I’ve been singing the praises of lovely, lemony sorrel for a while now. The culinary herb—related to both buckwheat and rhubarb, is a perennial that grows in my garden from Spring to Fall. Loaded with potassium and immune-boosting vitamins A and C, I use it in soups, stuff it into spanakopita, and make sauces with it. Paired with fish, sorrel sauce is a French cuisine classic. A few years back, celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay featured the sauce with seabass. I’ve since prepared it deliciously with more affordable wild-caught cod.
To make the dish, you’ll sauté the fish in a bit of olive oil, then keep the fish warm while you cook the shallots to tenderness and do two reductions—first with dry white wine, then with fish stock. Stir in a little cream, strain through fine mesh, add a handful of snipped young sorrel leaves and serve all over quick-steamed broccoli florets. Oh! And while Ramsay discards the strained-off shallots, they are loaded with the rich reduction flavors, so sometimes I serve them over the fish. But if you like the crispy crackle of fish skin (missing with my cod fillets), you can also oven-fry a thinly sliced onion, to scatter over the fish (as I’ve done in the photos) instead of using the ones cooked in the sauce. Note: One thing to be aware of with sorrel is that the bright green leaves quickly lose their color turning brown shortly after they hit heat. So, be ready to serve this dish immediately after you add the sorrel to the sauce and plate the fish.
Wild Caught Alaskan Cod with Fresh Sorrel Sauce
Ingredients
- 1 small head broccoli, most of the stems cut off and saved for another use, blossom end trimmed into 12 generous florets
- 2 shallots, peels discarded, sliced to make ½ cup
- 5 fresh sorrel leaves sliced chiffonnade to make ¼ cup
- 1 Tbsp olive oil
- 2, ½-pound fillets wild-caught ocean cod
- 2 Tbsp butter
- 200 ml dry white wine
- 1/3 cup fish stock
- 1/4 cup cream
- GARNISH: (Optional)
- 1 small onion, thinly sliced, tossed with 2 tsp olive oil, pepper and salt and oven roast at 350 for 15 minutes
Instructions
- PREP VEGETABLES: Wash broccoli in cool water and pat dry. Remove most of the main broccoli stem and save for another use. Trim remaining broccoli into 12 generous florets. Set aside. Remove and discard peels, stem and root ends from two shallots. Slice thinly to make ½ cup. Set aside. Remove stems from sorrel leaves and slice leaves thinly to make ¼ cup. Set aside.
- PREPARE COD: Add olive oil to a sauté pan over medium high heat. One shimmering hot, add cod fillets, flipping once to cook through. Keep warm. In a separate sauté pan over medium low heat, add butter and sliced shallot, cooking until tender and translucent, being careful not to brown. Add white wine and saute until reduced by half. Add fish stock and reduce again.
- While fish stock reduces, steam broccoli until bright green and slightly al dente. Set aside. Add cream to the wine/shallot/fish stock reduction and cook for 1 minute. Strain through fine mesh. Reserve the shallots you strained off. Divide steamed broccoli florets into the center of two serving plates. Place one fish fillet on each mound of broccoli. Stir fresh snipped sorrel leaves into the sauce; dot and pour the sauce around the fish/broccoli stack on each serving plate. Serve immediately, topped with the reserved cooked shallot, if desired OR oven fried thinly sliced onion frizzles.
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