Cod Cooked Sous Vide in Birch Bark

Scandinavian Dinner

We're having a Scandinavian-themed dinner and I figured I channel my inner Redzepi for it. Each diner gets a portion of cod wrapped in the birch bark it was cooked in. It imparts a slight woodsy flavor and makes for great presentation. Because we're emphasizing the Birch, I'm omitting the (frozen) olive oil and lemon zest I'd normally use when cooking cod sous vide.

Brining the fish in a 10% salt water solution firms the fish and prevents oozing of ugly white proteins.

We expect about 4 ounce serving per person. Skin the fish first and portion it before cooking because it's too fragile after.

Look for birch bark sheets big enough to wrap your individual portions, but thin enough to be flexible. Carefully peel large birch bark sheets of the tree or find ones on the ground. Boil to soften and kill any nasties. Hold in the water to retain the flexibility until ready to use.

My setup is a Sous Vide Magic temperature controller driving a cheap hotplate with a large covered pot of water. Food is sealed in Tilia FoodSaver. This is pretty easy but you could do it normal stovetop pot with a careful eye on a thermometer in the water bath -- the time's short.

Recipe

Serves 6

• 6       pieces  Birch Bark sheets, boiled
• 24 oz Cod fillet, skinless (6 x 4 ounce portion)
• 500 g Water
• 50 g Kosher Salt

If the Cod has the skin, carefully remove and while prepping, heat in a nonstick skillet, weighted to keep flat, until crisp; use as a condiment on the finished dish.

Heat water with temperature controller to 132F/55C.

Make a 10% brine solution by dissolving the Salt in hot Water, let cool.  Add to ziptop bag along with Cod and brine 15 minutes.  Drain and pat fish and birch dry.  Cut into 6 serving pieces; it's too fragile when cooked.  Wrap each portion in a birch bark sheet, and place in a vacuum sealer bag.  Chill the fish in the bag well before sealing otherwise the liquid will get sucked out and ruin the seal.  Then vacuum seal the bag.

Seal and cook in the sous vide water bath at 132F/55C for 30 minutes; if your fillet is very thick, you could give it more time to ensure the heat penetrates evenly, 45 minutes should be enough but 60 shouldn't hurt..  Remove from bag and finish for presentation.

Plating for Service

For this Scandinavian theme, I plate the fish on the unwrapped birch to reveal the fish, then top with a bacalao espuma, garnish with bright orange, citrusy Sea Buckthorn Berries and add a few pearl-like bits of Salmon caviar.