Panko Breaded Cod Fillet

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When it comes to saltwater fish there is one that stands alone as my favorite – Cod. I love its thick fillets coated in a crispy breading or batter. It’s mild in flavor and not “fishy” tasting, which is why I like it.

The Vikings would catch cod, dry it out and preserve it with salt, producing salt cod that could be taken on long voyages.

In the 1600s the pilgrims used a map of New England made by John Smith to determine “Cape Cod” might be a good place to settle and profit from fishing, although they knew little about the trade, according to Mark Kurlansky, in his book Cod: a Biography of the Fish That Changed the World.

Today, it’s available year round wherever fish are sold and can be baked, poached, braised, broiled and fried.

For this recipe, I dredge cod fillet in flour, egg and panko bread crumbs to create a thick coating made crisp by shallow frying in a skillet – which makes for large bites of moist and flaky fish with mild flavor and a nice crunchy breading for texture.

BEHIND THIS BITE

Panko Breaded Cod Fillet

Cod is by far and away my favorite type of fish to eat. When it comes to seafood in general I like mild flavor, the more “fishy” it tastes the less I like it. Growing up in the landlocked Midwest, my favorite fish was walleye, but after moving to New York and having a fish monger across the street, I gravitated toward cod. I saw Tyler Florence make fish and chips on the food network one morning and was inspired to make the dish myself. This introduced me to cod and it's now my go to fish.

Since relocating to the Midwest in 2010, I have had hit and miss luck with the seafood here, my best bet is frozen, but even that can be a crap-shoot at times. Having said that, the frozen and thawed fish prepared and pictured in this post was excellent - as good as any fresh fish from my old fish monger in New York!

Eat well, cook often ...

THE RECIPE

Panko Breaded Cod Fillet

Serves 4; 30 minutes
1 1/2 lbs Cod fillets
1 C Flour
2 Eggs beaten
1 C Panko bread crumbs
Oil for frying

Bread
Set up three stations. One each: flour, beaten eggs and bread crumbs. Season cod with salt and pepper to taste. Coat on all sides with flour, then egg and finally bread crumbs. Shake-off excess before moving to next station. Once breaded, let rest a few minutes for coating to set up.

Pan fry
Place enough oil in fry pan to cover entire bottom. Heat to medium high. Once oil is hot place cod in pan and cook until golden brown and cooked through, turn once during cooking. 6 to 8 minutes. Remove from pan and serve with lemon wedge.

Crispy Tomato Melts

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This is a work in progress. There is nothing wrong with the taste of this dish, it actually has really good flavor. It does need to be executed differently though. The crunchy layer of breading worked and the basil was a great flavor add. The sausage would have worked better as a patty and I think I could have melted the cheese while I fried the bread crumbs by putting a cover on the pan while the breading got crispy underneath. I don’t know if that would work though - I’ll have to experiment.

If you have any suggestions on how to improve this recipe please leave a comment or send me a message – I welcome the suggestions.

Usually when a recipe doesn’t work I won’t publish it, but this one has potential, and I think if I got this perfect it would be a great starter to a gourmet meal. Had the flavor not worked this definitely wouldn’t be here, but it tasted great and had the texture I wanted, but it kind of disintegrated as I ate it. That was caused by my broiler which wasn’t hot enough, it took way to long for the cheese to melt, which meant the tomato was exposed to the heat for much longer than I wanted. The extra heat caused the tomato to be overdone. It was still firm but it fell apart way to easy, which in turn caused the sausage to go everywhere as soon as I cut into it.

BEHIND THIS BITE
This is the fifth garden vegetable recipe I have done in a row. (4th to be published here) I’m getting a little tired of them to say the least. I think I need to make a meat pie or something. I need to get used to it thought, for the next two months the garden is going to be producing some beautiful stuff. Peppers, green beans, cabbage, sweet corn, the list goes on. I’m up for the challenge. I wish there was a time of year like this for meat! Imagine neighbors bringing over extra steaks, or walking out in the yard and finding a perfect rack of baby back ribs, that would be a culinary dream land.

Eat well, cook often ...