Baked Cod (or Salmon), Sausage and White Beans

Baked cod or salmon, spicy sausage and white beans — if you haven’t ever tried that combination of flavors, please do, it will become a favorite recipe, especially for chilly evenings.

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Fish and sausage?! Does that sound weird to you?

If you’re of Portuguese descent, you’re saying, oh no, not weird at all. The Portuguese are longtime masters of mixing seafood and pork. One of the most famous examples is Porco com Amêijoas à Alentejana, or Alentejo-Style Pork with Clams. That’s going on my “recipes to try” Pinterest board. Another popular dish, Amêijoas na Cataplana, is made with clams and sausage. It’s cooked in a cataplana, a pot with a hinged lid that is sealed with a clamp during cooking, and looks a bit like a clam shell

I found this recipe on the Eating Well website. The original recipe calls for 1-1/4 pounds of cod and only 2 ounces of chorizo. I didn’t want that much cod because I was only making dinner for two. Even though I used less cod, I kept all the other ingredient the same,  and increased the sausage. The original recipe calls for chorizo which would have been great, but my market didn’t have any, so I used andouille instead. The andouille’s spiciness was perfect for this recipe. If you’re in Portuguese-American country (Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey, California), linguica would also be fantastic.

For sides, I roasted asparagus with some garlic and then tossed it with lemon juice and zest once it was done. I also parboiled cubes of sweet potato and then sautéed them with onions and smoked paprika. I softened the onions before adding the sweet potatoes to the pan.

Holy moly, everything was so good. I will make this dish again and again. I may go lighter on the sausage to make it healthier, or try to find a chicken sausage with that same type of heat and flavor. You can tell from the photo that my dish was quite liquidy. That was a surprise because it wasn’t that liquidy when it went into the oven. Maybe I didn’t need those extra tablespoons of wine.

I highly recommend this one!

Baked Cod, Sausage & White Beans | Grabbing the Gusto

Baked Cod (or Salmon), Sausage and White Beans

You’ll need an oven-safe pan with a lid.

• 1 teaspoon extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 shallot or 1/2 yellow onion, chopped
• 6 ounces shiitake and/or cremini mushrooms, sliced
• 5 ounces andouille (2 sausages) or chorizo, diced
• 1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme or 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1 – 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 pint grape tomatoes, halved
• 1/4 cup dry white wine or dry vermouth, divided
• 1 15-ounce can great northern or cannellini beans, rinsed
• Salt, to taste
• 3/4 to 1 pound cod or wild salmon, cut into large pieces
• Freshly ground pepper, to taste

Preheat oven to 425°F. Coat baking dish with cooking spray.

Heat oil in an oven-safe pan over medium-low heat. Add shallot/onion, mushroom, sausage and thyme and cook, stirring, until starting to soften, about 3-5 minutes. Add garlic and cook 1 minute. Add tomatoes and wine. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the tomatoes are broken down and the wine is almost evaporated. Stir in beans and salt, to taste, and remove from the heat.

Add the fish to the pan. Nestle it into the tomato mixture. Cover the pan and bake until the fish is just cooked through, 10 to 15 minutes, although the time will depend on the size of the fish pieces and your oven’s calibration. 

Original recipe: Baked Cod with Chorizo & White Beans, Eating Well