Cod with Chorizo and Tomatoes

Source:  Oprah Magazine.

2.5 T olive oil
3.5 oz dried Spanish Chorizo, sliced into 1/4' pieces (I ended up using a smoked fresh Chorizo, b/c I couldn't find cured Spanish style Chorizo)
1 pint cherry tomatoes, halved (I forgot to halve mine :()
salt
pepper
4 6oz cod fillets


Heat olive oil in skillet.  Add chorizo and 2 T water.  Cover  and cook over medium low heat until chorizo is tender about 3 minutes.  Uncover, add tomatoes, and cook over medium high heat, tossing, until tomatoes just start to soften (maybe one minute more).  B/c I forgot to halve my tomatoes, I cooked them just a touch longer, until they started to burst.  Season with salt and pepper.   Cover and set aside.
In a different skillet, heat more olive oil over high heat, until oil is shimmery.  Season cod with salt and pepper.  Add cod to skillet, and cook until brown on the bottom, about 4 minutes.  Flip cod, and cook over medium heat for another 2 minutes.  Serve cod topped with chorizo/tomato mixture.

I picked this recipe because it seemed simple, had few ingredients, and because I don't eat nearly enough seafood.  Cod doesn't have a the Omega 3 fatty acids that salmon and other fatty fish does, but it's a lean protein that's probably a lot better than beef.

The first problem I ran into was getting the chorizo.  Schnucks didn't carry it, Whole Foods didn't carry it -- and frankly, I was too lazy to go beyond that.  I debated on whether to go for a fresh chorizo, which may have a different texture but has the same flavor profile as the Spanish style chorizo, or to pick a cured sausage with a slightly different flavor profile.  I opted for the smoked fresh chorizo, and I don't believe the texture was bad, or that the dish suffered.  I also used frozen cod -- (defrosted it before use!!) - all fresh seafood in the Midwest has been previously frozen and then thawed out, so why shell out the extra cash.  Now, if I lived by the ocean, I would most certainly have gotten fresh fish.

The recipe was quick, and was very easy to prepare.  The hardest thing to do was to leave the fish alone when cooking no matter what kind of noises were coming from the pan.  Sure enough, after the 4 minutes, the fish came up easily, nothing stuck to the pan, and flipped over in one piece.  I was proud of myself :)

This was a wonderful dish.  I served with with white rice.  Cod is just not a very exciting fish.  It has a nice firm flesh, but not much of a taste.  The chorizo is very spicy, and by cooking it first, it renders a fair amount of fat.  So the fatty, aggressively flavored chorizo spices up the boring cod, and then the cooked tomatoes are deliciously sweet, helping cool off the heat, and their acidity cuts the fattiness of the chorizo.  It is a clever and delicious combination of flavors that definitely works well together, and is a different seafood dish to try.