HOMAGE TO BACALAO

 

Salt cod is poached in olive oil, finished in a tomato sauce with olives.

As Semana Santa rolls around again, I am preparing my annual homage to bacalao—dry salt cod—one of the most emblematic foods for Holy Week in Spain. During Lent, the religious observe days of vigilia, or fasting days, when meat is proscribed. In bygone times, before refrigeration, often salt cod was the only fish available. So this fish—which is not even fished in Spanish waters—has become part of the Holy Week culture. Every region of the country has its distinctive bacalao recipes. 

Salt cod is to fresh fish sort of like ham is to fresh pork. Salt-curing alters the taste and texture of the fish. Cod must be soaked in water to rehydrate it and remove much of the salt.  Salt cod is not “raw,” as the curing process, in effect, cooks it. It only needs to be gently heated, just until the flakes sort of slide apart. 

This year I’m preparing a traditional Andalusian bacalao recipe, cooking the cod with a tomato sauce with olives. Instead of the traditional way of first flouring and quick-frying the pieces of cod, I am preparing them in confit, poached in olive oil at low temperature. 

The cod confit can be made in the oven or in a heavy pan or cazuela on top of the stove. I decided it would be easier to control the temperature in the oven. In any case, you’ll need an instant-read or deep-frying thermometer to check the temperature of the oil. Remember, the cod doesn’t need cooking. It only needs to heat until, when prodded with a fork, the flakes separate easily. 

Poaching oil can be used to fry potatoes to accompany the cod and sauce.

Instead of parsley, I'm using sprigs of wild fennel to garnish the cod in tomato sauce. A touch of spring.

Cod is perfectly cooked when flakes easily separate. 

Salt Cod with Tomato Sauce and Olives, Andalusian Style

Bacalao con Tomate y Aceitunas a la Andaluza

Start this recipe two days in advance of serving, as the salt cod needs to soak covered in water for 36 hours.

A side of salt cod. This weighed about 25 ounces and, after filleting and trimming, yielded four fillets and thinner scraps to be saved for another use.

Takes patience to remove fins, spine and small bones from the cod. Easier--buy lomo, center-cut fillets. 

Fillets ready! I saved the two smallest pieces for another recipe.

You can buy lomos de bacalao, thick, center-cut pieces, almost boneless, or a whole side of salt cod. If you start out with a whole fish, after soaking, use a filleting knife to remove fins, center spine and bones. Do not remove the skin, as the gelatin in the skin helps to thicken the tomato sauce. Divide into four thick pieces. Save the thin and scrappy bits for another use.

Use good extra virgin olive oil for the confit. You’ll need a little of the poaching oil to make the tomato sauce. The remainder can be used for another purpose—for example, to fry potatoes to accompany the cod. It’s good, too, in mayonnaise or dressing for tuna or other seafood salad. 

Serves 4.

1 pound salt cod fillets

1 ½ cups extra virgin olive oil (more, as needed)

4 cloves garlic

¾ cup chopped onion

3 cups chopped or crushed canned tomatoes

1 bay leaf

Sprig of thyme, fennel or oregano (optional)

¼ teaspoon salt

Black or green olives, pitted

Chopped fennel or parsley, to garnish

Hard-boiled eggs, quartered, to serve

Fried potatoes to accompany (optional)

36 hours before serving:

Cut the cod into four more or less equal portions. Do not remove the skin. Rinse the cod in running water and place it in a non-reactive container. Cover the cod with cold water. Cover the container and refrigerate. Drain and cover with fresh water four times during the soaking period, about 36 hours total.

To cook the cod:

Drain the cod, squeezing it gently to expel retained water. Pat the pieces dry. Pour some of the oil into a baking dish just large enough to hold the pieces of cod in a single layer. Place the cod in the dish, skin side down, and add the remaining oil to completely cover the cod. Lightly crush 3 of the cloves of garlic and add them, without peeling, to the baking dish.

Cod ready when flakes separate.

     Place the baking dish in the cold oven and set the temperature to 225ºF. After the oven reaches temperature, let the cod cook 10 minutes. Test the temperature of the oil (use an instant-read or deep-frying thermometer). Keep testing every 5 minutes until the oil reaches 140ºF and the cod flakes easily when prodded with a fork, approximately 30 minutes total.  

     Remove the baking dish from the oven. Lift the cod fillets out onto a plate and tent them with foil.

Poaching oil covers the cod fillets.

Ladle ¼ cup of the oil into a pan and heat gently. Chop the remaining clove of garlic and add to the oil with the onion. Sauté on moderate heat 5 minutes. Add the tomatoes, bay leaf, sprig of herbs and salt. When the tomatoes begin to bubble, reduce heat and partially cover the pan. Simmer the sauce until thickened and reduced, 30 minutes.

Discard bay leaf and sprig of herbs. Use an immersion blender to blend the sauce until fairly smooth. Add the olives to the sauce and reheat. Place the cod fillets in the sauce and reheat them very gently.

Serve the cod and tomato sauce garnished with chopped fennel or parsley. Add quartered egg. Accompany, if desired, with potatoes fried in some of the oil that was used to poach the cod. 

More recipes with bacalao:

Salt Cod in Garlic PilPil Sauce.

Chickpeas, Spinach and Cod.

Valencia Rice with Cod and "Cobblestones."

Cod Fritters with Molasses.

NOT YOUR MOM’S POT ROAST

As a kid, I loved my mom’s pot roast, a once a week meal for a family of six. A big hunk of beef chuck, generously sprinkled with salt and pepper, potatoes, carrots and onions alongside, all roasted until the meat was fork-tender and the onions and carrots nearly caramelized. “Greasy pot roast,” we called it, because so much fat cooked off the beef.

The pot roast was served with ketchup and mom’s home-made “chili sauce,” a Midwestern-style tomato-green pepper-onion condiment. Any leftover meat she used to make “barbecue,” shredded beef in tomato sauce, piled on hamburger buns. (At that stage of life, I had yet to sample tacos.)

Feeding nostalgia, I have tried to replicate my mother’s pot roast. But Spanish beef—ternera—just doesn’t do it. I wind up with dry and stringy meat. For juiciness I’ve had better luck with pork shoulder, especially if from ibérico pigs. 

But here’s another option—pot-roasted fresh tuna. It’s larded with strips of bacon which help to keep it juicy; slow-cooked in an onion-rich sauce with lots of olive oil, and carefully monitored so it doesn’t overcook and become dry. Unlike a beef pot roast, this one needs only about 30 minutes to cook. 

Meaty tuna is larded with strips of bacon and braised with onions and Sherry.

 

Serve the onion gravy with pot-roasted tuna.

Cook tuna to medium--still pink in the center--so it stays juicy.

Pot-Roasted Tuna

Atún Mechado

Fresh, uncooked tuna.

It’s easier to push the strips of bacon or salt pork (tocino) through the tuna if the bacon is partially frozen first. 

Fresh tuna needs to be soaked in cold water. If the tuna has been frozen, do not soak it, but rinse and pat dry. 

Overcooking makes for dry tuna. Braise it only long enough to cook it until pink—medium—in the center (125ºF on an instant-read thermometer). 

Serves 6.

1 slice thick-cut bacon (1 ounce)

2 pounds tuna

8 cloves garlic

½ teaspoon coarse salt

Freshly ground black pepper

2 tablespoons finely chopped parsley

1 teaspoon lemon juice

Flour for coating the tuna

Salt

1/3 cup olive oil 

2 medium onions, cut in julienne slices

½ cup fino Manzanilla or Sherry

1 cup fish stock or water

2 bay leaves

8 peppercorns

1 clove

Chopped parsely to garnish

Cut the slice of bacon lengthwise into 3 or 4 strips. Place them on a saucer and place in the freezer to firm them, 30 minutes.

Remove any scales from the tuna, but leave the skin on. Place the tuna in a deep bowl and cover with cold water. Let it soak 30 minutes. Drain and pat the tuna dry.

Crush 2 cloves of garlic in a mortar with the coarse salt. Add pepper, finely chopped parsley and lemon juice.

Poke a hole in tuna with chopstick.

Use a skewer or chopstick to poke 3 or 4 holes through the piece of tuna. Push some of the garlic-parsley mixture into the slots. Then push through a strip of bacon so that it is threaded all the way through the thickness of the tuna.

Dredge the tuna in flour and pat off the excess. Heat the oil in a heavy pot or deep skillet. Brown the tuna on moderate heat, turning to brown all sides. Remove the tuna.

Add the onions to the oil in the pan. Lightly crush the remaining 6 cloves of garlic without peeling them. Add them to the onions. Sauté 8 minutes until onions are beginning to brown. Add the fino Manzanilla and cook 3 minutes until the alcohol is cooked off. Add the fish stock, bay leaves, peppercorns and clove. 

It's easier to brown the tuna and onions in a skillet, then transfer to a heavy, lidded pot to finish cooking.

Bring to a boil, reduce heat and return the tuna to the pan. (Or, transfer the onions and liquid to a heavy pot and place the tuna in it.)

Tuna braises in heavy pot.

 Cover tightly and cook on low heat 10 minutes.

 Turn the piece of tuna so another side is down and cook 5 minutes more. Turn again for 5 minutes or until the tuna is cooked medium (still a little pink in the center, internal temperature of 125ºF), about 25 minutes total cooking time. 

 Remove the tuna to a cutting board and let it rest 5 minutes. Use a slicing knife to cut thin slices. 

Pot-roasted tuna, ready to serve, hot or cold.

Options for leftovers: Add chunks of pot-roasted tuna to a sofrito with onions, peppers, tomatoes, mushrooms and olives. Serve with zucchini "noodles," as pictured; egg noodles, or rice.

Another sort of pot roast: Larded Pork Pot Roast.

More recipes with fresh tuna:

About tuna.

Tuna in Salad.

Tomatoes and Peppers with Tuna (Titaina).

Grilled Albacore Tuna.

Basque Tuna-Potato Stew (Marmitako).

Grilled Tuna with Onion Confit.

WHEN LIFE GIVES YOU BITTER ORANGES--

 

Bitter oranges, blue sky.

I once lived in an old house in the pueblo with a big, overgrown garden behind it. Stone dry walls divided the sloping garden into terraces which were planted with trees—an olive, a fig, orange and lemon, peach, pear and apricot, plus a flamboyant pomegranate and an exotic chirimoya.  

Having never had an orange tree in my backyard before, I thrilled to its progress from fragrant bloom to small green nubbins to ripening oranges. When they looked sufficiently ripe, I picked one, peeled it and popped a section in my mouth. It was unbelievably sour! My tree apparently had never been grafted and made only bitter “marmalade” oranges. What to do with so many sour oranges? Make marmalade. I made so much that I put a sign on the front door and sold it to passers-by. My marmalade pesetas went a long way in 1967.

The bitter, bigarade or Seville orange (the peel is bitter, the juice is sour), called agria or cachorreña, is still grown ornamentally and is used as root stock for varieties of sweet oranges. I recently saw a news item that Sevilla, where the collection of rotting oranges on city streets is an annual problem, will start recycling the fruit to make bio-fuel to generate electricity. 

I have a bitter orange tree in the garden where I live now. The sweet orange graft a couple years ago didn’t take, so I’m gathering the bitter fruit to make a very traditional Málaga fish soup, sopa de cachorreñas (link to recipe below). I’m also using the sour juice  in some other ways—in an adobo marinade for turkey breast and in an olive oil mayonnaise to sauce the turkey and asparagus.

Turkey breast marinated in sour orange juice with asparagus and a salad of sweet clementines.

Blender mayonnaise with extra virgin olive oil and the juice of sour oranges.

Serve the orange mayo with asparagus and with the turkey.

Turkey Breast with Sour Orange Marinade

Pechuga de Pavo en Adobo con Naranja Agria

1 ½ - 2 pounds boneless turkey breast, in one piece

1 teaspoon salt

Freshly ground black pepper

2 cloves garlic, crushed

½ teaspoon smoked pimentón (smoked paprika)

Pinch of pimentón picante (hot paprika)

3 tablespoons sour orange juice

½ teaspoon oregano

Sprigs of fresh thyme

2 bay leaves

3 tablespoons olive oil

Sour Orange Mayonnaise, to accompany (recipe follows)

Adobo marinade for turkey breast.

     Place the turkey in a non-reactive container. Sprinkle on all sides with salt and pepper. Add the garlic, two kinds of pimentón, orange juice, oregano, thyme and bay leaves. Pour the oil over the turkey. Cover the container and refrigerate at least 2 hours and up to 24 hours, turning it once or twice. 

     Bring the turkey to room temperature before roasting.

     Preheat oven to 400ºF. Place the turkey in an oven-safe roasting dish just big enough to hold it. Pour all the marinade over it. Roast the turkey 10 minutes. 

     Lower the oven temperature to 350ºF. Remove the turkey from the oven and baste it with juices in the pan. Return to the oven and roast until an instant-read thermometer registers 145ºF., about 45 minutes longer. (Timing will depend on the thickness of the piece of turkey. Take care not to overcook it.)

If the turkey is to be served hot, let it rest 10 minutes before carving. If to be served cold, let the whole piece cool, then refrigerate it, covered. Place the chilled meat on a cutting board and slice thinly. 

Serve the turkey accompanied by Sour Orange Mayonnaise.

Sour Orange Mayonnaise

Mayonesa con Naranja Agria

This quantity of sour orange juice thins the mayonnaise, although it will firm up somewhat when chilled. If sour orange juice is not available, substitute lemon juice or vinegar or try vinegar with sweet orange juice. 

1 large egg

½ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon smoked pimentón (smoked paprika)

½ teaspoon pimentón (paprika, not smoked)

¾ cup extra virgin olive oil

1/3 cup sour orange juice

Place the egg in a blender container. Add the salt and pimentón. Add the oil. Run the blender until the egg and oil emulsify and thicken. If using an immersion blender, then move the wand up and down a few times to incorporate any oil that didn’t mix. Pour in the orange juice and blend again. 

Store the sauce, covered and refrigerated, up to 1 week. 

Mayonnaise with sour orange juice is the consistency of thick cream. For the garnish, blanch strips of orange zest in boiling water, then cut in thin julienne strips. Add a dash of pimentón for color.

The sour juice substitutes for lemon or vinegar in mayonnaise. It goes well with asparagus, artichokes, green beans, potatoes, fish, poultry. 

Orange Marmalade

Mermelada de Naranja

For making marmalade, save seeds which add pectin that helps the marmalade jell.

This is the traditional recipe I used for making orange marmalade. It’s a three-day procedure. You first weigh the fruit. For each kilo of oranges, allow one litre of water and one kilo of sugar. If you like a very bitter marmalade, use equal quantities of bitter, Seville oranges and sweet oranges, plus a couple of lemons. If you prefer a sweeter flavor, use a greater proportion of sweet oranges to bitter ones and only one lemon.

Day 1: Wash the oranges, weigh them and soak them in fresh water for several hours. Then shred, chop or finely slice them, catching all the juice and reserving the seeds in a separate bowl. Add enough water to cover the seeds and set them aside. Add the required quantity of water (1 litre per kilo of oranges) to the oranges. Cover and let them set for 24 hours.

Day 2: Cook the oranges very slowly until they are tender, about one hour. Cover and let set overnight.

Day 3: Add the sugar and let the oranges set for 6 hours. Put the seeds and their liquid (it will be quite gelatinous from the pectin) into a strainer and strain the liquid into the oranges. Bring the oranges to a boil and regulate the heat so they just bubble gently. Stir occasionally. (A heat-tamer pad under the pot helps prevent scorching.) The marmalade is done when a small quantity dropped on a cold surface does not run. Timing depends on the quantity of oranges being processed, but the jelling can easily take an hour. Pack while hot into sterile jars and seal.

More recipes with bitter oranges:

Fish Soup with Sour Orange.

Anchovies in Sour Orange Escabeche.

Beer-Battered Fish with Sour Orange Sauce.

CALÇOTADA--SHEET PAN BROIL

Somewhere in Catalonia, spring onions are roasting on a grill alongside some sausages, maybe lamb chops too. The wine flows. A tangy, nutty romesco sauce awaits the smoky, blackened onions. It’s calçotada season. Calçots are spring onions. Or, actually, late-winter onions. A calçotada is an onion-grilling party. 

Home-style calçotada--spring onions, asparagus, sausage and shrimp roasted under the broiler, served with romesco sauce for dipping.

 

I’m a long way from Catalonia and it’s not an auspicious time for parties. But, I’ve got some locally-grown onions—young, slender stalks with green tops—that might substitute for the authentic calçots (the cultivar from Tarragona province has IGP (protected geographic indication) Calçot de Valls). The required accompaniment to calçots, romesco sauce, is good anytime, anywhere.  

I'm using locally grown spring onions, not authentic calçots.

I’m not grilling for a crowd, so I won’t bother to fire up the outdoor grill. Can I roast the onions on a sheet pan under an electric broiler? 

The broiler (known as a “grill” in Britain and in Spain) may be at the top of an electric oven or, in gas ranges, in a compartment below the oven. Preheat the broiler to “maximum.” Mine preheats to 300ºC (570ºF). The broiler pan, without its rack, makes a perfect sheet pan. Don’t line the sheet pan/broiler tray with parchment paper. Set a timer and watch carefully so the food doesn’t burn.

What to grill for a sheet pan calçotada? Spring onions. Or try skinny leeks. Trim off the roots and tops. Shrimp in their shells. Sausages. I haven’t got typical Catalonian butifarra, so I’m using uncured (raw) chorizo criollo. Asparagus. Lamb chops, if they're not too thick, would work on the sheet pan. 

The results of my sheet-pan broil were delicious, if not quite authentic. At a real calçotada, the onions are flame-roasted over burning vine prunings. The blackened onions are wrapped in newspaper and served on clay roof tiles. To eat them, you hold the onion by the green leaves, strip off the charred outer layers, dip the white part into the romesco and lower the onion into your mouth. Bibs and paper napkins are essential accoutrements.  Under the broiler, the onions become nicely browned, not charred. 

Broiled, onions are not charred, but nicely browned.

To eat the roasted onions, strip off the outer layer, dip the stem into the sauce and dangle into your mouth.

More finger food--peel the shrimp and dip in the romesco.

Grilled asparagus is terrific with romesco.

Sheet Pan Broil

Shrimp

Sausages

Asparagus

Spring onions

Olive oil

Coarse salt

Romesco sauce (recipe follows)

Preheat broiler to maximum (500ºF- 570ºF)

Arrange onions, shrimp, asparagus on sheet pan.

Arrange the ingredients to be broiled on the sheet pan in a single layer. Drizzle with oil. Place the pan 4 inches from the heat source. Broil 5 minutes. Remove the pan. If the shrimp are done, remove them. (Replace with a second batch of shrimp, if desired.) Using tongs, turn the sausages. The onions and asparagus don’t have to be turned. Return the pan to the broiler. Broil 5 minutes more, until onions are tender and browned.

Serve the shrimp, sausages, asparagus and onions sprinkled with coarse salt, accompanied by romesco sauce.

Romesco Sauce

Salsa Romesco

Romesco is a sauce that goes with just about everything! It’s especially good with anything from the grill (barbecue)—fish, shellfish, steaks, chops, burgers, sausages. Serve it alongside a rotisserie chicken. Slather it on hard-boiled eggs or baked potatoes. Dress artichokes, asparagus, cauliflower, cabbage, green beans, mushrooms with it.

Ñora dried peppers.

     Ñoras are dried, plum-sized, sweet red peppers, not hot. You can use choricero peppers instead of ñoras. If neither is available, substitute 2 tablespoons of pimentón (paprika), not smoked.

     Like cooks everywhere, Catalonians add a “secret” ingredient to their romesco. Some ideas: a tiny guindilla (hot cayenne pepper); a little dried mint; red wine instead of vinegar; walnuts as well as hazelnuts and almonds; a few drops of anisette, and so forth. 

     Use more or less bread, according to how thick you want the sauce. Toast it or fry it before combining with the nuts. Nuts can be toasted or not. Roasting the garlic is optional. Roasting mellows its bite. If using raw garlic, decrease the quantity. Purists would make romesco in a large mortar. A blender makes the job easier.

Grind ingredients in mortar or blender.

3 ñoras (dry sweet peppers)

1/3 cup hazelnuts 

1/3 cup almonds (blanched and skinned)

1 slice of bread

1 head garlic (about 8 cloves)

2 tomatoes

1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil + additional for drizzling

1 ½ tablespoons Sherry vinegar

1 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon hot (picante) pimentón (paprika)

1 teaspoon pimentón (paprika, not smoked)

Remove stems and shake out seeds from the ñora peppers. Place the peppers in a saucepan and add water to cover them. Bring to a boil and simmer 15 minutes. Remove from heat and let them soak 30 minutes. Skim them out. Reserve the cooking liquid in case it’s needed to thin the sauce.

Scrape pulp of ñoras.

     Split open the peppers and use a spoon to scrape out the pulp. There should be about 2 tablespoons. Discard the skins.

     Preheat oven to 400ºF.

     Spread the hazelnuts and almonds on a rimmed baking sheet. Place the bread on the sheet. Slice off the top of the head of garlic and place it on the sheet. Cut an X in the skin of the tomatoes and place them on the sheet. Drizzle all with a little oil.

Place the baking sheet in the oven. Remove hazelnuts and almonds when they are lightly toasted (10 minutes). Chop them coarsely. 

Roasted garlic.

Continue roasting the bread, garlic and tomatoes until bread is toasted and tomato skins split open, 20 minutes more. Remove and allow to cool.

Break the toasted bread into pieces and place in a blender container. Remove cores and skins from the tomatoes. Crush them into the blender on top of the bread. Remove garlic cloves from the skin and add to the blender. Pour in 1/3 cup oil, the vinegar and the ñora pulp. Add the salt, hot and regular pimentón, hazelnuts and almonds. Let the mixture stand 15 minutes to soften the bread.   Blend all the ingredients until smooth. If necessary, add additional liquid (reserved liquid from cooking the ñoras) so the blender runs smoothly. 

Taste the sauce and add additional oil, salt or vinegar if needed. 

Serve the sauce room temperature. Store it, covered and refrigerated, up to 5 days. Bring to room temperature before serving. 

Hold onion by the "tail" and dip it in the sauce.

Ben tries the calçot with romesco.

Other ways to serve romesco:

Artichokes with Romesco Dressing.

Simple Romesco.

Two more versatile sauces with nuts and red peppers:

Basque Vizcaina Sauce.

Turkish Mujammara Walnut Sauce.