes. Turn the fish over and finish cooking for another 2-3 minutes, until a metal skewer can be easily inserted into the fish and, when left in for 5 seconds, feels just warm when touched to the lip.

3

Meanwhile, heat the basquaise until hot. Spoon basquaise onto plates, place sautéed cod in the center and serve immediately.

Notes

Copyright 2016 - Ever Open Sauce. All Rights Reserved. http://www.aveceric.com/all-recipes//cod-basquaise