Crab-Stuffed Baked Cod

Happy July 1st! July is my favorite month. I generally don't have work or school. I get to lay in the sun all day. And it's my birthday month. Yay!

Anyway... onto the food! I really want to try to eat more fish. I think I have always just assumed that I don't like fish because I don't like plain baked salmon. It's just too fishy and it's ugly and it smells weird. Not for me. So I never bother trying, ordering out, or cooking any other kind of fish. Well, that's silly so I'm making a change.

I decided to try crab-stuffed cod because it's something that I always contemplate ordering when I'm out to eat but then I chicken out. I'm glad that I finally tried it because it was great! The cod was thick and flaky. I think the sauce was a perfect combination of olive oil, butter, lemon juice, and parsley because you can really taste each ingredient. The stuffing made the fish more filling and was really tasty. The only change I might make is to decrease the bread crumbs and to use fresh crab rather than canned for a more crab-y and less carb-y stuffing.

This recipe definitely changed my mind about fish and I CANNOT wait to try more. So be on the lookout for more seafood recipes on the blog. And in the meantime, give this a try :)

Crab-Stuffed Baked Cod (4 servings)

• 1 ½ lbs cod

Sauce

• ¼ cup Chicken Broth
• 2 Tbsp lemon juice
• 1 ½ Tbsp Butter, melted
• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 tsp parsley
• salt and pepper

Crab Meat Stuffing

• 4 oz Crabmeat (I used canned)
• 3/4 cups Italian style bread crumbs
• 2 Tbsp Parmesan cheese
• 1 ½  Tbsp butter, melted
• 1 Tbsp parsley
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 Tbsp Olive Oil
• salt, pepper and paprika to taste

Topping

• bread crumbs
• parsley

1.       Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

2.       Combine all the sauce ingredients and pour into an 8x8 baking dish sprayed with non-stick spray.

3.       Make a cut into the fillet length-wise, almost all the way through (almost as if butterflying it). Peel back the top layer of the fish and put stuffing on the bottom layer of the fish. Put the top layer of the fish back over the stuffing (see the picture below, if this is confusing).

4.       Place stuffed filets in the baking dish. Drizzle olive oil on the filets. Sprinkle with bread crumbs. Bake for 30 minutes or until bread crumbs are browned and fish is flaky. Garnish with parsley.

the sauce

the stuffing

stuffing the fish!

ready to be baked

all baked!