Cod Fillets in a Red Curry Sauce

The last of the garden tomatoes are sitting on counters all over the Northeast. Looking for something tasty to do with them ? I'm suggesting a spin on a Madhur Jaffrey recipe that takes tomatoes, onion, garlic, curry spices and transforms all into a soft, chunky, and spicy hot curry sauce. Jaffrey takes that sauce and uses it to form a base for spice-rubbed cod fillets. Her recipe calls for the dry rub marinade that sits on the fillets for half an hour. Then, the fish is quick fried on both sides to crisp the outer surface. The fish is then laid atop the red curry sauce to finish in a hot oven.

I opted to skip the quick fry for dietary reasons. Don't need the fat. Instead, I laid the fish on the sauce and baked it in the oven until it flaked nicely. Then I spooned up some of the base sauce over top of the crisped fillets and served it alongside a dish of rice with caraway seed and butter. A nice green kale salad rounded out dinner ... with a glass of chilled white wine.

For this dinner, I made the red curry sauce the day before so that the spices would really maximize. By making the sauce ahead, I made quick work of getting dinner on the table. I simply had to rub the fillets and let them sit while I washed the rice and got it and the kale salad set for the table.

A note here: I did not use all the sauce for this dinner ... I had between two and three cups left for another curry dish later in the week. If I had used four fillets, as the recipe suggests, I might have used all the sauce, but I don't think so. Anyway, I'll have sauce for a vegetable curry with roasted chicken  ... plans are set already !

Cod Fillets in Red Curry Sauce

Red Sauce Ingredients:

1 large onion, small dice

2 garlic cloves, peeled and minced

4 tbsp.olive oil

1 tsp. fennel seed

1 tsp. mustard seeds

1 lb. tomatoes, rough chop

2 tsp. ground cumin

1 red chili pepper, deveined and seeded (keep some seeds and vein for extra spiciness, if you like)

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

1/2 tsp Kosher salt

14 oz. chopped tomatoes

2 tbsp. tomato paste

1.2 tsp. toasted cumin seeds

1/4 tsp garam masala

Making the Sauce:

1. Prep the onions and garlic and have them ready by a deep saucepan.

2. Heat the oil measure in the pan over medium high heat. 

3. Add the fennel and mustard seeds and stir as they brown and begin to 'pop'. Add the onions and garlic right away and sauté until the onions begin to brown a bit. 

4. Add the ground cumin, salt, and cayenne pepper and let the heat release the oils and smells.

5. Add the tomatoes, tomato paste, and red chili pepper and stir everything together.

6. Add the toasted cumin seeds and garam masala and stir things in. Lower the heat and simmer until the tomatoes give up their skins. You can fish the skins out or leave them. I prefer to fish most of them out.

7. When the sauce has thickened and cooked down, turn off the heat and let it cool with the cover on. Either refrigerate or use it immediately to make the fillet dish.

Cod Fillet Ingredients: 

4 cod fillets ( each about 6 oz.), washed and dried

1/2 tsp Kosher salt

1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper

1/4 tsp ground turmeric

4 tbsp. vegetable oil

Making the Fillet Dish:

1. Combine the spices in a small bowl and mix well. 

2. Sprinkle the spices onto the cod fillets, both side and leave on a plate to marinate for 30 minutes. 

3. Heat the oil in a deep fry pan and sear the cod fillets on both side, but do not cook completely, just brown the outer surfaces.

4. Place a generous amount of the red curry sauce in the bottom of an oven casserole. Place the fish atop and bake in a 350 degree F oven. for  about 25 minutes - until the fish flakes easily.

5. Remove from the oven and spoon some of the sauce up over top of each fillet. Serve with steamed rice or warm Naan bread, and veggies or a salad.