"cod" news and stories

Last month in the New York Times, Melissa Clark published a recipe for broccoli with shrimp roasted in the same pan and described how bite-size pieces of chicken thighs would cook in the same amount of time, too. I tried the chicken idea with cauliflower, and the results were very nice. Since then, roasting protein and veggies together has been my go-to method for no-fuss cooking.

Recently, I was inspired by two recipes in Gourmet's "Every Day" section: Roasted Pacific Cod with Spring Vegetables and Mint and Provençal Chicken and Tomato Roast. I swiped the cod from the first and the tomatoes from the second and threw in capers instead of the black olives that the second recipe called for. The fish and the tomato mixture were cooked perfectly at the same time. This is a tasty, simple recipe that I'm sure to reprise. The method is after the jump.

• Travel to Montreal and hit the town

• How an embarrassing encounter with Moroccan turmeric and neroli oil rekindled one man's love of baking, especially if it's this Glazed Orange Flower Madeline Cake.

• Despite salmonella freak-outs, some bars still serve cocktails with raw eggs

• For many Chatham fishermen, cod are just out of reach

• Frank Bruni shares his experiences with a frustrating new NYC online restaurant reservation system (and then writes about it again, and again)
  

• Want your own vineyard? This company will help you find it

• Jersey's brew pubs are serving up some mighty fine stouts

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Lutefisk is one traditional Christmas food that often gets short shrift during a season when visions of gingerbread and fruitcake dance in the heads of foodies and nonfoodies alike. And perhaps with good reason. Who on earth would eat preserved fish that has a jelly-like consistency, much less reserve it for a holiday treat?

Norwegians and other Scandinavians, that's who. Lutefisk takes its name not from the Medieval stringed instrument, but from lye. Honest, it translates to "lye fish." This venerable holiday "treat" is prepared by adding lye to air-dried cod or other white fish. After the fish has been steeped in a noxious brew of cold water and lye it is actually caustic and must be soaked in several changes of water for almost a week to render it edible. Fans of the movie Fight Club will be intrigued to learn that if it soaks too long in the lye, the fats in the fish will render it into soap. Now, there's an item for a holiday gift basket, homemade fish soap.

It's not a health warning this time, at least not for people.

It's a report from the WWF that is concerned about the population of fish, everything from cod to swordfish. According to BBC, the WWF says that "much of the fish sold in Europe is the product of illegal, destructive or wasteful fishing," and that the conservation organization has warned that "continuing to buy it will bring many fish stocks to the brink of extinction."

In order to mitigate the problem, the WWF recommends that consumers only buy fish that comes from sustainable and well-managed fisheries. This is marked on fish with a Marine Stewardship Council label.

From Norway comes A World of Bacalao. First and foremost, I commend this site for having visitors click on a big fillet of salt cod to access their site. “Enter by touching the fish!” they command. From there, you can either purchase salted cod from the site’s Norwegian purveyors, Jakob & Johan Dybvik As, or just learn more about the process and history of producing bacalao.

If salt cod doesn’t sound like a big deal, think again. Mark Kurlansky, author of Salt, is also the author of Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World. The durability of this cured meat—it’s literally hard as a board, and as such, was used to discipline unruly children in Italian households (so says my father)—lent it self to sea voyages and all sorts of pivotal expeditions.

This ‘world of bacalao’ also hosts a variety of recipes from salt-cod-using nations like Spain, Italy and Brazil. There's a world of cod out there people...

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