Cod loin gremolata on flageolet stew

This is hopefully the first of many quick recipes on the food side of this blog where I publish some of the meals we’ve made for ourselves that are simple to prepare yet we felt really stood out!
I intend to keep these really straightforward as far as the format is concerned: the finished picture, ingredients, method and substitutions/alternatives. That’s it! Hopefully this will inspire some ideas for your own weekly meals!

This recipe was initially inspired by one from Waitrose which called for a fair bit more work and ingredients, adding wine, tomatoes and other bits, but we’ve found that even though more simplistic, this worked equally as well and to top it off works as a “one pan meal”.

Ingredients (serves 2):

• 1 Cod loin (260g)
• 400g Flageolet in water (do not drain) (use a conserve as it’s easier, but if using dry Flageolet, you will need to cook them in advance)
• 1 tsp Olive oil
• 5g butter
• 3 round shallots (“Thai”) or 1 french shallot, halved and sliced thinly
• 3 Garlic cloves, 2 sliced, 1 grated (for the gremolata)
• 25g Parsley (chop the stalks and reserve the half of the leaves for the gremolata)
• 1 knorr vegetable stock cube or pot
• 1 tsp dried Rosemary
• Salt and Pepper to taste
• 1 tbsp Lemon zest

Use one large frying pan to cook the flageolet and cod. prepare the gremolata mix on the side in a bowl.

Method:

1. Heat your pan and add both butter and olive oil until the butter is melted (but not browned).
2. add sliced shallots and cook for a couple minutes before adding the parsley (stalks and part of the leaves) as well as the sliced garlic. cook for another 2-3 minutes.
3. add the flageolet, and add salt and pepper to taste. Mix everything with a wooden spoon so that everything is even and lower the heat to medium to let things simmer for another 5 minutes.
4. if using one Cod loin, cut in two if serving for two and add salt and pepper on top of it before placing it on top of the flageolet.
5. Cover the pan with a lid and reduce the heat if needed but otherwise leave it as is until the cod is cooked through (should take about 5 to 7 minutes).
6. Meanwhile, prepare the gremolata, which is essentially a mix of chopped parsley, lemon zest and grated garlic. Mix all 3 together well and add the mix on top of each piece of Cod before serving (as seen in the picture).
7. To serve, scoop up the flageolet into individual plates or shallow soup plates and add the piece of cod on top, then cover the cod with the gremolata.

That’s it! this was really quick to prepare and cook (about 20min in total I would say) and tasted really good. We felt like this could have easily been something served in a gastropub, perhaps with a bit more presentation but overall something we’ll do again quite frequently!

Substitutes/Alternatives:

The two main components of this dish are the Cod and the Flageolet. It’s easy to replace the Cod for any kind of white fish like sea bass, sea bream or plaice, but should work equally as well with Trout or a Salmon fillet. For the beans, you can replace with baked beans if you really want, but we think going for some nicer beans like Flageolet, butter beans or even fava beans yields better results (and a nicer looking plate!).