Panko and Sesame Crusted Cod with Tonnato Sauce & Green Beans

This sauce will change your life.

Why have sonnets and love songs not been written about this sauce? If I were a popstar, this would be what I sang about. (This one sentence probably explains why I am not a popstar). Although maybe there are songs written about tonnato sauce and we all just assumed they were about romantic love, but no, they were actually about a delicious tuna based sauce. Are you still reading this? It’s just really important to me that you understand how much I love this sauce. The first time I had it was at the restaurant I worked at and it kind of blew my mind with its deliciousness. It is so much greater than the sum of its parts.

Tonnato sauce is Italian in origin and often made of tuna, anchovies, lemon juice, olive oil and egg yolks. It’s a silky smooth, creamy, slightly salty umami sauce. Describing it doesn’t do it justice as I know blitzed tuna doesn’t sound like it would be good but it’s so much more than just blitzed tuna - you need to try it. Traditionally it’s served with very thin slices of veal in a famous dish called Vitello Tonnato - but it’s also amazing as a dressing on crunchy green beans, or with sliced tomatoes, a layer in a very good sandwich or a dip for crudité.

And whilst traditionally it’s made with egg yolks and you kind of create a mayo type consistency as you build the sauce, my version has a short cut as we just use mayonnaise. Mayonnaise is another condiment I could write Shakespeare worthy sonnets about so I make no apologies for using it. It’s delicious and I could eat it on everything. I don’t but I definitely could. Anyway the result is that this tonnato sauce takes approx. 90 seconds to put together, you couldn’t possibly mess it up and it’s v v good.

The combination of the creamy sauce with the hot crunchy sesame panko crusted fish is honestly so incredibly good. Add a green bean and tomato salad spiked with chopped red onion and that’s a desert island dish right there.

I think I would describe this cod as kind-of-like-a-schnitzel because it is, kind of. Or a Milanese. My cod fillet was thick as they tend to be so I carefully bashed it to make it thinner and then coated it in a layer of sesame flecked panko breadcrumbs before frying. You could also do this with a fillet of something like a sea bass or sea bream and then you wouldn’t have to do the bashing. But where’s the fun in that? You do have to be a gentle with the cod because it’s much more delicate than something like chicken and you don’t want it to completely fall apart.

This is such a good weeknight supper but would also make an excellent dinner party dish. You could get most of it prepped ahead of time and then when ready to eat you’d just fry off the fish and assemble the salad. Your guests will LOVE it.

For the cod schnitzel: