Salt and pepper scrod, smear on the yogurt-mayo combo and throw it in the oven. Wait a bit, then add a pound of asparagus (two pounds works too), just so you don’t have a meal that’s white fish on white plate with white sauce. Ten minutes of prep, half an hour while everything cooks – wango-tango and Bob’s your uncle – there’s dinner. We didn’t bother adding a starch because we had a loaf of sourdough bread at hand.

This is the second of three simple fish recipes that Jody and I put on The Garum Factory to-do list in order to entice people to cook more fish at home, particularly in light of the empty meat and poultry shelves in many markets these days. I can also confirm, that while I’m not a fan of leftover fish, this was great in a salad the next day. Think about it – the leftovers are cold seafood in a sauce based on mayonnaise.

We cooked this recipe twice – the trial run and then the actual photo shoot. We unknowingly purchased previously frozen scrod the second time around and there was a dramatic difference in the amount of juice the fish released as it baked (way more with the frozen), which changed our thinking a bit. If this happens to you, just pour off the extra fish juice until you have about a half cup lingering in the bottom of the pan, then pick up the recipe when it says to mix in the leftover yogurt-mayo with fish juice to make a sauce. Cooking time is the same. No judgement on fresh versus frozen. In spite of our own preferences we were surprised at how good it was, and I gobbled up leftovers.

If you’re not from New England, then the term “scrod” may be unfamiliar. Every newcomer to Boston eventually runs into the local straightman who announces, “I got scrod last night.” To which his partner wag says, “Funny, I’ve never heard the past participle used in conversation.” [Insert rimshot.]

Originally “scrod” meant any small whitefish – typically haddock or cod – that was split down the middle and broiled or baked. Today it refers to the smallest category of fillet of any whitefish – cod, haddock, pollock, hake – but whenever we see fish labeled scrod it’s almost always haddock or cod, with hake and pollock appearing under their own names, and larger cod or haddock labeled as themselves. We used haddock scrod for this recipe. Enjoy.

Ken

Jody Notes

My Dad was a mayonnaise guy, mostly store-bought, but twice a year he made it himself – oil, egg and whisk – which he called “Adams mayonnaise.” Adams mayonnaise only appeared in coleslaw at Thanksgiving and as an accompaniment for tomato-clam aspic at Christmas. He made it with tarragon vinegar and it was deliciously over-salted. 

I remember my father taking on dinner responsibilities in the period after he retired when my mother was still working. Simple meals, unlike the M.F.K. Fisher and Elizabeth David creations my mother made on weekends. This is his recipe – I have no idea where he got it. My father was a rare book librarian and it’s fun to speculate that at his monthly lunch at the Club of Odd Volumes in Boston he and his fellow bow-tied antiquarians were hotly swapping fish recipes instead of book gossip.

We were a Hellman’s family, not a Miracle Whip family, and it’s possible he found the recipe on the label of a Hellman’s jar. Regular yogurt almost certainly featured in the version he made – Greek yogurt didn’t hit the American kitchen table in a big way until after he was gone. If you’re up for it, homemade mayonnaise might take this dish up a notch, but it’s pretty damn good already. But this is an it-is-what-is recipe, with my father’s culinary fingerprints all over it, including the Worcestershire sauce (English garum!), which comports with our family living in England at different times in my childhood – once in London, another time in Oxford. It’s simple and yummy. If there are leftovers, you have an instant fish salad. Break up the fish a bit, add some sliced scallions, chopped celery, herbs and serve it the way he would have. . . on toast.

The recipe in today’s post is a handshake with memory. Worcestershire sauce and lemon juice are my father; according to my mother he also added chives, probably dried ones. (Oops! We lost the dried chives.) The lemon zest, garlic and rosemary are me. Thanks, Dad.