Sous Vide Cod Loins in White Wine Dill Sauce
Speed - 100%
Simplicity - 97%
Tastiness - 100%
99%
Excellent!
The cod loins were really moist and perfectly flaky. The sauce was fresh, creamy, and very aromatic.
Ingredients
For the Cod
- 6 Pieces Cod Loins
- Salt to taste
- 1 Tablespoon olive oil
- 3 Sprigs Fresh Dill
For the Cream Sauce
- 1 Cup White Wine
- 1 Cup Heavy Cream
- 1 Piece White Onion finely chopped
- 2-3 Stems Dill
- 2 Teaspoons Black Peppercorns
Instructions
- Season the cod loins with salt.
- Put the cod in a sous vide bag together with olive oil and a few sprigs of fresh dill.
- Cook for 30 minutes at 130F.
- Combine the wine, onion, dill stems, and black pepper in a saucepan.
- Reduce completely.
- Whisk in heavy cream and simmer to thicken a bit.
- Season with salt if needed.
- Fold in chopped dill.
- Serve sauce over dill.
Honestly, cod could well be among the easiest types of fish to work with. It's flavor is really neutral, not that fishy at all making it easy to pair with any flavored sauce or compound butter you prefer. Its firm flesh also makes handling it ideal for most cooking methods from frying, to grilling, poaching, and braising.
We'll simply be poaching these cod fillets and whip up a quick sauce to go over our dish. A light seasoning of salt and a touch of some fresh lemon juice would be enough for now. Some pepper would work too, but I chose to keep the fillets clean of any specks of black to keep them pretty in my plate. If you really want some pepper in for now, at least go for the white variety.
Get those cod fillets in a sous vide bag with some olive oil and a few sprigs of fresh dill. The oil will keep the edges of our fish smooth as it cooks, while the dill will reinforce the fish with the flavor and aroma we want our finished dish to achieve.
Set your circulator to 130F. I find this temperature to provide a texture that is a perfect balance between chewy and perfectly flaky. I use a variety of sous vide devices to test them and review them for my website. I'm a big fan of wifi-enabled circulators because it means I can monitor my food remotely. Sounds like a gimmick, but I really do use that feature a lot. One great one worth checking out is the Anova Precision Cooker.
It's an extremely popular device, with tons of great reviews so far. The newer version has wifi capabilities and a stronger heating element that previous versions. It's also very quiet, which makes a difference when cooking something for an hour or two!
It'll only take 30 minutes for those fillets to cook. Just enough time to prepare a good side dish of starch or salad, and of course, the cream sauce.
Start with the cream sauce's flavor base. Get some white wine, onions, peppercorns, dill stems, and salt reducing in a saucepan. Here's where you get to play on the flavors of your sauce. Get any flavoring ingredient in the reduction such as fruit, spices, herbs, change the wine for some fruit juice, or add some essential oils. Whatever flavor you think of putting in, just remember to keep them light so you don't overpower the fish's rather delicate flavor.
Reduce the mixture to about a quarter of its original volume to intensify all those flavors. This reduction would taste extremely tart and tangy at this point. Don't worry, the richness of the cream will cut that do perfectly in the end.
Next, strain out all those flavoring ingredients. You wouldn't want chunks of them ending up in a very refined cream sauce, would you?
Put the reduction back into the saucepan then whisk in the cream. Let the mix simmer and reduce further to a consistency that's just thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. Never allow cream to boil to keep it from splitting.
Finish the sauce with a final seasoning of salt and white pepper then turn the heat off. You don't want the fresh dill to wilt as you fold them into the sauce. Also, you may enrich the flavors by whisking in some cold butter nuggets. Butter would give a good sheen to the cream sauce on top of the richness that it gives.
Plate-up and ladle a good serving of sauce on top of the fish.
Ingredients
For the Cod
- 6 Pieces Cod Loins
- Salt to taste
- 1 Tablespoon olive oil
- 3 Sprigs Fresh Dill
For the Cream Sauce
- 1 Cup White Wine
- 1 Cup Heavy Cream
- 1 Piece White Onion finely chopped
- 2-3 Stems Dill
- 2 Teaspoons Black Peppercorns
Instructions
- Season the cod loins with salt.
- Put the cod in a sous vide bag together with olive oil and a few sprigs of fresh dill.
- Cook for 30 minutes at 130F.
- Combine the wine, onion, dill stems, and black pepper in a saucepan.
- Reduce completely.
- Whisk in heavy cream and simmer to thicken a bit.
- Season with salt if needed.
- Fold in chopped dill.
- Serve sauce over dill.
Kay Sandridge says
January 14, 2018 at 1:20 pmYour recipe card calls for 120 degree and your comments says 130.
Which do you recommend?
Food For Net says
January 17, 2018 at 7:37 amTypo. 130