Recipe: Baccala (salt cod)

Baccala (salt cod)
From: Kitchenlink
rec.food.cooking/Diane M. Ferrell

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-inch 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.

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.