I love Baccalà. It’s an everyday ingredient here in Bari. You can either buy it salted and soak it at home for 3 days or, as I do, buy it already soaked and ready to cook. In Puglia baccalà is part of the culinary tradition associated with l’Immacolata (the Feast of the Immaculate Conception) which occurs on 8th December and marks the start of the Christmas festivities. Being much in need of a bit of festive spirit I decided to cook it yesterday as a good omen 🙂 There are many ways to cook it, here’s one of my favourites:
Serves 1 or 2….depending on how hungry you are. This is the quantity I cook for just me.
- 200 grams fillet of salt cod…already soaked and ready to cook
- 4 or 5 cherry tomatoes
- 1 small onion (about 50 grams)
- 1 medium potato
- 8 or 9 green olives
- small bunch parsley
- extra virgin olive oil
- salt and freshly ground black pepper
Cut the cod into pieces and remove the skin if your fishmonger hasn’t already done this for you. Dry them and coat them lightly with flour. Chop the onion and lightly fry until transparent. Remove from pan and cook the cod in the same pan for a minute or so on each side…just till it begins to turn golden. Return the onions to the pan with the chopped tomatoes and parsley. Add salt and pepper to taste and cook for a couple of minutes. Place the cod in an small oven dish…mine is 20cmx14cm. Cut the potato into small pieces and place around the cod with the olives. Pour the tomato and onion mixture on top. Add a little water (just enough to barely cover the bottom of the dish) to keep it all nice and moist. Drizzle some extra virgin olive oil on top. Bake in the centre of the oven at 190°C for about 50 minutes. Buon appetito 🙂
Ingredients
Lightly fry the salt cod and return the onions to the pan together with the chopped tomatoes
Place the cod into an oven dish with the potatoes and olives and cover with the onion and tomato mixture
Cook with Ellen in Puglia 