This garlicky baked cod can make any day feel grand
What are you celebrating today? Nothing?
What if you thought about it for just a minute? Could you identify some small triumph? A tiny milestone?
In “Everyday Grand,” Jocelyn Delk Adams urges us to do just that as she weaves her philosophy that “joy is a conscious daily choice” with comforting recipes, such as this Garlic Butter Baked Cod.
Food is central to Adams’s life, family and culture, and, for her, it is a conduit for showing love and gratitude and embracing life’s little sparks of joy.
Her first cookbook, “Grandbaby Cakes,” was named for her website Grandbaby-Cakes.com, which began in 2012. There she focused on baking family recipes, especially from her grandmother Maggie Small, whom the family called “Big Mama.” She was contacted by literary agents just a year and a half after starting the blog.
“People just loved the recipes and the stories about my family,” she said by phone from her home in Dallas, where she lives with her husband and daughter. She now works full time as a recipe developer and brand ambassador. She also sells her cakes through Williams-Sonoma.
“I ended up here because I followed what I wanted to do,” she said.
Her grandmother, who lived in Winona, Miss., honored tradition but didn’t let it stop her from adding twists to her recipes, Adams said. Big Mama died in 2018, but Adams still feels her grandmother’s spirit guiding her, especially when she adopts her grandmother’s notion that there are many ways to make traditional dishes.
“Not all Southern cooking is monolithic,” she said, noting that ingredients and methods shift from family to family and region to region.
Still, Adams said, she works hard to get every recipe right, and to keep centered on family. Although her parents live in Dallas as well, other family is scattered around the country. When they get together, Adams enlists their help.
For her macaroni and cheese, for example, she tested the recipe 15 times. When the family gathered for Christmas, she made her final two versions and conducted a blind taste test to pick the recipe that landed in her cookbook.
“They are brutally honest,” she said. “It’s perfect for me. I want 100 percent honesty.”
Each recipe in the cookbook has a purpose, Adams said. Sometimes that purpose can be that it is easy and thrifty but feels gloriously indulgent, like this cod dish, which uses accessible and affordable ingredients.
“Finding a fish that’s really universal and giving it a flair was important to me,” she said. “It feels so special when it comes out of the oven. It feels like you really put in the work, but it is low-key. It’s not a lot of ingredients, and it is items most people will have in their pantry.”
And while the dish is great for summer when farmers markets boast peak-season produce, it works year-round because you can just as easily make it with frozen cod and grocery-store cherry tomatoes, baked to draw out their fruity flavor.
You begin by melting butter in a skillet and adding garlic, tomatoes, a splash of wine, dry seasoning and fresh herbs. Then you nestle the fillets in the sauce, cover the skillet and slip it into the oven. Pull it out, lift the lid and you’re treated to a garlicky scent and luscious-looking sauce that you’ll be tempted to dive right into.
That is the feeling Adams was going for with each recipe. “We wanted this bright, bold burst of happiness and joy through the words and food,” she said of the cookbook, which she wrote with Olga Massov, a recipes editor at The Post.
Garlic Butter Baked Cod
Total time: 40 minutes 4 servings
Bake fish fillets in this buttery tomato-garlic sauce for a low-lift, indulgent meal from Jocelyn Delk Adams’s cookbook “Everyday Grand.” It’s so pretty, you could serve it family-style for a small dinner party, too. Add crusty bread and a green salad to round out the meal.
Storage: Refrigerate for up to 2 days.
Ingredients
4 tablespoons unsalted butter (may substitute extra-virgin olive oil)
7 garlic cloves, minced or finely grated
1 pint cherry tomatoes, halved
1/2 cup dry white wine, such as sauvignon blanc Finely grated zest of 1 lime 1/2 teaspoon no-salt Cajun seasoning
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, plus more as needed
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1/4 teaspoon fine salt, plus more as needed
2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro, plus more for serving
2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil, plus more for serving
1 to 1-1/2 pounds cod, halibut or hake fillets
Directions
Position a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 350 degrees.
In a large ovenproof skillet over medium heat, melt the butter. When it stops foaming, add the garlic and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds, stirring occasionally. Add the tomatoes and cook until softened, 3 to 4 minutes, stirring occasionally. Stir in the wine to incorporate, then stir in the lime zest, Cajun seasoning, black pepper, garlic powder, red pepper flakes and salt to combine.
Stir in the cilantro and basil, reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer until the sauce has reduced by about one-third, about 5 minutes. Taste, and add more salt as needed.
Meanwhile, pat the fish fillets dry and lightly season both sides with salt and black pepper. Nest the fillets in the sauce and use a spoon to baste the fish. Cover the skillet with a lid or aluminum foil, transfer to the oven and bake for 10 minutes, then uncover and bake for 6 to 8 minutes more, until the fish is cooked all the way through and flakes easily with a fork. (Cooking time will vary with the thickness of the fillets.)
Cut the zested lime into quarters. Divide the fish among serving plates, spooning the sauce over, sprinkle with fresh basil and cilantro and serve with a lime wedge, if desired.
Nutrition | 244 Calories Per serving (one 4-ounce fillet and a scant 1/2 cup sauce): 6g Carbohydrates, 79mg Cholesterol, 13g Fat, 1g Fiber, 22g Protein, 8g Saturated Fat, 217mg Sodium, 2g Sugar