Italian Baccala
rec.food.cooking/Diane M. Ferrell (1996)

We cook baccala (that's how we spell it here in Colo.) every Christmas as part of our traditional Italian Christmas dinner.

I usually purchase the dried cod at an Italian deli. I rinse the salt off the cod then place the cod in a deep stainless steel bowl and cover with cold water. For about three days I change the water several times, rinsing the cod well each time. I continue this until the cod has swelled and will actually flake apart.

When the cod is ready to cook, I cut it into pieces about 3-4 inches square. I heat up about 1/2" of extra virgin olive oil in a heavy skillet, dip the cod in batter and lightly fry until golden. As I remove the cod from the frying pan I let it drain a few moments on a paper towel then layer the cod in a baking dish. In between the layers I place very, very thin slices of onion and lemon and chop up some fresh basil to sprinkle between the layers. I keep the cod covered with foil to keep it warm and then bake for about 15 minutes in a medium oven--about 300 degrees. My family loves it. They especially love it the next day when it's cold. My two oldest daughters will eat it like candy when it's cold. My youngest won't even touch fish of anykind (she really doesn't know how to eat!).

Here's the batter.

1 cup flour
1 egg
garlic salt to taste
enough milk to make a very thin runny batter.

Mix everything with a whisk then dip each piece of fish into the batter and let the batter run off a little before placing the frying pan. Remember that you can't have the pan too hot (about medium high) because olive oil has a lower burning point than vegetable oil.

Something else that is very traditional is to fry the cod well, as above, then about 1/2 hour before eating put the fried cod in a good spaghetti sauce and serve it over hand made spaghetti. Very, Very good.