Pacific Cod with White Bean Sauté and Saffron Aioli

Every now and again, we need to have something just a touch bad in our diet and saffron aïoli fills that bill well. It's something that we used to serve with fish often at the restaurant, especially the baccalà cakes that we would make from cod that we salted ourselves. If you've ever seen the crap that passes for commercial baccalà in the US, you'd make your own too.

Pacific Cod with White Bean Sauté and Saffron Aïoli

We had bought a really nice looking piece of Pacific cod at the store and were looking for a quick dinner. I rummaged the refrigerator and found a poblano pepper and yellow summer squash, so I chopped those with an onion and some garlic and made a quick white bean sauté as base for the fish. The saffron aïoli is a garnish that blends well with both the fish and the white beans.

Garlic, Saffron, and Salt

When making aïoli, I always insist on using the mortar and pestle to achieve a very fine paste. It is impossible to use any other method to get the garlic so finely pounded, especially when making a tiny quantity of aïoli. In this case, I pounded half a clove of minced garlic, a few saffron threads, and a pinch of salt. The sharp edges of the salt crystals act as grist to help grind the garlic and saffron to a paste.

Be aware that garlic becomes extremely pungent when pounded to a paste. In other words, a little goes a long, long way. Take this friendly word of advice from a garlic fiend.

I have had this green granite mortar and pestle a very long time, since the early 1990s, before kids. I recall it being about $45 back then, imported directly from Thailand. A similar mortar will set you back about $90-100 now, but will last forever. Mine saw daily use in the restaurant for 15 years and except for one little flake off the edge, is as good as new. 

Granite is beastly heavy, but that is what you want in a mortar. You want it to sit still on the counter, not move around, and transmit the full force of the pestle strikes into the food being pounded. Notice that I sit mine on top of a towel to keep it stationary on the counters. In the restaurant, we would put it on a cutting board directly over one of the legs of a table or, more likely, sandwich unit so that the mortar would be well supported. If all the energy is going into a flexing table top, the mortar is going to be of little use.

Garlic-Saffron Paste

While traditional aïoli is made from egg yolks and olive oil, I long ago switched to using mayonnaise, for liability reasons. I did not want to make and serve a product based on raw eggs that was not going to be consumed immediately.

I added a tablespoon of mayo directly to the mortar, mixed everything well, and let the aïoli stand for an hour before serving. Saffron, in particular, takes time to color the mayonnaise. The saffron aïoli will look quite blond when you first make it, but will go the screaming brilliant saffron yellow that you see in the top photo given time.

I only made a tablespoon of aïoli because Ann and I are both fiends for it. We could eat it with a spoon! To avoid all temptation, I made just barely enough for dinner.