Thirty-five minutes and a baking dish. The sauce is whisked cold and poured into the dish around four thick fillets, which then bake in it.
How much sauce touches the fish is the whole technique. Step 2 is explicit: pour it around the cod without fully submerging the tops. That is what keeps each fillet in one piece.
Why This Recipe Works
- A tablespoon of red curry paste whisked into a full can of coconut milk gives the sauce its orange colour without overwhelming a delicate fish.
- Fish sauce and brown sugar in small amounts balance the salt and heat of the paste.
- Pouring the sauce around rather than over leaves the tops of the fillets exposed, so they set rather than poach apart.
- Fifteen to twenty minutes at 400 degrees Fahrenheit takes a thick fillet to flaking without going further.
- Lime stirred into the finished sauce rather than baked in keeps its sharpness.
Ingredient Notes
- Thick cod fillets
- Four of about six ounces. Thick is the operative word — a thin fillet cannot survive fifteen to twenty minutes in sauce as one piece.
- Red curry paste
- One tablespoon against a full can of coconut milk. That ratio is what makes the sauce orange and mild enough for cod.
- Fish sauce and brown sugar
- A teaspoon each. Small quantities doing balancing work rather than flavouring the dish outright.
- Cooked white rice
- Four cups, at the edge of the plate. Named in the recipe as the visible serving element, not an optional side.
How to Make It
Oven on, cod seasoned
Heat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Lightly oil a baking dish and season cod with salt.
Sauce around, not over
Whisk curry paste, coconut milk, ginger, garlic, fish sauce, and brown sugar; pour around the cod without fully submerging the tops.
Bake to intact and flaking
Bake 15 to 20 minutes until the fillets remain intact but flake easily and reach 145 degrees Fahrenheit.
Lime into the sauce
Stir lime juice into the orange curry sauce around the fish.
Serve each fillet whole
Serve each intact fillet with sauce, sliced red chile, and cilantro.
Rice at the edge
Add white rice at the edge of the plate as the visible serving element.
How the Plate Is Composed
Read from the dish upward. Two of these layers are placed rather than cooked together, and one of them is deliberately NOT poured over the layer beneath it.
Rice, at the edge
4 cups of cooked white rice, placed at the EDGE of the plate rather than under the fish. The recipe names it as the visible serving element, and putting the fillet on top of it would hide both the rice and the sauce.
Chilli and cilantro, on top
1 sliced red chile and 1/3 cup of cilantro leaves, raw, over each fillet. Both are visible against the orange sauce in the finished dish.
Lime, stirred in after the oven
1 tbsp of lime juice into the sauce around the fish once it is out - not into the dish before it goes in. Baked for twenty minutes, the sharpness would be gone.
The sauce - AROUND, to the shoulders
1 tbsp red curry paste whisked with a 13.5 oz can of coconut milk, 1 tsp grated ginger, 1 garlic clove, 1 tsp fish sauce and 1 tsp brown sugar, poured around the fillets WITHOUT fully submerging the tops. This is the whole technique. Sauce over the top would poach the fish and break it up over fifteen to twenty minutes; sauce around it leaves the tops exposed to dry oven heat, and each fillet sets rather than falling apart.
The cod - four separate fillets
Four thick fillets of about 6 oz, seasoned with 1/2 tsp salt, laid so they do not touch. They stay four separate pieces from here to the plate: a single intact fillet, not chunks.
The dish, lightly oiled
A baking dish rather than a pan, because the sauce needs walls. Lightly oiled before the fish is laid in it in step 1.
Success Tips
- Pour the sauce around the fillets and stop when it reaches their shoulders.
- Check the thickest part rather than the edge; a thick fillet is uneven by nature.
- Lift each fillet out with a wide spatula so it stays whole on the plate.
Serving Ideas
Four servings in white dishes, each intact cod fillet sitting in the orange coconut curry sauce with sliced red chilli and cilantro over it and white rice at the edge of the plate.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why not submerge the fish in the sauce?
A fully submerged fillet poaches and falls apart. Sauce poured around it leaves the top exposed, and the finished dish is meant to be a single intact fillet.
Can I cut the cod into chunks?
Not in this recipe. It is written as one intact fillet per serving.
Is the rice part of the recipe?
Yes — four cups of cooked white rice are in the ingredient list and step 6 places it at the edge of the plate.
