Salt Cod -- how to use it, cook with it?

[sabg]

i have been reading the bouchon cookbook like a novel...keller says he makes his own salt cod..get cod and put it in salt..i am familiar with the "unsalting' part but is that all you have to do is cover it in salt ? then take it out? i bot a piece last night but wanted to see who else has done this..i think if there was any way to add any extra steps, keller would have come up with them but i couldn't find anything other than"salt the cod"

[johnnyd]

In the old days, cod was packed, flat in pine boxes of salt. If you do it yourself, prepare for a powerful smell!

[jackal10]

Traditional salt cod or Baccalao is dried as well as salted. This changes the flavour and texture some.

You can use cod salted for many salt cod dishes instead or reconstituted dried salt cod. Its a slightly different product, lighter tasting to me.

If you do salt your own be sure to wash it well, soaking in running water, as it comes out very salty.

I should note that cod is now an over-fished endangered species, if that worries you or your customers.

[budrichard]

Before we fished out the Grand Banks and before the age of air freight, European nations fished the cod on the Grand Banks. The only method of preservation was salt for the voyage home. That is the reason that their are salt cod recipes in every European culture. Why the Scandanavans used lye is beyond me except that maybe they burned so much wood to keep warm, that they had lots of ashes.

The fish were gutted, split and thrown in the holds with layers of salt.

Read 'Captains Corageous' or view the movie for an idea of what it was like.-Dick

[sabg]

In the old days, cod was packed, flat in pine boxes of salt. If you do it yourself, prepare for a powerful smell! 

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do you think if i do it in a tupperware with lid it will stink up everything in my fridge...i wreally want to try this but not risk everything else in the fridge

[McDuff]

I'm intrigued by what Keller spells out in Bouchon too. We have the salt cod in the boxes at work and I want to make brandade de morue after watching Jacques make it last week on the tube. I looked it up in Balthazar, Bouchon, Les Halles and they all have potatoes, I think. Balthazar uses a garlic cream, Bouchon uses garlic confit. An old Raymond Oliver book says that brandade "most emphatically does not contain potatoes...." The stuff at work is from Canada, but there are enough Italian and Portugese markets around here to give me a good choice. Or I just might try salting a piece myself.

[jayt90]

I'm intrigued by what Keller spells out in Bouchon too. We have the salt cod in the boxes at work and I want to make brandade de morue after watching Jacques make it last week on the tube. I looked it up in Balthazar, Bouchon, Les Halles and they all have potatoes, I think. Balthazar uses a garlic cream, Bouchon uses garlic confit. An old Raymond Oliver book says that brandade "most emphatically does not contain potatoes...." The stuff at work is from Canada, but there are enough Italian and Portugese markets around here to give me a good choice. Or I just might try salting a piece myself.

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Oliver is taking the purist approach but most versions use potatoes, garlic, evoo, and many finish with cream. The purists would mash indredients with mortar and pestle, then put it through a sieve. That's a lot of work, and can be speeded up by using a food processor briefly, and forcing the mixture through a food mill. That's what I do, and it always works well. I wish I had seen Jacques' take on it, but maybe I can find it in one of his books, or wait for a re-run.

I prefer the Canadian (Sable Island, N.S.) product, sold in a refridgerated package, as it comes around with 3 or 4 changes of water in 12-24 hrs. The skateboard product takes a lot more soaking, and whenever I have ordered it in Portuguese or Caribbean restaurants, it seemed too salty for my tatse.

[McDuff]

I tuned into Jacques right at the point where he was zipping it through the cuisinart.

He put it in a gratin dish and sprinkled it with Parmagiano and browned it, then served it with toast triangles. Never had it, but don't imagine I wouldn't like it, as I am a big fan of the salted cured fish.

And speaking of Sable Island, ever read Farley Mowat's The Boat That Wouldn't Float? I'd love to visit Sable Island, Miquelon and all those places. Went to PEI once and came back and called the Canadian consulate to see how to emigrate.

[Busboy]

The Keller thing of buying $12/lb fresh cod to salt it into $4/lb salt cod and then reconstituting it as brandade strikes me as the height of artifice -- assuming you don't have the luxury, as he and I have, of picking up salt cod from a couple of different sources. Very faux peasant: "I want the authenticity of their recipes, but I find their ingredients lacking." It's like picking up an old blues number and putting strings behind it.

Now that I have that out of the way, I recently had some excellent brandade here in DC, at Pesce, and it definitely had potatoes and a little bit of cream. Not a lot, mind you; you still knew you were eating salt cod. Just enough to stretch fish and cut the taste a bit, as you might imagine a someone poor enough to be living on salt cod but innovative enough to make it taste good might do. When I had Balthazar's, I thought it was way too sweet, creamy and refined. Quite edible, but lacking soul.

I guess, like every other damn French (and Italian and Southern) recipe, that there are a dozen different versions of Brandade, all equally "authentic."

"Skateboard prodct." I always think of it as "roadkill cod."

[chromedome]

Salt cod is something of a culinary touchstone for me, I guess. We used to get "CARE packages" from Newfoundland when I was a kid...on my father's side, we have been fishermen and boatbuilders all the way back to my original ancestor, who sailed his homebuilt 26ft boat from the West Country to Newfoundland back when Victoria was a young mom.

My father broke the mold by running off to join the navy, and met my mother here on the mainland (to Newfoundlanders, you must understand, Canada consists of Newfoundland and the mainland. I have been asked in all seriousness, while living in Nova Scotia, whether I knew so-and-so on the mainland...in Fort MacMurray, 3000 miles away).

Traditionally, the cod were split up the middle and the backbone removed, then layered with salt and left for a period of a day or two (depending on region and personal preference). They would then be rinsed and placed on a flat platform called a "flake" to dry in the sun. When they'd reached the desired (skateboard) texture, they'd be gathered up into bundles for sale or storage, as the case may be. My mother has a picture of the three-year-old 'Dome helping Grampa do the gathering.

The European fleets generally used a different technique, salting down the cod in barrels of brine.

Smaller fish were salted down without being split. These were referred to as "rounders," at least in White Bay, and were often preferred for family consumption as a) they tended to be less salty, and b) they didn't sell for much.

The sort of curing that's referred to upthread is not uncommon in Newfoundland, these days. My uncle used to sell that out of his pickup as "corned" cod. Brine it or salt it for just a few hours, then pack it up and freeze it for the winter. Gives you a flavour reminiscent of the "old school," but lighter and with more of a fresh fish character.

I like both, personally. These days, I get my little "fix" by going to the Saturday market at a nearby mall where a wonderful older Jamaican lady sells little codcakes for the absurdly low price of two bits.

[jackal10]

I reccomend "Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World" by

Mark Kurlansky ISBN: 0099268701.

Salt cod was incredibly important as a storable protein source. It was introduced to the West Indies as cheap food for slaves, which is where their salt cod dishes like salt cod and ackee came from.

Brandade without potatoes or other extenders, just salt cod, garlic and olive oil is stronger flavoured, and better if you are using it as a spread on toast, like a pate, or as I have had it in Nimes, paired with tapanade, a pot of black tapenande and a pot of white brandade and some good bread as a starter.

If you eating it as a gratin its better diluted with abou 50% potato, cream etc. Even better with some truffle or truffle oil

[The Hersch]

The Keller thing of buying $12/lb fresh cod to salt it into $4/lb salt cod

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Excuse me, but where can you get salt cod for $4 a pound? I need to shop there.

[chromedome]

I've been halfway keeping an eye out for Kurlansky's book. Read the one on salt and it was outstanding.

[Busboy]

The Keller thing of buying $12/lb fresh cod to salt it into $4/lb salt cod

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Excuse me, but where can you get salt cod for $4 a pound? I need to shop there.

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Inspired by this thread, I hit the bodega around the corner from my house here in DC. They had three (!) grades of salt cod; $2.99/lb; $4.99/lb (the roadkill version) and $5.99/lb -- good Nova Scotia stuff.

I'm sure I'll wreck the recipe again but, as the snowstorm allegedly approaches, I'm soaking the stuff in hopes of a brandade and bean soup (big -ass hambone ready to go) feast.

[LindaK]

sabg, the only instructions I've ever seen for house-cured salt cod is in The Zuni Cafe Cookbook by Judi Rogers. It doesn't appear to be difficult but based on Roger's comments about the odor, I hope you have a second refrigerator.

I love salt cod but have never considered curing it myself. One advantage is that you can vary the length of the cure. For example, Rogers indicates that she serves a salt cod carpaccio with house-cured cod that has been salted for only 2-3 days. Sounds delicious but I wouldn't try it with the stuff I buy from the store.

The last time I made brandade was the evening of a really big snowstorm in January. Perfect cold weather food for a bunch of friends.

[The Hersch]

The Keller thing of buying $12/lb fresh cod to salt it into $4/lb salt cod

←

Excuse me, but where can you get salt cod for $4 a pound? I need to shop there.

←

Inspired by this thread, I hit the bodega around the corner from my house here in DC. They had three (!) grades of salt cod; $2.99/lb; $4.99/lb (the roadkill version) and $5.99/lb -- good Nova Scotia stuff.

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I asked WHERE? Where is your corner that I could go around to get the salt cod you're getting? I'm in DC too. Don't you want to share? And you say 4.99 is the roadkill version....what's the 2.99 then? The roadkill scraped off your tires? And the 5.99 stuff...is that with skin and bones included? I deeply love salt cod, but I can usually find only fillet for about $9.00 a pound, which I still think is worth it.

[Bux]

My English language edition of the Larousse Gastronomic offers a recipe for brandade that does not include potatoes, but it may be the only one I've seen that doesn't.

[jackal10]

I don't understand the comments about odour. You can lightly salt cod, certainly enough for cooking as brandade, in a few hours or ovemight. If your fish starts to small in that time, change your fishmonger

"Fish and visitors smell in three days."

Benjamin Franklin, (1706 - 1790) Poor Richard's Almanack, 1736

[Busboy]

The Keller thing of buying $12/lb fresh cod to salt it into $4/lb salt cod

←

Excuse me, but where can you get salt cod for $4 a pound? I need to shop there.

←

Inspired by this thread, I hit the bodega around the corner from my house here in DC. They had three (!) grades of salt cod; $2.99/lb; $4.99/lb (the roadkill version) and $5.99/lb -- good Nova Scotia stuff.

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I asked WHERE? Where is your corner that I could go around to get the salt cod you're getting? I'm in DC too. Don't you want to share? And you say 4.99 is the roadkill version....what's the 2.99 then? The roadkill scraped off your tires? And the 5.99 stuff...is that with skin and bones included? I deeply love salt cod, but I can usually find only fillet for about $9.00 a pound, which I still think is worth it.

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I go to the Super Saver market on Mt. Pleasant Street, just above Kenyon. The $2.99 version is thin, shingle-shaped pieces with skin on and, I believe, bones intact. It comes in a little plastic bag. The $5.99 is the same brand, but the fish has been skinned and boned, and filets seem thicker. The "roadkill" version, $4.99, is the whole fish, split, flatened and salted, as you may have seen in Italian markets.

They also sell pretty good-looking salt cod at Vace Pizza, on Connecticut Ave in Cleveland Park, but I am unsure of the price.

[johnnyd]

I don't understand the comments about odour. You can lightly salt cod, certainly enough for cooking as brandade, in a few hours or ovemight. If your fish starts to small in that time, change your fishmonger

I lived in Portugal as a kid and when we went to town, there was a barn by the fishing boats that reeked soooo baaaad, I was scared to death. My mom said it was where they salted cod in big barrels. I don't think there was any refrigeration involved and I didn't have the stuffing to go near the place to find out. One of those childhood memories that lives in the "nightmare" file of the brain.

I bet the tupperware plan will work. Just wrap the box in a plastic supermarket bag and seal with rubberbands. Let me know how it works out, I might want to try it too.

[jayt90]

With several types of salt cod available, it is tempting to try them all. I have settled on the softish, refrigerated type because it works best for me. The others may have a stronger smell/taste, and more bones or salt to get rid of. But you need some of this off-flavour to get the real salt cod taste. I think it would be much more difficult to get authentic flavour by salting fresh cod; this sounds like a bourgeois effort to me. Rob Feenie made a brandade with fresh cod on his show, once. Once is enough for me.

One other note: Two low priced versions of salt fish are available. Salt cod pieces, and salted pollack, which is possibly the same as west coast cod. I have given up on both, as lacking in the real cod flavour and scent.

[akur23]

The "roadkill" version, $4.99, is the whole fish, split, flatened and salted, as you may have seen in Italian markets. 

I got some of this at the Green Dragon market in Ephrata (PA). We go 2-3 times a year and I load up then.

[The Hersch]

Thanks for the info, busboy. I will check it out. Actually, it just popped into my head that they sometimes have salt cod at a fairly low price at Rodman's.

[McDuff]

So I made the brandade. And sure wish I'd thought to buy some black olive tapenade to go with it. It was ok. I made Keller's garlic confit, poached the desalted fish in milk, whizzed it in the cuisinart, put it in the kitchen aid, added some boiled Yukon golds I pushed through a sieve, several cloves of the confit and whipped with the paddle, adding olive oil as I went along. then I ground some pepper into it, put in some paprika because that word jumped out of Keller's recipe at me, plopped it into a gratin dish, sprinkled it with panko and grana padano, drizzled it with olive oil and baked till brown. We ate it spread on home made baquettes. Had it reheated this afternoon with cold fried eggplant slices with a clove of the confit smooshed onto them, and more French bread. I'll be moving on to some other gem of the repertoire de la cuisine.

[touaregsand]

The Keller thing of buying $12/lb fresh cod to salt it into $4/lb salt cod and then reconstituting it as brandade strikes me as the height of artifice -- assuming you don't have the luxury, as he and I have, of picking up salt cod from a couple of different sources.  Very faux peasant: "I want the authenticity of their recipes, but I find their ingredients lacking."  It's like picking up an old blues number and putting strings behind it.

Now that I have that out of the way, I recently had some excellent brandade here in DC, at Pesce, and it definitely had potatoes and a little bit of cream.  Not a lot, mind you; you still knew you were eating salt cod.  Just enough to stretch fish and cut the taste a bit, as you might imagine a someone poor enough to be living on salt cod but innovative enough to make it taste good might do.  When I had Balthazar's, I thought it was way too sweet, creamy and refined.  Quite edible, but lacking soul. 

I guess, like every other damn French (and Italian and Southern) recipe, that there are a dozen different versions of Brandade, all equally "authentic."

"Skateboard prodct."   I always think of it as "roadkill cod."

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I tend to agree that it's the height of artifice. What's the point? He can't find really high quality salt cod? It''s been processed for eons. I'm sure it can't be too hard to find a company that meets even Keller's standards or produce even better. He strains way too much too. In his next cookbook he will probably filter his sauces through some contraption. But I'm getting off topic here.

I'll have to ask my husband about the potato thing. I'm almost sure it goes either way. But he probably has some story that I don't know about. I may wear the pants in the family but he wears the chef's whites.