UPDATED June 2023 Bites&Nibbles

Pan-seared Cod with Brown Butter, Wine, Capers, Peppadews and Lemon Juice
Smashed Maine Red Potatoes with Whole-Grain Mustard and Sour Cream

recipe + photography by MICHELE DUVAL

I chose this recipe for a few reasons:

Thanks for reading Bites&Nibbles! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

1. It's a chance to highlight the exceptional quality product from New England Fishmongers, who used to only sell their fish via farmer markets, pop-ups and home delivery but now have a store in Kittery. Checkout out their story 

2. This dish is easy and quick for a weekday dinner, and just as WOW for a Saturday night dinner party. It’s both easy and luxurious. 

3. It's about local Maine products and traditions but updated. Baked cod with an onion, celery and bread crumb stuffing is an old New England staple, of which I am a huge fan, it's so much more than the sum of its parts. But pan-searing a cod fillet in butter treats it more like how we cook meat and changes the texture of the cod altogether making it juicier and fresher tasting.

4. I love brown butter in both sweet and savory food. Browned butter develops more complex levels of flavor, adding richness with its toasty, caramel notes. Browning food is scientifically known as the Maillard Reaction which results in hundreds of flavor compounds and mouthwatering aromas released into the air. Taste is what we smell …  think of roasted coffee, toasted bread, grilled meat.

Serves 2

Ingredients
1 pound cod (see Step 1 for proper cutting)
Kosher or sea salt
Black pepper
5 tablespoons butter (2 tablespoons for initial cooking and 3 tablespoons for browning at the end)
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
3 tablespoon dry white vermouth
1 tablespoon capers
1/4 to 1/3 cup jarred Peppadews (a versatile, mildly spicy, pickled chili pepper),
depending on how much you like them. I love them.
Juice from ½ lemon
1½ pounds baby Maine red potatoes
2 teaspoon whole-grain mustard
1/4 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon
Several grinds or a pinch black pepper

For Cod
Step 1 Choose your fish market with care. I am very lucky to have several high-quality fish markets near me. New England Fishmongers sells sustainably caught seafood direct from their own boat at their store in Kittery.

Step 2 I cut my fillet from a whole cod but it is not necessary to fillet out a whole fish yourself. It is a messy job but you do get other parts to cook like the head and bones for stock and the cheeks for a small but super tasty treat. The important thing is to use a ‘captain’s cut,’ a thick fillet cut into a chunk shape for pan-searing.

Pat the fillet dry and lightly season all over with Kosher or sea salt and fresh cracked black pepper.

Step 3 I use a 10½-inch cast iron skillet for this dish. You need a skillet you can get hot without it scorching—a Le Creuset-type enameled skillet, or a heavy bottomed copper-alloy, or stainless steel-alloy will work, too, but I think cast iron is best in this case.

Pre-heat the skillet for a minute on medium to medium-high heat. Add 2 tablespoons butter and the oil. When the foam begins to subside add the fillet. Cook without moving the fish until lightly browned. You will see it turning white and opaque within 2-3 minutes.

Step 4 Gently slide a wide metal spatula under the fillet and flip over with tender care. Keep skillet sizzling hot but not too hot throughout the process. What’s too hot? When it feels like things are cooking too fast and out of control, you’ll know!

Step 5 I’ve always used white vermouth for my generic cooking wine because vermouth is a fortified wine with an herbal infusion giving me a little more flavor development from the herbs and a long (refrigerator) shelf life from the fortification of extra alcohol. Add vermouth to the pan alongside the fish, don’t pour it on top of the fish, and reduce it by half.

Step 6 Add capers and Peppadews. I always add a little caper juice from the bottle so that by the time I’ve used up all the capers, all the juice is gone, too. Season again with a pinch of salt and a few more fine grinds of black pepper. Cook another minute or two depending on thickness of your fillet. The fish should look a glistening, pearly white. I undercook my fish ever so slightly, with just a hint of pink in the center.

Step 7 Plate fish capers and Peppadews. Return the skillet to medium-high heat, add 3 tablespoons butter and cook 2-3 minutes until the foam subsides and the butter and the milk solids in the bottom of the pan turn golden brown—it will get a toasty, nutty fragrance.  Remove from heat and stir in lemon juice. I add citrus juice at the end of cooking because I like its flavor raw. I think, lemon juice particularly, gets bitter when cooked, I want its zingy, fresh taste. Drizzle the brown butter over the fish.

For Potatoes
Step 1 If you were able to locate baby Maine red potatoes, cook them unpeeled and whole. If not cut into ¾-inch cubes. Place in saucepan and fill just to cover with cold, salted water. Bring to a boil and reduce to a full simmer until tender, about 10 minutes. Drain. Cool slightly to handle. 

Step 2 Transfer to a chopping board. Using your palm, press potatoes to flatten slightly.

Step 3 Mix sour cream and grain mustard together in medium size mixing bowl. Add potatoes, and gently stir to coat. Season with salt and pepper and stir a couple more times.

Suggestions Feel free to embellish both recipes with fresh parsley or cilantro or cherry tomatoes to the cod; fresh dill or crumbled bacon to the potatoes, etc. They will be delicious as they are, too. 

. . . . .

Michele Duval is a retired chef, restaurateur and sommelier. She grew up in central Massachusetts and discovered the amazing New Hampshire/Maine seacoast while a pre-med student at UNH in 1975. She has lived in Eliot, Maine, since buying her 300-year-old farmhouse 38 years ago. She opened her first restaurant, the Oracle House in Portsmouth, NH, in 1981, serving a daily market menu in a white tablecloth setting. In 1988, Michele became a mom to the most wonderful person on earth.                                                                   

She bought the Cape Neddick Inn Restaurant in York, Maine, in 1996, the restaurant where she had been head chef from 1978-81. She was the first woman from Maine to be invited to the James Beard Foundation in NYC to present a 5-course dinner. She’s been honored with numerous awards and praise such as Chef of the Year 1999 from the American Culinary Federation, the Award of Excellence from Wine Spectator Magazine, Best Menu for Wine and Spirits 1999 and Best Wine Dinners 2000 from Sante´ Magazine. Nation’s Restaurant News listed her restaurant as one of the four best in the state.

After selling the Cape Neddick Inn, she switched careers to her passion for wine becoming the Wine Director for Ocean Properties Ltd., the largest privately-held, luxury hotel company in North America.

In 2003, discussion regarding closing the historic NH hotel, Wentworth by the Sea,
for winters due to lack of business, led Michele to spearhead the reinvention of the most challenging six weeks of the year into the Winter Wine Festival. Subsequently, the hotel received 2006 Marriott of the Year, then 2007 Marriott Top Operations Hotel.

Spurred by that success, she developed Northeast Wine Festivals, a series of annual events at 5-star water-front resorts, bringing wine events to the spectacular settings
of Bar Harbor, Rockland, Maine, and Lake George, New York. These festivals hosted winemakers and chefs of international acclaim with support from partnerships Michele developed with Fiji Water, Mercedes Benz USA, Regent Seven Seas Cruises, Hannaford Supermarkets, NH Liquor Commission, wine journalists, Chambers of Commerce and many others.

Michele is a published essayist and poet, human rights activist, oil painter, avid boater and bon vivant.

. . . . . . . .

My apologies to Michele and all of our readers for forgetting to include her two cod images and the photo of her!

ENJOY!!!

And BTW, BillyB, my Maine coon is not only officially a cat but he’s graduated to adult food. If any of you have Maine coons, I’d love to see photos! What loves they are … It is getting a little difficult to pick him up and share my desk chair as he keeps growing longer and longer!

Nancy
nancy.zetmaine@gmail.com

Thanks for reading Bites&Nibbles! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support our work.