Baccalà

[herp17]

Seen bakala a couple times at the italian market in philly but never know what to do with it?

How do you use it or cook with it? Any good recipes or suggestions?

Thanks!

[Gifted Gourmet]

Soak it in a bath of milk.... it's not considered an easy thing to to -- but you could just get some crostini, add tomatoes and put bakala on top of it. You could chop it up and put it in a frittata or you could put it with a nice green salad. I think Mario Batali's cookbooks have recipes in them.

Giada De Laurentiis ... in her USA Today interview..

recipes here for:

BACCALA BOLLITO DI AGLIO, OLIO

BACCALA CON I PORRI

BACCALA WITH CAPITONE SAUCE

BACCALA` FLORENTINE

BACCALA ALLA VICENTINO

BACALLA ALLA BOLOGNESE

PESCESTOCCO ALLA MESSINESE

BACCALA STEW

BACCALA FRITTO

BACCALA DI NAPOLI

CREAMED BACCALA

BACCALA ALLA LIVORNESE

BACALLA A'LOCANDIERA

BACCALA MANTECATO

ahhh, looks like you have some work ahead ..

[herp17]

Wow, didn't realized that. Well, it might be fun to try it.

Thanks!

[Hector]

One of my alltime favorite places in Rome; Filetti Di Baccallà.

A local popular place located in the jewish quarter serving nothing but delicious big bits of deep fried salt Bacallá allong with pickles, anchovies and artichokes, everything covered by olive oil. It's really great. Sadly the place was close for a renovation last time I visited Rome..

Baccallà.. one of greatest the mainstaples of Italian and mediteranean food for centuries. Served for holidays in many places on the peninsula, how come people don't know more about it more?

Edited April 29, 2006 by Hector (log)

[Pizza Napoletana]

Baccallà.. one of greatest the mainstaples of Italian and mediteranean food for centuries. Served for holidays in many places on the peninsula, how come people don't know more about it anymore?

←

My mum keep saying that it used to be a very affordable food and very popular but then the price increased rapidly (I believe could also be due to decreasing Cod stock).

When I was growing up back in Naples, I remember to be eating baccalá many times during the week. We would mainly prepared it with tomatoes, olives and cappers or "salas style" (boiled with oil, lemon and capper). Some times my mum would also do "zeppole con baccalá" ( a fermented batter with pieces of baccala fried up to obtain little dough balls). I basically use to hate it!!!! (It was baccalá all the time).

However latelly I went to Barcelona where I had it many times, all in different interesting ways and all fantastic (at Alkimia, Commerc 24 as well as many other places..)

[jayt90]

Seen bakala a couple times at the italian market in philly but never know what to do with it?

How do you use it or cook with it? Any good recipes or suggestions?

Thanks!

←

I have seldom had the Mediterranean style salt cod described here. But I have a Gaspe (premium priced) skateboard waiting to be soaked. I have always done brandade de morue, or salt cod with Ackee, both of them mellowing and blending well with the pungent fish. Haven't decided what to do, so I"ll wait and see what shows up here.

[Franci]

First of all pescestocco (stoccafisso) and baccala' are a little different. Pescestocco is the dessicated one that need to be beated up. Baccala' is the salted one. Except in Veneto where the meaning is inverted they call baccala' for stoccafisso and stoccafisso for baccala'.

A cousin of brandade de morue is baccala' mantecato alla veneziana or another interesting dish is "bandacujun", do you need a traslation? it's a dish from liguria where the stoccafisso + boiled potatoes+ ev oil, by shaking the pan turn into mush.

1. make sure to buy good quality

2. cut it and soak in water changing it very often. Consider that the thin pieces get rid of salt in very short time.

3. I suggest you to use the thinner parts for a pasta sause. it's a little boring task, but peel it from all skin and remove all bones then pull it apart by end. It make a really good pasta sauce, with tomatoes, dissalted capers (I like pennoni with it).

4. The thicker parts are very good for frying. Just dry it very well and flour it with semolina, shake excess of semolina off and deep fried in EXTRA VIRGIN. That is the oil we use, of course, do not use an unfiltered one. When we fry baccala' we normally fry other vegetables ex. califlower (bleanch it first) and make a batter eggs and flour and little salt (need to make ribbons, just like for cakes), or artichokes (don't need to bleanch but cut accordingly to their size).

Or another good dish just to start is the one as pizza napoletana suggested, with onions, tomatoes and capers, usually the baccala' is previously deep fried . In any case, what I find is that the quality of the baccala' is VERY important and mainly your results will depend from that (and never hard boil).

[Pontormo]

Baccallà.. one of greatest the mainstaples of Italian and mediteranean food for centuries. Served for holidays in many places on the peninsula, how come people don't know more about it anymore?

←

My mum keep saying that it used to be a very affordable food and very popular but then the price increased rapidly (I believe could also be due to decreasing Cod stock).

←

Baccalà crops up frequently in Carole M. Counihan's Around the Tuscan Table, an anthropological study that focuses on one extended Florentine family of humble origins (contadini).

One of the most telling photographs in the book is the chalkboard announcing the day's specials at what is simply described as "an elegant restaurant." In March 2003, Baccalà alla livornese was going for 12,50 Euros, one of the priciest items on the menu.

On the other hand, Counihan reports, dried codfish was a staple for Florentines throughout the first half of the 20th century, especially for peasants and those of "modest" means during the winter months. Her sources (in their 60's and 70's) tell her it was the cheapest thing of all and the first thing they purchased after selling their eggs, chickens and rabbits, using the little left over for household necessities. Younger generations she interviewed had little taste for the baccalà that their elders still craved. Dishes prepared with the dried codfish really went out of favor in the 1980s.

I suspect that a certain number of years had to lapse for baccalà to lose its associations with poverty and lean times. Nostalgia transformed the humble stuff into something desirable, exotic for Florentines used to eating well, and of course, for tourists.

Edited May 11, 2006 by Pontormo (log)

[Andrew Fenton]

One of my alltime favorite places in Rome; Filetti Di Baccallà.

A local popular place located in the jewish quarter serving nothing but delicious  big bits of deep fried salt Bacallá allong with pickles, anchovies and artichokes, everything covered by olive oil. It's really great. Sadly the place was close for a renovation last time I visited Rome..

If that's the place I'm thinking of-- I've walked by a bunch of times, though I think it's in the Campo de' Fiori area, not the Ghetto-- you'll be sad to learn that it's still closed. I always wondered what was up with it.

Fortunately, it's not too hard to get good filetti di baccala in Rome. Lots of places (pizzerie and so forth) that sell fried foods will have filetti in addition to suppli, fiori di zucca, etc. I avoided the baccala for a while, figuring that it would be super-salty. It's not; in fact, it's not too different fish-and-chips style cod, and when it's done right, man, is it ever good...

[Culinista]

There are a lot of Spanish preparations as well, but that's for a different board. The Basques practically fetishize it.

Depending on the thickness of the piece, I desalt it slowly over 3-5 days. The first day or two I leave it in the same water, then start changing the water, about 4 times overall. The key is to desalt to the right level, but still leave a little saltiness.

Good quality baccala can be used raw in salads, best with roasted vegetables. I like to deep-fry bacalao, as well as make croquettes. It also takes well to spicy tomato sauces.

The best baccala dish I had in Italy was the baccala tripe at Caino, wrapped in guanciale. (Baccala tripe is characteristic of Catalunya). Marvelous.

[divina]

Luckily here in FLorence I can pick up the Baccala' already soaked , everyday except Monday!

Baccala' alla livornese

We lightly flour the presoaked cod.

Pan fry in extra virgin olive oil.

then place in a tomato sauce made with sauteed leaks, garlic and chili peppers.

the cod finishes steaming in the sauce.

Serve with chopped parsley on top.

[hathor]

Over on the Cooking and Cuisine of Liguria thread, baccala shows up as a regular ingredient.

Last night was supposed to be a straight up Ligurian type recipe with fried baccala and a salsa verde, but Divinia's suggestion made me hungry for a livornese sauce. All in all, an excellent meal, with the rich baccala being a good foil for the sharpness of the sauce.

[StevenC]

I love any salt-cod preparation, but my favorite is the most simple: slather a thick baccalà steak with olive oil, roast it over a charcoal fire, and serve it on a mound of deep-fried potato slices with some minced parsley and green olives.

Here in the United States it can be difficult to find pieces of baccalà that are sufficiently thick for this preparation, especially compared to wonderful examples for sale in Italy, Spain and (especially) Portugal. A lot of the stuff, even in upscale stores, tends to be a thin, stringy and overpriced. I've had my best luck at Portuguese fish stores in New England.

[lambretta76]

Seabra's Markets, in Newark but also strewn throughout the Northeast in Portuguese areas, sells dozens of varieties of baccala, ranging from about $3.99 a pound to like $20 a pound (that must be some good cod!)

I just got some from the Fairway in Brooklyn and am going to make baccala mantecata once it's cleaned...