I’m an omnivore, but sometimes I get tired of eating meat. I needed a break this week, so I went looking for a fish recipe since it’s been a minute since I’ve made any. That’s when I happened upon this Mediterranean Baked Cod Recipe with Lemon and Garlic. I’ve come across it a few times, and I’ve wanted to make it for a while. Well, now is a perfect time! I’m thinking this with a salad will make a nice lunch. Let’s find out!
Best baked cod recipe out there! Prepared Greek style with a few spices and a mixture of lemon juice, olive oil and lots of garlic. Bakes in 15 mins!
The Ingredients
There aren’t too many ingredients in this baked cod recipe, and I had a few on hand. Well, I had the spices, the extra virgin olive oil, butter, and flour. I had to shop for the fresh items, but I didn’t have any trouble finding them.
The cod fillet was not surprisingly the most expensive item at $12 for about a pound. The recipe calls for a pound and a half, but supplementing that nice big fillet with a little piece of fish seemed weird.
The author of this recipe has an online shop with tons of Mediterranean oils and spices in case you can’t find them locally or simply prefer her brand. They all look amazing! However, I had extra virgin olive oil and Spanish paprika (also called pimenton or smoked paprika) on hand, so that’s what I used. The COVID-19 pandemic is still going strong, and I didn’t want to order something that wasn’t essential. It’s dangerous out there 🙁
The Process
The time given for this recipe is 22 minutes, and I had mine done in 24 minutes. Not bad for such a delicious entree! The instructions broke everything down into easy to follow steps, but I did have some difficulties of my own making. Here’s how my time was spent:
- 10 minutes to prep
- 14 minutes to cook
- 24 minutes total
First up, I used soup bowls to bread the cod because they are the shallowest bowls I have. The cod fillet was much too big for them, and I ended up moving the flour to a dinner plate. A combination of dredging in the flour and spooning it over the fish did the trick. Of course, I could have also cut the fish into smaller pieces, but I didn’t think of that.
My next oops moment was when I fried the cod on the stove. I don’t know what I was thinking when I used tongs to flip the fish! (It’s been a while since I’ve cooked fish, and that’s what I di with steaks.) It survived but a few marks in the breading seemed to be the only damage done. I should have used a large spatula.
The rest of the process went smoothly, and I had a beautiful baked cod fillet in no time at all. Fair warning: the fish will be fall-apart tender when you take it out of the oven. I served it from the cast-iron pan I baked it in.
