Recipe for romanesco with cod
What do you get if you cross a broccoli and a cauliflower? Well, we don’t know, but “romanesco” wouldn’t be a completely uninformed guess.
This beautiful but very peculiar-looking type of cabbage almost looks like a cross between broccoli and cauliflower, or at least something conjured up by a mad scientist.
However, there’s no sci-fi involved in romanesco. It’s just Mother Nature showing herself from her most beautiful side!
It’s almost in the name, but romanesco is Italian. The taste is child-friendly and mild, slightly sweet – reminiscent of cauliflower – and it has been cultivated in Italy since the 1400s.
So it is one of the good old faithfuls from the past, even though it looks like something from the future.
Romanesco Preparation
Romanesco typically needs to be boiled or steamed. Since boiling in water is one of the harshest methods of cooking vegetables, I usually cook them in a mixture of 1/5 butter and 4/5 water.
I actually think the French typically boil it in a mixture of 50% butter and 50% water.
Serving
Here, I served the romanesco with gourmet-salted/cured cod (you can read more about the benefits of gourmet salting/curing here).
The dish would be absolutely superb as an appetizer served with browned butter or as a main course served with decorative Pommes Duchesse, delicious and easy baked mashed potatoes (which, by the way, are a huge hit at home), or Pommes Fondant.
Ingredients
Romanesco
- 0.333333 pcs. Romanesco
- 400 gram Water
- 95 gram Butter about 95 grams
Oven-baked cod
- 250 gram Cod
- Salt
- 4 slices Serrano ham
- Fresh thyme
Instructions
Romanesco
- Rinse the romanesco and cut it into florets.
- Let the butter melt in the pot and then add water.
- Add the romanesco to the pot when the water is boiling.
- Let them boil for 3 minutes. Do not let them cook for too long, as they will lose their color and become bland.
- Then drain the water. The romanesco is now ready.
- Here, I took inspiration from this oven-baked cod, but with a few changes. Among other things, I chose to gourmet salt it beforehand this time.
- Start by gourmet salting the cod: Sprinkle a thin layer of salt on both sides of the cod.
- Let it sit at room temperature for 20 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius (392 degrees Fahrenheit) (convection).
- Rinse the salted cod well under cold running water to remove the salt.
- Then dry the cod with a clean kitchen towel.
- Wrap the cod in the serrano ham.
- Grease an ovenproof dish with oil.
- Place the cod in the greased dish and set it in the preheated oven.
- Bake the cod for 15 minutes.
- Remove the finished cod from the oven.
- Strip the thyme leaves off the stems and sprinkle them over the cod.
- Enjoy your meal!
