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Cooking Our Favorite Restaurant Dishes at Home
The reviews coming out on Cookshop have been very good so far, but has it measured up to the endless hype? Unfortunately, the down side of the buzz is that a few average dishes on the menu can lead to results that don't match the expectations created by the relentless coverage by the food media.
There are a few dishes at Cookshop that are missing the mark, but much of the menu delivers on the simple, farm focused dishes you'd expect from the team from Five Points. Everything from the wood oven has great flavor, as does a simple dish of crispy cod with a chickpea stew. There's a side of apple and fennel salad that doesn't work as well with the dish in our opinion, so Gothamist encorporated the apple flavor into the dish by cooking the chickpeas in the cider.
Add a few handfuls of crumbly ricotta salata cheese and the crunch of pomegranate seeds and you have Gothamist's take on one of the best dishes on the menu at Cookshop right now.
Crispy Cod, Apple Cider Chickpeas
ricotta salata, sage, pomegranate seeds
Ingredient Shopping List
Recipe serves two people.
2 (6 to 8-ounce) cod fillets
extra-virgin olive oil
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
i small white or red onion
red pepper flakes
1 lemon
1 can chickpeas or 1 cup previously prepared dried chickpeas
kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
bunch of fresh flat-leaf parsley
bunch of fresh sage
1 pomegranate
1 chunk ricotta salata
1 pint apple cider
1 tblsp unsalted butter
Estimated cost of ingredients: $18-20 at Fairway
Prep the Ingredients
Finely chop about ½ of a small onion. Finely chop 2 cloves garlic. Remove the seeds from one pomegranate. You can make dried chickpeas if you have the time, otherwise open and rinse one can of chickpeas. Finely chop about about 2 tblsps worth of fresh sage. Crumble about ½ cup ricotta salata cheese.
Make the Chickpea Stew
Heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium heat until hot. Add the onion and cook for about 2 minutes on low heat. Add the garlic and cook for another two minutes. Add a dash of chili pepper flakes. After a minute, add about ½ cup apple cider and bring to a simmer. After this simmers for about two minutes, add the chickpeas and bring the heat to low. Let this simmer on low heat for about 10 minutes, until the liquid is most evaporated. Salt and pepper to taste. Add a squeeze of lemon juice, water, and salt to taste. Reduce the heat to low, and simmer for 25 minutes. Add the chopped sage and the crumbled cheese. Add a tblsp of butter. Mix and season with salt and pepper to taste. Do not add the pomegranate until you are ready to serve at the last minute. Heat is not your friend with these seeds as they change color and texture. If you’d like, a handful of fresh chopped parsley is helpful for freshness and color.
Note: Gothamist would add chorizo, bacon etc to this dish, but since we add it to every recipe we do here, it has been deleted. We recommend it though as the smoky, porky flavor is nice here.
Make the Cod
Preheat the oven to 350.
Season both sides of the fillets with salt and pepper. Place a glug of olive oil in the bottom of a pan and place on high heat. When hot but not smoking, then place fillet in the pan, skin side down if you have skin on your fillets. Roast fillets in pan for about 3-4 minutes – do not touch until they naturally come away from the pan. They should be brown and golden. Flip the cod and sear on the other side for another two minutes. Add the plan to the oven and roast for about 6-8 minutes, depending on the size of your fillets.
Finish the Dish
Let the fish rest before serving it for a few minutes to let the juices settle. Reheat your chickpeas and add the pomegranate seeds to them and mix. Place the chickpeas on the plate and add the cod on top. Collect any of the pan juices and baste the cod with them before serving.
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hi joe, thanks for the recipe...what other fish do you think this might work well with? thanks!
hi carignane, i would say any meaty white fish like halibut, sea bass, monkfish or even talapia (though thinner filets like talapia would need less cooking time than above, most likely).
This recipe sounds great - only one problem. Atlantic Cod is at 4% of its historic abundance in some places. That's to say, it's practically endangered- whole fishing communities have dissolved in Canada due to its collapse. Yet chefs continue to serve it..
Foodies, even those committed to serving the fruits (and vegetables, cheeses, etc.) of local and sustainable labor, have yet to embrace sustainable seafood. Why? Well there are zillions of fish species out there that make it to our fish markets. Their status is hard to keep track of, and eco-labelling of fish hasn't reached the mainstream in the US yet (although it has in Europe). As a result, BLT Fish advertises its restaurant on postcards detailing the choicest cuts of Bluefin Tuna, which are Critically Endangered in the Western Atlantic, and not faring much better elsewhere. We can do better.
But it's not all bad- there are great substitutes for Atlantic Cod and other depleted species:
Instead of Atlantic Cod, try Pacific Cod. It's much better managed. If you can't get it, try Striped Bass or Pacific Halibut (Atlantic Halibut has also reached historic lows).
For more information, check out www.blueocean.org/seafood. You can also order pocket-sized guides from the site that fit in your wallet to help you remember what your best choices are.