The Columbia College Chicago Covering International Fests: Iceland class is 10 days away from heading to Reykjavík, where they will daily blog the Iceland Airwaves Music Festival. While you may not be there to join in the fun, you can follow their journey and also try an Icelandic recipe the class made.
Though Iceland isn’t necessarily world-renowned for its exquisite dining and cuisine, I’m nonetheless told you can actually get a great meal on the small island. Of course, positioned so far north and surrounded by water, one must imagine that Icelandic chefs cook a mean fish.
I’m no Icelandic chef, but I love fish, so I decided to gather our class before we head to Iceland Airwaves and test out an Icelandic cod recipe on them.
The recipe I found is for almond-coated beer-battered cod. Beer battering is a more American method of preparing cod; I found a few recipes from professional Icelandic chefs like Agnar Sverrisson, but these recipes were ridiculously complicated. Since none of us are culinary arts students, I decided simple was better.
Nearly everyone had a turn crushing some almonds while I mixed the batter. Luckily, Becky brought some cookies and cake balls to hold us over until the fish was ready.
We also discovered that Madeline has an affinity for puppies, as Sid brought along her adorable Chihuahua, Pheobe.
After battering the cod and coating it with almonds, it was into the oven! Topher, Andrew, and Paul, who were kind enough to host, would have to endure a cod-and-almond smell throughout their apartment for the next couple of days.
The cod baked for about ten minutes; we ended up doing two separate batches, since for some reason I bought three and a half pounds of it. It was a bit messy, but luckily, everyone seemed to enjoy it! Though I’m happy with our work, I’m really looking forward to tasting professionally prepared Icelandic cod. I don’t have long to wait!
I found the recipe from the website of Iceland Brand Seafood. We did our best to follow the recipe to the letter, though we did use crushed almonds instead of sliced. And most of our beer was used for drinking, not cooking.
Standby! 