Antonia Lofaso’s Olive Oil Poached Cod with Tomato Sauce | Feast of the Seven Fishes | Food Network

Have you ever poached fish in oil?! This Olive Oil Poached Cod is the PERFECT way to start wrapping up the Feast of the Seven Fishes meal 😍🐟
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Olive Oil Poached Cod with Tomato Sauce, Pine Nuts and Herbs
RECIPE COURTESY OF ANTONIA LOFASO
Level: Intermediate
Total: 45 min
Active: 30 min
Yield: 4 servings

Ingredients

Sauce:
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
10 cloves garlic, chopped
1 large pinch red pepper flakes
2 cups crushed canned tomatoes, preferably Italian
1 cup pitted kalamata olives
2 tablespoons drained capers
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 sprigs fresh rosemary

Caramelized Shallots:
6 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
6 shallots, thinly sliced
4 teaspoons sugar
2 teaspoons kosher salt

Cod:
5 cups olive oil
2 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
1 sprig fresh basil
Five 6-ounce fillets lingcod, about 2 inches thick
Kosher salt

To Serve:
1/4 cup pine nuts
1/4 cup torn fresh basil leaves
1/4 cup picked fresh Italian parsley
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
Kosher salt

Sauce:
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
10 cloves garlic, chopped
1 large pinch red pepper flakes
2 cups crushed canned tomatoes, preferably Italian
1 cup pitted kalamata olives
2 tablespoons drained capers
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 sprigs fresh rosemary

Caramelized Shallots:
6 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
6 shallots, thinly sliced
4 teaspoons sugar
2 teaspoons kosher salt

Cod:
5 cups olive oil
2 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
1 sprig fresh basil
Five 6-ounce fillets lingcod, about 2 inches thick
Kosher salt

To Serve:
1/4 cup pine nuts
1/4 cup torn fresh basil leaves
1/4 cup picked fresh Italian parsley
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
Kosher salt

Directions

Special equipment: deep-fry thermometer

For the sauce: Add 1/4 cup olive oil and the garlic to a large Dutch oven over medium heat and cook until the garlic is aromatic, about 2 minutes. (Make sure not to overcook the garlic, as there should be no color.) Add the red pepper flakes, then the crushed tomatoes and the remaining 1/4 cup olive oil and bring to a simmer. Add the olives and capers and cook, stirring occasionally, until the sauce thickens and the water reduces from the top, about 12 minutes. Season with salt and pepper, then add the rosemary sprigs and allow to steep.

For the caramelized shallots: Meanwhile, heat the butter and oil in a 12-inch saute pan over medium-low heat. Add the shallots, sugar and salt and cook, stirring occasionally, until the shallots are caramelized, 8 to 10 minutes. Set aside.

For the cod: Heat the oil, garlic and basil in a 14-inch saute pan to 120 degrees F and cook until the garlic is golden brown and the basil has started to wilt. Discard the garlic and basil (they have done their job and seasoned the oil).

Season both sides of the cod with salt. Gently place the cod fillets in the pan, making sure they are submerged, and poach until the fillets turn cloudy white and are firm to the touch with a slight bounce, about 8 to 9 minutes. Remove from the oil with a slotted spatula and drain on a paper towel-lined plate.

For serving: Lightly toast the pine nuts in a small saucepan over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally, until golden brown, about 5 minutes. Toss together with the basil, parsley, oil and a pinch of salt in a small bowl.

Spoon the sauce onto a large platter and nestle the fish on top. Top each filet with a spoonful of caramelized shallots, then sprinkle the pine nut mixture over the fish.

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Antonia Lofaso’s Olive Oil Poached Cod with Tomato Sauce | Feast of the Seven Fishes | Food Network

Hey everyone I’m Antonia lefaso welcome to my home so excited to do this cook along with you guys we are going to make an olive oil poached cod with capers and olives and pine nuts and fresh herbs and tomato and this is part of the Feast of Seven Fishes which is an

Italian-American tradition that’s celebrated on Christmas Eve and the entire meal is primarily made up of seafood all right so let’s do some housekeeping tips before we start cooking I like to have all of my ingredients out and I like to have all of my equipment out so that I’m not kind

Of looking for things in the fridge or rummaging through cabinets to find what I need in the moment I like to have everything in front of me organized cleaned and ready to go people ask all the time how do I learn how to cook so

Fast how did you learn how to have such fast knife skills and honestly it’s all through practice but really it’s through cleanliness and organization so this is a dish that actually has very few ingredients and it seems like it could be a little difficult because we’re we

Going to Olive Oil poach fish which is it can be it can be a technique that seems scary okay because we’re going to just heat Oil we’re going to season the oil a little bit with a little bit of basil and garlic but we’re going to heat

The oil to about5 120° we’re not going to let it get any hotter and we’re going to just let the Cod take a bath in that oil and then we’re going to pull it out and dress it in the sauce so it’s a very simple dish but there’s a lot of

Technique that goes into this dish um and I think you’re going to enjoy the technique and it’s something new to learn it’s also a dish that this time of year takes a little bit of effort takes a little bit of time takes a little patience and that’s okay this is the

Time of the year to explore and to try new things all right let’s start with the tomato sauce so first I’m going to do is I’m going to just crush a little bit of garlic and get my garlic ready to go this is a great sauce because it

Really just utilizes fun Pantry Staples like olives and capers so they’re really isn’t much prep that goes into it there’s just some jars that are open and some cans that are open and some garlic that’s crushed um so I’m going to go ahead and crush and open some of this

Garlic and if you want to go ahead and buy an already peeled garlic I’m into that that to me is a completely legal purchase when it comes to cooking because I just think it’s a great product I mean I like to crush and chop garlic the oldfashioned way where I kind

Of just take a clove of garlic smash it with the back of my knife and my hand press it to the other side and peel it but ER peeled garlic works really really well the only thing I would tell you not to purchase is that ER minced or chopped

Garlic that’s Jarred in your produce section I do think that garlic gives a little bit of a different flavor than the true traditional raw garlic um that I love but I have to say this is the this is something that I love to just kind of crush peel garlic the smell of

Garlic the feel of garlic on my hands it really reminds me of when my mom would cook any kind of Sunday supper or really any kind of tomato sauce in my house but really especially the Feast of seven fish that she would start two or three

Days in advance and she would be peeling garlic every morning I would smell it she’d be frying garlic every morning in some kind of sauce that I would smell it and she would be up sometimes four or 5:00 in the morning absolutely love to get all the cooking done first thing in

The morning so I would wake up sometimes so early to the wafting smell of sciss in garlic in olive oil with depending on whatever sauce or Ragu she was making um but I absolutely love the smell you know some people like coffee in the morning I

Like the smell of raw garlic I know it’s weird had a conversation the other day that I thought garlic should be a perfume smell I would put it behind my ears and be so excited to sport it outside so just some raw garlic we’re going to chop now there’s a little piece

To the garlic which is basically the stem the root if you will that kind of holds the bold together that a lot of chefs will tell you to pull off to me it’s something that I do in the restaurant but I don’t really do when I’m cooking at home I really feel like

We’re going to chop this garlic so fine that it’s really not going to be that big of a deal and we’re going to it’s just going to kind of melt into the sauce and I’d love to meet the person one day that can actually find that stem

And point it out I guarantee you’re not going to be able to find the person now I’m going to reserve two of these cloves of garlic that are going to go inside of my oil and that’s going to be the oil to poach so I’m just going to leave two

Whole garlic cloves on the side that are crushed just kind of open and broken so that we can actually get the flavor of the oil the rest I’m going to chop and put in the tomato sauce so I’m just going to run my knife over the garlic to initially give it a

Nice rough chop over and over again and then once most of it has a nice rough chop to it I’m going to bring it to the center of my board and then we’ll really get into the nitty-gritty of making sure that the garlic is nicely minced so I

Kind of put the garlic all in the center of my board I don’t like when the garlic is all over the place you want to keep what you’re doing right in the center of your board you’re in control of the food on your board the the food on your board

Is not in control of you um I like to say that because you know it’s all about confidence in the kitchen it’s all about having confidence and being sure of yourself and a lot of the different techniques to really become a confident cook and to become like a fluid cook and

When I say fluid it’s like I feel confident in my movements because I know my ingredients are where they should be I feel confident in my movements because I know all my equipment is where it should be and I take my time you know I think a lot of the conversation these

Days is about people rushing through cooking about getting it onto the table as fast as it possibly can be made and there is a lot of Joy that’s brought by taking your time and choing in garlic there’s a lot of Joy that’s brought into taking your time and creating a sauce

From scratch um you know it’s this thing where you can teach yourself and even your loved ones to find the joy and those small little things of creating something and that is what cooking is so it’s great if you want to go quick on like a taco Tuesday but this is the

Holiday cooking these are holiday recipes this is when you want to slow down you know smell the chopped garlic and enjoy your time in the kitchen and instead of looking at it like a task you look at it as a time of enjoyment and just from that little change of mindset

Of being like Oh my God I have to get it done too I’m in here and I’m enjoying it and I smell garlic and look at the basil it’s so beautiful suddenly the whole process becomes enjoyable Okay so we’ve got the garlic chopped I’ve got a dutch oven that I’m

Going to turn up to a medium high pour some olive oil in now you guys have all of these recipes here if you see me just flinging olive oil and throwing garlic into a pan just know that I am the professional in the conversation um but and you can trust

That I have all of the ingredients and the quantities correct but you guys follow along in the recipe so I’ve got that garlic and we’re going to start that garlic in the pan we’re just going to let it soften we don’t want to get any color in it we just want it to

Soften and I’m going to go ahead and get my canned tomatoes opened and this is a San Marzano style tomato okay San Marano tomatoes are varietal that grow in Italy and we have those style Tomatoes here in the United States and these are actually just a crushed tomato so if you think of

A it almost looks like a roma tomato the sort of long tomatoes that have been deskinned and just kind of crushed so there’s a little bit more texture and some seeds in there as well and I love that crushed uh texture for this tomato in this application because we want it

To be chunky this whole sauce is going to have this beautiful chunk of tomato the saltiness and the brininess of Capers and olives and we have nissis olives that have a beautiful creaminess to them um and then we’re going to do some pine nuts some fresh herbs and then

Those caramelized shallots so it’s a perfect tomato for this dish so we’re just going to let that garlic just start to soften to bloom to allow the oils of the garlic to come together in the olive oil and then we’ll add the tomato and I’m not going to add a lot of

Salt to this dish because we’ve got great olives and great Capers I have to say when people ask me what should always be in a pantry obviously salt pepper obviously olive oil and a good vinegar maybe some chili flakes then I can really make a dish out of anything

But Capers and olives possibly an anchovie and then you have a real meal okay so as the garlic is just sort of simmering and blooming in the olive oil I’m going to add a pinch of chili flake and then the Tomato so there is actually a good

Amount of olive oil in this tomato tomato sauce you almost want to see the flex of olive oil throughout it okay so it’s like olive oil it’s tomato it’s garlic this is a very very Mediterranean dish with the olives and the Capers but the olive oil it’s not to be meant to be

Oily it’s really meant to flavor and add that sort of buttery creaminess from The Olive from the olive oil in the tomato sauce so I just drained some colada Olive olives you always got to eat one or two right before they go in we’re just going to throw those olives into the

Sauce just let those start to Stew now I’m going to put the sauce on a medium I don’t want it to simmer but what I want the Tomato to do is Cook Out we don’t want a raw tomato we want to really be able to taste the Tomato all

The Tomato goodness the sweetness from the Tomato so what it’s going to do as we let it simmer and mix in with the Capers and olives and garli garlic we’re just going to let it reduce and all that water is going to evaporate and we’re going to get a concentrated tomato

Flavor with the garlic and the Capers and the olives Okay so we’ve got those beautiful San Marano crushed tomatoes stewing with olives and capers and chili flake and olive oil and now we’re going to work on the caramelized shallots so I’ve got six salades that I’m going to go ahead and

Just do a fine shave to you can use a mandolin for it or I’m going to use my knife but I’m going to just start in My Pan a little bit of olive oil and butter Okay the reason for this is I want to caramelize the onion meaning I want the

Natural sugar from the shallot to Brown and that sugar to really come out and caramelize and get kind of crispy edges and soft translucent but nice and dark and brown if I add olive oil and butter olive oil is going to prevent the butter from getting Brown too quickly before

The shot has a chance to cook and then um the butter is going to add to the caramelization and the Browning process but not to the point where there’s no return so butter and olive oil together the butter is what’s going to help create the caramelization and the olive

Oil is just to help the butter not get too Brown too quickly okay so just on a medium low temperature I’ve got that olive oil and butter in a sauté pan slowly melting and coming together and now I’m going to go ahead and just shave these shallots so both

Ends cut in half and peeled sometimes there’s like all these random pieces of Shallot that come off where they’re not especially when they’re not like specifically round that’s okay in this application we’re not doing a small dice or anything like that we’re actually going to do a shave so they don’t have

To be perfect once they get into a pan and start to caramelize you won’t even know the difference I promise I promise so let’s go ahead and peel these you can buy shallots pre peeled um but it doesn’t really take that long so but just know that you can and that is

Totally legal as well so go ahead and pull these I just think shallots are like such a great part of the onion family tearing up a little bit that’s okay I like to say you know they’re they’re a little sweeter than an onion and then they almost have this like garlic flavor to

Them I remember when my daughter was very little and I would get up so early to cook in the morning and it was mostly just kind of like maybe to prep before a holiday or something for her lunch or maybe just have dinner ready late and I

Was cutting onions one morning and she came in she couldn’t have been more than like three or four years old and she just looked at me she’s like Mommy are you okay I’m like yes it’s fine I’m just cutting onions now if it takes you a little bit longer

To cut the shallots and your oil is already gotten hot with the butter you can just turn that off and let it wait for you and that’s just a skill I’m basically trying to get you guys to multitask right it’s not cut the shallot and then warm the butter and then stand

There and wait for the butter to melt it’s kind of teaching you how to do a couple of things at once but being aware of the things that are happening in the kitchen right so it’s not like I have this task and I’m just peeling this

Shallot it’s like like okay I have this task I’m peeling the shallot I know that I have butter melting let’s make sure the butter doesn’t get too dark if it does let’s turn it down we can always turn it back up I’m simmering my sauce

Right now but I can stop and I can stir my sauce and just make sure that that water is evaporating and I see all the beautiful Capers and olives floating in the olive oil with the garlic and the tomatoes and then I come back to my

Shallots I clean my board and it’s just that’s what I’m talking about when I talk about flow in the kitchen it’s this constant movement of a a grouping of things that you need to get done but you feel it right oh I can smell something

In the oven it’s almost done let me stop my cutting and check the oven so it’s not one thing at a time it’s multiple things at a time and the better that you get and the more practice that you have you’ll be able to do six or seven things

At once and people are going to be like oh my goodness how did you make that incredible meal so quick and so efficiently and your kitchen doesn’t even look like anything happened that should be your goal now it seems like this is a lot of shallots but once we start caramelizing

They cook down to nothing so it feels like a lot of shallots but it really isn’t we’re going to just do some quick slices and when you see me flip the shallot right I’ll do a couple of slices here and again they don’t have to be the

Same size you know it’s okay they’re going to cut down but when I see it get small I like to flip it on its side and then that gives me more uh surface space to work with so you’ll see it again so I start here to three oh my goodness it’s

Gotten a little too hard for me to hold on to I flip it on its side and then I keep going so I want to keep it on a stable side at all times and when I feel like it’s no longer stable I kind of let

It fall to its side watch this ready no longer stable flip it to its side and now it’s stable show you again flip it to its side now it’s stable again here’s the other thing too right I’ve got about half of the shallots already sliced the butter is already

Melted with the olive oil feel free to throw those bad boys in there and start the cooking process while you finish chopping the rest of the shallots okay so I’ve got half of the shallots cooked those are starting and again this just moves the cooking process a little bit

Faster right now if you don’t feel secure in your knife skills and it was taking a long time then definitely wait for all the shallots to be cut but just know that I love to teach multitasking and if you feel confident and you want to do it you

Should so inside of the butter and olive oil and shallots we’re going to add a little bit of salt and we’re also going to add some sugar now shallots onions anything really in the onion family already have a lot of natural sugar in them but we’re going to add just a

Little bit more just to help the caramelization process along this isn’t enough sugar to make the dish sweet it’s just enough sugar to really assist in the caramelization process and really this entire dish is like a stew right it’s a a fish stew if you will it’s a stew of Capers and olives

Chili flake and garlic and tomatoes with a ton of olive oil and then it’s a stew of shallots the shallots is sitting in butter a little bit of olive oil some sugar to help it along and some salt now as the shallots start to to break apart you

Want to help them out a little bit right so that there’s butter and olive oil and salt and sugar touching every aspect of the shallot and there’s all these little crevices like one seeps into another it almost looks like two little spiders with each other so you want to kind of

Pull them out of their their crevices so that all of the shallot breaks up and it Cooks evenly so we don’t have smaller pieces and larger wider pieces just like that just give it a little past we’re just going to let these go on a medium

To low let them caramelize let them get nice and soft and sugary they’re going to be so good on top of that fish so Cod is a super traditional fish served in Italian cooking especially around Christmas for the Feast of Seven Fishes uh when I was growing up we would

Have dishes like bucalo which is basically a salted Cod and we would have this in a stew or sometimes we would have it as a Fritter so this is kind of my version you know a different more Progressive version of doing a stewed fish without using the Salted bucko and

Using a fresh Ling Cod so this tomato sauce is there’s going to be a good sort of olive oil content to it where you almost see these sort of swooshes of olive oil through the tomato and then that has the olives and the Capers and then all we want do

Is really cook out the tomatoes so it has a beautiful bright a brightness about it but also very sweet tomatoes are very naturally sweet the Capers and the olives are going to add that natural salinity to it and then we’ve got the shallots that are going to braze that

Are going to be so buttery and so perfect and now we can get ready to do the Cod but before we do the Cod actually let’s do some toasted pine nuts pine nuts are really going to add the texture to this dish so Cod is really beautifully soft plus we’re olive oil

Poaching it so it’s going to be very nice and soft the tomato sauce has elements of texture to it with the olives but nothing really crunchy and I think pine nuts are such a great addition they’re a subtle flavor there’s a beautiful sort of nuttiness to them

Creaminess to them as well we’re just going to lightly toast these pine nuts in a pot you can also do this in your oven I just like to have I like to see everything uh controlled right on my stove top okay we’re going to do a little musical

Chairs okay now it’s time to get ready for the olive oil poached fish this is going to take a good amount of olive oil because you basically want your fish to take a bath inside of the olive oil so think about it when we take baths we

Want our whole body submerged same thing goes for the Cod we want to be able to submerge the entire piece of cod top to bottom in olive oil so it does take a good amount of olive oil but remember that oil expands as it Heats want to

Just make sure there’s a little bit of space between the pan the fish and the olive oil so the olive oil is heating we’re going to throw those two cloves of garlic inside and a sprig of Basil just to season our olive oil and we’re just going to let that oil come to

Temperature at a low to medium Flame okay we don’t want to get too aggressive with it we want the fish again to sit in a very low temperature olive oil bath okay so we have some Ling Cod again this is just another version of using Cod during the holidays Cod is

Super traditional around Christmas especially for Italians usually we use a salted cod so we’re going to use a ling cod here I’m just going to cut some nice fillets save that for a little later beautiful thing about Cod is that it’s a very neutral flavored fish it’s

Got a high fat content beautifully flaky but it really holds up to aggressive flavors the flavors of Capers and olives and tomatoes it holds its shape it holds its form but at the same time um really takes all in the flavor without getting lost okay so the tomato sauce is stewing so

We’ve got the stew of tomatoes with the Capers the olives the chili flake the garlic ton of olive oil that’s ready to go all that water has evaporated and we’ve got the concentrated flavor of tomatoes perfect we’ve got pine nuts that are just gently toasting now toasting nuts are like sometimes the

Kiss of death for people because you put them on you’re like yeah fine fine fine and now I’m like oh my goodness the the pine nuts really got to pay attention as the pan starts to get warm nuts go from perfect to over toasted like that so

We’re just going to keep giving those a little shake and of course we’ve got the caramelized onions just kind of doing their thing in the background you know they’re like don’t worry I’m just back here caramelizing don’t bother me I’m fine don’t really need to pay much

Attention to them there’s a good amount of fat as there should be in this dish and those onions are just going to continue to soften in the butter the olive oil and the sugar is just going to take it over the edge creating that beautiful caramelization the pine

Nuts just toasting toast in away give a little taste to this chunky Caper Olive tomato sauce perfect we’re going to add a little bit of black pepper and a little bit of salt now that the dish has come together and I’ve been able to taste the salinity of the Capers

And the salinity of the olives I know that I can add my salt now I think it’s really important to season food as you go right so we want to season from start to finish but there are times when you’re using you know Pantry Staples like olives and capers

That have such a high salinity level that you want to be careful with your salt so I’m adding salt at the very very end to my to my tomato sauce so I can really see what those Olive and capers do um and the same thing with the fish

Once I know what my tomato sauce tastes like okay and I know what that salt level content is because I’m using condiments or Pantry Staples that I wasn’t in control of the salt I really need to pay attention uh to the salt content and then I can go ahead and

Season the fish once I know what that tastes like so now that I do know I’m going to just go ahead and season this fish with a little bit of salt both sides I had a culinary teacher say to me once right I always say this to my students

When I’m teaching someone how to cook they said do I season both sides of the fish I’m like well do you eat both sides of the fish okay so I see the basil starting to just Wilt in that oil the pine nuts are beautifully toasted I’m going to take them out of

The pot we’re just going to reserve these for later now that the basil has done its job and it has seasoned my oil I’m going to remove it from the oil same thing with the garlic we’re going to remove the garlic from the oil now that I’ve done my job in

Seasoning so you want to let your oil get to about 115 120° and then we’re just going to lay that cod in there and it’s just going to bake bathe so we really want to make sure that the temperature for the olive oil to poach

The fish is exactly where I need it to be when fish is either poached too quickly or sear too quickly the natural fat will actually start to sort of dollop on the outside of the fish sometimes there’ll be that little white fat packet that you’ll see in Salmon or

In hbit or in COD and that’s actually the beautiful natural fat of the fish leaking out faster than it should it really should be able to stay intact so that we get to eat that in the way that we want to how are those caramelize shallots doing perfect and beautiful can you

Believe all of those shallots cook down to just this so I said it seems like it’s a lot of shallots but I promise you we need all of them okay so as we are waiting feel like we can probably stick that fish in there let’s see yes this beautiful Chunky Tomato Olive

Sauce is almost ready to go I’m going to throw two sprigs of Rosemary in there and just let it steep we’ll pull those out I’m going to add my fish to the olive oil and just let that poach so we’ve got all of that beautiful Cod fully submerged in the olive

Oil perfect perfect perfect and we’re just just going to let it bathe this is going to take about 10 to 12 minutes in the olive oil and while that’s poaching I’m just going to put a little bit of paper towel onto a sheet tray so that

Once the fish is ready I’m going to pull it out with a fish spatula um I wouldn’t recommend doing this with a spoon or with any kind of um Fork it really needs to be a slotted flat spatula so that we don’t break up the fish it’s going to be

Very very gentle it needs to be very very gentle the fish is very delicate so I have my fish spatula all ready to go so as soon as that fish is ready in the olive oil I’m going to pull it out I’m going to stick it on a sheet

Tray with a little bit of paper towel so that it drains and then we can plate the entire dish in the meantime we will get ready for the garnish which is going to be this beautiful herb pine nut olive oil topping that’s going to go on top of

The fish in all of that stewed tomato so I’m just going to clear my board I have my pine nuts here just checking my fish perfect we’re going to take some leaves of Basil so beautiful smells so good and just gently pick them the stem

Of the basil we can’t really use it’s a little too aggressive I have to say though when I make a pesto or any kind of salsa verde and I stick basil in the blender I throw everything in maybe not the far end of the basil but a good part

Of it so we’ve just got some basil that I’m going to give a very very rough cut to I want to leave this basil as sort of whole and flowering as possible right this whole dish is very rough rustic very Mediterranean whole arives whole pieces of Caper large

Pieces of Basil the nuts the olive oil so I’m going to just throw that in there like that we’re going to put also just some fresh parsley sometimes I like to use a scissor with my herbs sometimes that is a thing right especially if you have like little herb

Plants you can kind of just let’s see you can kind of just cut away what you need I also think it’s a really nice way of not bruising the herb sometimes when your knives aren’t as sharp as you like them to be a scissor is one way to just

Kind of cut stuff off its stem I use scissors so much inside of the kitchen sometimes people are like why do you have scissors are they just for fish I’m like no if I can cut anything with scissors I will try so we’re going to do just a little bit of

Salt in there just a splash of olive oil just to kind of give it a little help and I’m going to take a spoon and I’m just going to kind of mix this pine nut herb mixture the baby spoon I grabbed my daughter’s old baby spoon maybe we won’t use that for

This she’s 20 and I still have her baby spoons in there it’s amazing so just a little bit of olive oil and salt with that basil and that fresh flat leaf Italian parsley so we’re going to use that just as a garnish let’s clean up and get ready for this

Fish all right we are ready to Plate this let’s check our fish so I like to pull the fish out with a slotted fish spatula which is a flat fish spatula it’ll drain off that excess oil and I already have a piece of paper towel laid out on a sheet

Tray so so how I like to test the fish is with by using touch okay um I love to teach people that very intuitive cooking and to touch and kind of press your food to really understand the temperature so my daughter likes to say that I have

Chef fingers so I can touch very very hot food and it doesn’t bother me so if this is a little too hot for you you can put gloves on it will give you the same feeling on the fish but it’ll just kind of protect you from the heat um but

That’s years of me cooking but if you kind of just press the fish you can see how it breaks here there’s still a firmness to it which is great there’s going to be some carryover cooking but this means that the fish is perfect it’s giving me a little bit right you can see

This moving here so there’s a little bit of give a little bit of firmness in the middle and I kind of do this to all of them right now if the fish feels very firm there’s no give there’s no kind of crease opening they’re not done yet okay

But I like to give them just a little squeeze and I can see that the ends are starting to kind of break break and the middle still has a little bit of firmness and that’s what you want I’m going to let those fish drain on the

Paper towel so that all of the excess oil can come off the cooking oil and we will start to plate so I have the beautiful stew of tomatoes and I love that we threw the the uh Rosemary in at the very very end because it just kind of gives this subtle flavor and

Aroma of Rosemary vers is Rosemary that’s kind of been stewed for long periods of time which sometimes can get a little aggressive Rosemary is definitely one of those herbs that just breaks your door down it’s not a gentle knock at the door it is like hi I’m Rosemary and I’m

Here so this is a beautiful dish I think plattered because the tomatoes and the olives and the Capers and that olive oil we want to see everything and you kind of see how the olive olive oil separates from the Tomato I love that that is a beautiful flavored olive oil right there

That has all the nuances of the garlic and the chili flake and the Rosemary and don’t mistake that from being over oiled this is like very Mediterranean and then we’re going to take the Cod and just gently place the Cod throughout the dish like this and then we’re going to just take

This herb pine nut mixture that has just a little bit of olive oil and salt oh wait actually hold on how can I forget the car caramelized shallots just do a little bit of caramelized shallot up and over the fish and again we want some of that

Butter we want some of that oil to fall into the sauce as well as coat the fish just like that up and around and then we will take all of this pine nut herb goodness and just kind of garnish every fish with it just like so so this is my olive oil

Poach cod with a stew of tomatoes olives Capers caramelize shallots pine nuts and herbs that looks good first I just want to say that this is definitely the most Christmas looking dish I’ve ever made um but it just looks so beautiful and I think it’s just plattered so

Perfectly it’s so inviting if you see a dish with all of these beautiful colors and the pine nuts and the fresh herbs and the smell of Rosemary so Mediterranean the beautiful olive oil flecked with the pine nuts all of the Capers and olives and tomatoes the fresh

Herbs and this is a dish that can sit really really nicely because the cottis olive well poached so actually the longer that it sits in all in all of this beautiful tomato soup it’ll actually get Better so good the texture of the olive oil poach Cod is so silky so luscious perfectly cooked it just kind of flakes away and breaks away into that beautiful stewed tomato that’s why we use crushed tomatoes so there’s these you know sort of larger chunks of tomato but then

There’s a puree of tomato as well the olives the niss olives there’s a creaminess to it but then a saltiness and then the Capers just make it so perfectly salty the pine nuts add this sort of perfect texture and crunch and creaminess the fresh herbs on top as

They just start to warm in that beautifully flavored rosemary oil with the tomatoes is just it’s like bright and refreshing but this is this dish is so balanced and the dish is very light you know it seems like it’s a stew of tomatoes but a lot of Light Flavors the

Tomatoes are very bright the fresh herbs are very bright the olives and the Capers really kind of make you feel like this is a great starter for the Feast of seven fish guys