Recipe for cod sous vide
Delicious and juicy cod fillet cooked in sous vide. Cod is one of the favorites in Danish kitchens, especially for New Year’s. Cod has a slightly sweet but very mild and delicate flavor.
It generally requires very gentle preparation and has a real reputation for easily becoming bland. If you cook the cod in sous vide, it becomes as good as cod can possibly get! Quite simply, it’s not possible to prepare a better cod, if you ask me. The meat becomes juicy and delicious, forming beautiful flakes that you can actually eat with a spoon.
Here, I will describe step-by-step how you go about it.
Cod sous vide
Cod is very mild and juicy, but it becomes dry and bland if overcooked. It’s easy to overdo it, at least with traditional cooking methods.
Sous vide is the absolute most gentle cooking method available, and it is generally an ideal cooking method for fish.
Cod is a perfect example of this. It has the potential to be incredibly delicious, firm, and juicy, but it also easily becomes crumbly and bland. You know that a cod is perfectly cooked when the meat/flakes don’t fall apart when the fillet is bent. And that’s exactly how it turns out in sous vide.
I dare to claim that with sous vide, you get the absolute best out of the cod, and you simply cannot prepare it in a better way.
Cod sous vide time and temperature
When working with fish and sous vide, it is important to be extra mindful of food safety. Fish can harbor parasites, and these are killed at 60 degrees Celsius.
In sous vide, we don’t get close to 60 degrees. Therefore, the fish should preferably have been frozen for at least 24 hours before the water bath. This way, you can be absolutely certain that any parasites are killed.
I also always use gourmet salting: The technique where the meat is briefly cured/salted before cooking. Gourmet salting is partly a hygiene thing, but I primarily use it because it makes the meat firmer by drawing out some of the liquid.
The combination of gourmet salting and sous vide ensures that I always get the cod just right!
Side dishes for cod sous vide
The cod is ready to serve as soon as it comes out of the water bath. Serve it, for example, with crispy fried breadcrumbs and ham, as well as slices of avocado, as done in this recipe. You can also mix a creamy guacamole from the avocado, if you prefer.
You should definitely try this beautiful presentation with cod and Romanesco cooked in butter and water. If it’s asparagus season, I can recommend green and white asparagus and capers with the cod.
Cod sous vide
Equipment
- Sous Vide
Ingredients
- 300 gram Cod
- Salt
Instructions
- Place the cod fillet in the refrigerator for thawing from the morning.
- Now the thawed cod fillet needs to be gourmet salted: Take the fish out of the refrigerator about 20 minutes before it goes into the water bath. Season with salt on both sides and let the fish draw for 10-15 minutes. At the same time, turn on your sous vide and set the temperature to 48 degrees Celsius (118 degrees Fahrenheit).
- After the 10-15 minutes have passed, rinse the fish gently under cold water. This is done to stop the brining process, so the fish doesn’t become too salty. The good thing is, the fish won’t need any additional seasoning – the salt is enough.
- Pat the fish dry with a clean kitchen towel.
- Vacuum pack the fish and place the bag in the water bath.
- Cook the fish for 25 minutes.
- Take the bag out of the water bath and unpack the fish.
- Place the fish on a clean kitchen towel and pat it dry.
- Serve immediately.