Good Tips for Broiling Fish - Convection Broil vs Regular Broil

Cooking an entire meal in your Convection or Steam oven is an easy way to prepare simple healthy meals, but the ovens can also be used to create wonderful meals using totally different heat settings. In this meal, the cod is broiled in the Convection oven while the cabbage is steamed in the Steam oven. The cooking time for both is approximately 7 minutes, however, the flavorful miso glaze takes about 25 minutes to cook so definitely get that started first.

Miso Glazed Broiled Cod with Steamed Cabbage

In the Broil mode, the goal is not to heat the entire oven, but rather to get the heating element to the desired temperature quickly for a brief period of high-heat cooking, generally, a 5-minute preheat time is sufficient. Most electric ovens feature a Convection Broil mode as well as a regular Broil mode and either can be used with good results.

Marinating the Cod

Because the Broil mode directs high heat at food it can have a drying effect on the food. Engaging the fan helps preserve moisture in the food and ensures even cooking. So, broiling with Convection is ideal for broiling fish, meats, and poultry. The dryer heat of the regular Broil mode will produce good caramelization when broiling vegetables such as mushrooms, asparagus, zucchini, onions, and peppers.

My video about Convection Broil provides more information and in-depth tips for broiling in both gas and electric ovens.

The Choreography for Broiling Cod and Steaming Cabbage

When you have a good understanding of the tools of your ovens and how they can work for you as you decide on which recipes to cook you can assign a job to each oven to help you orchestrate the cooking.

This Convection meal only includes two dishes but if you want to serve rice with this meal it can also be cooked in the steam oven, the cooking time will be the same as indicated on the package for stovetop cooking. Generally, when cooking rice in the steam oven a ratio of 1 ¾ cups of water to 1 cup of rice rather than 2 cups of water will yield better results.

The cabbage and vegetables for the garnish can be prepped while the sauce is cooking, then by the time the ovens have come to temperature and the fish and cabbage are cooked everything will be ready to serve. So with little effort you will have created a delicious meal.

Convection and Steam ovens feature a variety of cooking modes that can really simplify cooking, simple meals such as this one are a good way to practice getting the most out of your ovens.

I hope you will check out my next post, which will feature a long slow cooking a 4-hour roasted pork shoulder in the Steam oven.

Larissa, Your Convection Enthusiast