When I began writing on this site, the edible library, I had intended to use my love of books to inspire my love of cooking. My concept was essentially this: for each appropriate book I read, I would conceive of a recipe that matched that book in some way, whether through an associated memory or idea, or by a dish or cuisine explicitly mentioned. As I began to write, I started to find my task a bit daunting. I still liked the idea, but actually pairing a book and recipe for each post is a lot of work! The book must be read, notes should be made, and a review/synopsis written. Then, I would need to choose a recipe, cook it so that it turned out well, and have satisfactory accompanying photos of the dish in question. Phew. So, I did end up posting on food and books (as well as tea!) but usually separately rather than together.
Today, however, I will attempt to write on a book and a dish in the same post. The book is Cod by Mark Kurlansky which I read over the summer and wrote a short post about here.
“Life is saltfish.” -Halldór Laxness
I really enjoyed this book, and though I was aware of what a staple food this fish is in many areas of the world (being from the East Coast, I’ve eaten my share of fish cakes and chowder!), but had no idea of the role this fish has played in trade and culture, not to mention cuisine, in centuries past. The book ranges all over the world: from Newfoundland to the Basque region of Spain, to Iceland, Africa, the West Indies and France. I found it an absorbing and comprehensive history of this fish, as well as of the people who catch and eat it. The book is thoughtful and entertaining, but its undercurrent is a bit darker. The book begins with a view of Newfoundland’s harbors, left mainly empty after the 1994 moratorium on codfishing, and details what this has meant for families there (and elsewhere) who know no other way to make a living.
After reading the book, I set about deciding what to cook. There are dozens of recipes for cod included in the book, so I had a lot of options… but didn’t feel inspired by them (though many were funny to read). Inspiration finally struck a week ago, when we were eating dinner at a wonderful Portuguese restaurant in Old Montreal called Solmar, which is owned by a man that C. plays soccer with. We were having dinner with C’s soccer team (and their wives and girlfriends) and were sharing lots of dishes from the set menu that was prepared for us. We ate a lot of delicious seafood, salads, olives, duck breast, and dessert crepes, but the unexpected star of the meal (for us) was actually a dish called Bacalhau assado, a Portuguese saltcod dish with onions and potatoes.
red onion, garlic, flaked cod, olive oil, salt & pepper
I searched online looking for a recipe that looked like what we’d eaten, but didn’t find exactly what I was looking for. The version of this dish that we ate at Solmar combined salt cod with mashed potatoes, and all the recipes I found seemed to call for strips or cubes of fried potatoes (or even packaged french fries!) so I ignored those recipes and just tried to recreate the dish we ate from memory/instinct. My instinct told me that a lot of the flavor came from copious amounts of olive oil, so this dish is not necessarily diet-friendly.
Bacalhau Assado, Portuguese-style cod casserole (to feed 2 hungry- or 4 light-eaters)
1/2lb salt cod, desalinated
2-3 potatoes
1 large onion
4-5 cloves of garlic
5+ Tbsp of olive oil
To desalinate the cod, first rinse salt off under cold running water, then soak it in cold water (in the fridge) for a day, changing water frequently.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees Celsius.
Peel and boil the potatoes until soft, then mash them roughly. Meanwhile, cut up onion and saute it in olive oil. When it’s almost done, add the chopped garlic and cook for another minute or two. Set aside. Cover the cod with fresh water in a (non-aluminum) pot, and boil until cooked, 8-10 minutes. Drain off the water, flake the cod and remove any bits of skin or bones. Put the cooked fish into a casserole dish, add the cooked onion and garlic and 4 Tbsp of olive oil, and mix them together. Add salt and pepper to taste–do not oversalt, the cod will likely still be quite salty. Put the mashed potatoes on top of the fish and onion layer, and smooth them down evenly. Put 1Tbsp of olive oil on top of the potatoes, and spread it evenly over them, to help the top brown. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, if desired. Bake at 350C for 20 mins, covered. Then remove cover and cook for 10 or more minutes, until the top is as brown as you like.
To serve, cut the casserole and put a rectangle of it on each plate. Drizzle with additional olive oil, and garnish with fresh parsley and a few olives (preferably Portuguese). Enjoy!
goes well with salad
Note: many recipes I read for a similar dish to this involved inverting the casserole so that the fish is on top before cooking, and some were garnished with eggs, as well, but I made it this way because it was closest to how it was served at Solmar. ‘the edible library’ makes no claims to the authenticity of the dish! Portugal has a wealth of salted cod recipes, many of which are also made with potatoes, and the variations are endless and differ in each area of the country.
I enjoyed this a lot, and found that it tasted very much like my grandmother’s fish cakes! If you mixed everything together, formed it into patties and panfried them, I imagine it’d be basically the same thing.
love,
meg
