Baked Cod with Asparagus Pesto

Baked Cod with Asparagus Pesto is delicious and pretty enough for company but simple enough for a weeknight family meal. The pesto adds loads of flavor while also protecting the cod from drying out as it bakes. Win-win!

We love asparagus, usually roasted or pan-fried with a little butter and lemon juice tossed in right at the end but when I heard that the theme of this week’s Sunday FunDay was pesto, I knew just what I wanted to make. 

I had seen the asparagus pesto recipe in an email from the New York Times Cooking section and had bookmarked it for “someday.” My only regret now is that it took me this long to get around to it. The pesto is so flavorful and you will have no regrets that it makes more than what you need to cover your cod in a nice thick layer. 

Ideas for leftover pesto: Stir the balance of the asparagus pesto through some cooked pasta, boiled potatoes or spread it on toasted slices of baguette and bake for a twist on bruschetta. Hum a couple of spoons in a jar and add a little more lemon juice and a splash of olive oil and water to make a rich vinaigrette. Pan fry shrimp and toss them in the asparagus pesto. I'm not kidding when I say that this stuff is good with almost everything. You might want to double the recipe. 

Baked Cod with Asparagus Pesto

This recipe was adapted from one by Mark Bittman in New York Times Cooking. It makes about 1 1/2 cups of pesto and you'll use perhaps a little more than half. See note above for what to do with the divine leftovers. 

Ingredients

For cooking the asparagus:

1 lb or 450g asparagus, hard ends trimmed

2 tablespoons olive oil

Fine sea salt

Freshly ground black pepper

For completing the pesto:

1/3 cup or 50g pine nuts

1 clove garlic, or more to taste

3/4 cup or 67g freshly grated Parmesan cheese

1 small red chili pepper

1/4 cup or 60ml olive oil

Freshly ground black pepper

1-2 tablespoons lemon juice, to taste

Water  

For the cod:

4 cod fillets (about 1.1 lbs or 500g)

Fine sea salt

Freshly ground black pepper

Olive oil for pan

Method

Put the asparagus in a large baking pan in a single layer. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle lightly with fine sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Broil (or grill) for 5-7 minutes on high. Set a timer, by all means, but do not leave the asparagus unattended or it can go quickly from roasting to burning. Remove the asparagus from the oven and set it aside while you prepare the rest of the dish. 

Toast the pine nuts in a dry non-stick skillet until golden brown, shaking the pan occasionally so they toast evenly. Remove from the pan and set aside a tablespoon or so for garnish. 

Chop the asparagus roughly. Put the pieces in your food processor and use a rubber spatula to scrape any olive oil or asparagus juice left behind in the pan to add in as well. 

Add in the bigger pile of pine nuts along with the garlic, chili pepper and the olive oil. Whiz until well combined. 

Add in the Parmesan and lemon juice and pulse again. If the pesto is too thick you can thin it with a little water or more lemon juice, according to your taste. 

Season with a little sea salt, if needed, and freshly ground black pepper and whiz again.

If you aren’t ready to bake your cod yet, spoon the pesto into an airtight container and then drizzle the top with a little more olive oil and store it in the refrigerator. 

When you are ready to cook the cod, preheat the oven to 400° F or 200°C.

Dry the cod with paper towels and place it in a lightly oiled baking dish. 

Coat the tops of the fillets evenly with a nice thick layer of the asparagus pesto. 

You will have pesto leftover. Store it in the refrigerator with a little olive oil on top, covered with cling film.

Bake the cod for 11-12 minutes in your preheated oven or until it is firm to the touch and pesto is starting to lightly brown. Put it under the broiler (grill) for 2-3 minutes to finish it off and add a little more color. 

Sprinkle the tops with the reserved pine nuts to serve. If I had been thinking, I’d have reserved four asparagus tips for garnish as well. Next time! I can assure you that I’ll be making this again. It was that good!

Enjoy! 

As I mentioned above, it’s Sunday FunDay and we are celebrating with pesto recipes! Check out all the links below. Many thanks to our host Sue of Palatable Pastime and Wendy from A Day in the Life on the Farm  for her behind the scenes help. 

• Avocado Pesto Sandwich by Mayuri’s Jikoni 
• Baked Cod with Asparagus Pesto by Food Lust People Love 
• Basil Pesto With Almonds & Walnuts by Sneha's Recipe 
• Carrot Greens Pesto-Topped Roasted Salmon by Culinary Adventures with Camilla 
• Pesto Cavatappi with Meatballs by Amy’s Cooking Adventures 
• Spinach Pesto Pasta by A Day in the Life on the Farm 
• Swiss Chard and White Bean Soup with Basil Pesto by Karen’s Kitchen Stories 
• Vegan Mint Pesto by Sizzling Tastebuds

We are a group of food bloggers who believe that Sunday should be a family fun day, so every Sunday we share recipes that will help you to enjoy your day. If you're a blogger interested in joining us, just visit our Facebook group and request to join.

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Lemon and Cilantro Crusted White Fish for #Random Recipe Challenge

This month’s Random Recipe Challenge has the same rules as always, it’s just gotten a little more high tech, with Dom over at +belleau kitchen creating a random number generator for us to use.  I have seen these, as I am sure you have, on blogs that do giveaways but I had never used one myself.

 Good fun and more probably more random than my usual method, which is to make someone give me a number.  :) Since Eat Your Books has my cookbooks all organized, it was easy enough to find book number 33 in the category of “Wherever Home is Now.”

So, this recipe was adapted from one by Bill Granger in Bills Food,  of which the cover, the endpaper and flyleaf have no apostrophe in Bills so I will cringingly omit it here.  Upon further research, I discovered that his restaurants and blog are also missing the apostrophe.  Why, Bill, why?  Is there a punctuation shortage in Australia?  Such a rich and wonderful country!  I’d be happy to send you some.  But I have to forgive Bill because this fish was delicious.  And he is such a cutie pie.

Ingredients
1/2 cup or about 40g fresh breadcrumbs
1 clove garlic
1/2 cup or about 15g fresh cilantro or coriander leaves (or flat-leafed parsley if you are not a fan of cilantro)
1 small red chili (optional)
Zest of one lemon
1/2 teaspoon sea salt flakes
Few grinds of black pepper
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 thick white fish fillets (about 6 oz or 175g each)

Method
Preheat the oven to 400°F or 200°C.

Chop the garlic and cilantro roughly.  Mince the red chili, if using.

Put the breadcrumbs, garlic, chili and sea salt in the food processor.

Pour in the olive oil and grind in some black pepper and grate in the zest of the lemon. Process until you have lovely green breadcrumbs.

I almost forgot the lemon zest. You should put all the stuff in together, as per the
instructions.   But if you forget something, by all means, add it in.

Heap the mixture on top of your fish, trying to make sure it is all well covered.

Bake until cooked through.  I cooked mine for about 10 minutes and then put the oven on broil (or grill) for a few minutes more to brown the top.  If your fish is thicker or thinner you may have to adjust the time.

Bill says to serve this with garlic mashed potatoes and baby spinach, which I agree would be very lovely but I had some butternut squash that needed roasting so I did that and a small tomato salad instead.

All in all, a fabulous random recipe.  I would definitely make this again.

Enjoy!