Some food, some drink.
RecipeBeta: Hummus-crusted cod fillet
Abstract:
Beta recipes are my own experiments that I've only tried once. Usually palatable, they could be better with a little tweaking. So, please do & let us know what works.
For the latest experiment worth writing about, I wanted to see if I could utilize a bag of chickpea flour. I already had fish out of the freezer, so all that was left was to figure out how to stick one to the other.
Purpose:
I bought a bag of chickpea flour a while back with the intention of trying my hand at some panelle, but there was never a good time to give it a go, so the chickpea flour languished in the back of my pantry. Not this day, no sir. As chickpeas often mean hummus, I thought putting those in-your-face flavors on top of a mild fish like cod might work. Here's how it went down:
Recipe: Jump to the detailed recipe. (or, keep reading for the gist of it) -
Pat the fish dry with a paper towel or two. Salt the fish with 1/2 tsp of the Kosher salt. Drizzle the fish liberally on both sides with the olive oil. Mix garbanzo flour, pistachios, garlic powder, 1 tsp kosher salt, cumin and crushed red pepper in a shallow dish and dredge the inner (non-skin) side of the fillet with the mix. Let fish rest on a rack for at least 15 mins to get the crust-a-happening You can let it air out longer, but if it's gonna be longer than 30 minutes, please consider refrigeration. Heat a couple of tablespoons of olive oil in a non-stick pan on medium heat. Place crust-side down in the pan and cook for 2-3 minutes to achieve a golden brown crust, flip and finish cooking the crustless side for a couple minutes more. Finish with zest. Lest rest a couple of minutes and dress with a squeeze of lemon before serving.
Observation:
- When applying a breading or coating, it's often better to let the coated object air out on a rack for a bit. You'll be rewarded with a coating that's more likely to stay attached and has a more evenly crisp texture.
- Salt on the flesh of the fish seems to go a lot further for flavor than the salt in the breading. I hedge my bets and put it in both places.
- Oh, do use your nonstick pan for this. I thought I'd cowboy it and use my larger stainless fry-pan so I could get it done in less batches. Yeah, well lets just say the photo you see here was taken from a subsequent attempt. Use the nonstick, work in batches if necessary & just keep your done stuff in a warm oven.
Results:
Originally I was going to mix the lemon zest into the breading. I forgot about it & it subsequently became garnish. There's a taste of raw legume in the chickpea flour that I don't think plays nice and makes the zest taste bitter. I say just leave it out. The lemon juice on the other hand seems to be a fine finish. If you wanted to do a bit more, I bet a warm vinaigrette would be great as well.
Would I make this again? I think so, but I need to find a better foil for the chickpeas rather than just salt. Perhaps rubbing the fish with a garlic-infused olive oil would help. At any rate, it sure didn't suck; maybe next time I just need to make that panelle to go with.
Gallery:
Unless you like your crust to slide off your slab o' critter after it's cooked, you better let it sit on a rack for at least 15-30 (in the fridge if any…
Unless you like your crust to slide off your slab o' critter after it's cooked, you better let it sit on a rack for at least 15-30 (in the fridge if any longer) minutes so the air can do it's thing.
Hummus-crusted Cod: That lemon wedge is all the 'sauce' you need, but don't be stingy with it.
Hummus-crusted Cod: That lemon wedge is all the 'sauce' you need, but don't be stingy with it.
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