Friday Night Dinner: Baked Cod & Potatoes with Horseradish Cream & Orange-Olive Salad

So, on the fish, it’s not really a cream sauce per se. I was intrigued/concerned with the idea of baking mayonnaise in a sauce, but, this worked well. I used some fancy-pants mayonnaise made with olive oil. La de da!

Okay, so I also found the fabled horseradish mustard called for in the recipe at Whole Foods, Stonewall Kitchens brand. I got it, mainly because I love me some fancy mustards. You could also just use a plain Dijon mustard and add some horseradish to that, maybe start with 1/2 teaspoon and taste from there. For some reason the idea of using a mustard with horseradish already in it was causing posters at epicurious.com to kind of collectively lose their … shiny marbles. Whatever. If you have some use it, if you don’t, add horseradish to the mustard-mayo blend.

Aside from the olive oil mayonnaise and the $6 mustard, this is totally an unfancy meal. But, we thought it was super delicious. And the super fresh, lovely rock cod they usually have at the Whole Foods by work was excellent here!

The orange and olive salad is also quite tasty. It may sound weird but it completely works, and it looks quite nice too.

Baked Cod & Potatoes with Horseradish Cream
Adapted from Bon Appétit Magazine
Nonstick vegetable oil spray
1/4 cup mayonnaise (I decreased this from the original 1/2 cup)
3 tbsp Dijon mustard with horseradish
2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
1/2 tsp dried thyme
2/3 pound unpeeled red-skinned potatoes, thinly sliced
2 6-8 ounce cod fillets (I used about 1 pound total rock cod, 2 big fillets, 2 smaller ones, hooray! leftover fish!)
2 tbsp chopped fresh parsley (I forgot this…)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Line rimmed baking sheet with foil; coat generously with nonstick spray. Mix mayonnaise, mustard, (horseradish), thyme, and lemon juice in medium bowl to blend. Season mustard mixture with pepper.

Toss potatoes in mustard mixture. Gently shake excess mustard mixture from potatoes before spreading potatoes in single layer on a prepared baking sheet.

Bake in the top third of the oven, until potatoes are beginning to brown, about 13 minutes.

Prepare another baking sheet in the same way you did for the potatoes (foil, non-stick spray). Coat fish with remaining mustard mixture. Sprinkle fish with salt and pepper.

Place fish on the new baking sheet and place alongside the potatoes. Bake until fish is opaque in center and potatoes are tender, about 10 minutes longer. Divide potatoes between 2 plates.

Top potatoes with fish, sprinkle with chopped parsley, and serve. I put the fish to the side, as my potatoes looked all golden and pretty.

On to the Orange and Olive Salad. Okay, while it is all baking, you should have time to do this. You can also start this first and just have it hang out while you do the fish and potatoes.

Orange and Olive Salad
From Food Day in the Oregonian, (also in the New York Times), adapted from a recipe by La Zucca Magica, by way of Mark Bittman
1/2 cup oil-cured black olives, pitted
1/2 teaspoon fresh (or 1/4 tsp dried) thyme leaves
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil + more as needed
2 navel oranges, peeled, sliced into rounds
fennel seeds (optional, to scatter as a garnish)

In a food processor, combine olives and thyme, if using, with a bit of olive oil. Pulse machine once or twice, then turn it on and add remaining olive oil rather quickly; you want this purée on the rough side. Thin with more olive oil if necessary. (You can refrigerate this for up to a month.)

Layer orange slices on a small platter and top with spoonfuls of the olive puree. Hit it all with a little drizzle of the olive oil and scatter some more thyme on top if you want. Personally, I wasn’t crazy about the scattered fennel seeds on top (and I love fennel seeds!), but ymmv.