food to glow

Bacalao, bacalhau, salted cod: whatever you call it, this is lovely stuff. Although we no longer need to salt food to preserve it, bacalhau is a gorgeous and still useful relic from an age before refrigeration.

I first had bacalao many years ago at – of all places – a Scottish-French restaurant. It was in a pearl-pale, utterly smooth soup, with double cream and tiny pieces of potato. Very like our Scottish cullen skink, but without the distinctive gently-smoked flavour. Cafe St Honore, I believe.

For ages I have been meaning to seek out this salt-preserved delicacy and have a go at making up this idea of salted cod tacos. Other interpretations flitted into my mind – a spicy soup, a pasty of sorts. But the taco thing was one notion that stuck. A draft of this simple recipe has been scribbled in my trusty plain black Muji notebook for over a year, just lacking the salted cod to make it come to life.

So, to say I was surprised to receive bacalau in the post is a bit of an understatement. I think I might have emitted a ‘yahoo’. That would explain the cat bolting from her eyrie and under a chair.

To explain, I was contacted in December by the travel company Expedia and asked to come up with a Portuguese recipe for their World On A Plate challenge. In amongst the beautiful Portuguese ceramic ware, utterly delicious mountain cheese, olives and various Portuguese goodies I was sent to play with was the tell-tale vac-pac, characteristically grey and sparkling of salt. That’s when the cat scarpered.

Portugal is a country I have visited for both business and pleasure, eating rather well on two and a half times out of three occasions we have been. The first occasion  – the ‘and a half’ of this odd sum – was many years ago as a strict vegetarian. Back then the notion of vegetarianism was very alien in Portugal. As I quickly found out. After two weeks of alternating between a potato and onion tortilla and a boiled egg salad, and watching all of my omnivorous colleagues enjoying and extolling the varied dishes laid before them, I confess I cracked. When Andrew finally joined me, I was contemplating surrender to the ‘dark side’. And we both went there, for fish.

On that trip we enjoyed, latterly, bacalhau – the Portuguese spelling of the more common bacalao – in a stew. Simple, cheap, flavourful. We ate it at their equivalent of a veteran’s centre, up above the ‘proper’ restaurants that lined the street. On that sunny, warm early-April day we dined very well, and inexpensively, with dressed up families enjoying a Sunday feast –  the kids running around, and the adults chatting away letting the kids run around (a rare sight here in the UK). It gave us fuel to explore Portuguese culture off the beaten track. Portugal is still a largely unspoiled country, perfect for families, singles, couples; whether needing the reassurance of a package deal or more freedom with fly/drive. It’s not just about port and golf, you know.

There are numerous online ways to buy bacalao, but do read before you buy as there are different levels of salt-curing – longer cured takes more time to rehydrate – up to two days, with water changes – but lasts longer in its preserved state. Check too about its sustainability. And here’s some sound advice on a couple of ways to rehydrate/de-salt your bacalau / bacalao. Despite its quite meaty, cooked texture, once rehydrated use as normal, fresh fish.

In this recipe you may also opt for fresh firm white fish. I would just add a little salt to the grass-green mojo verde sauce. After rehydrating bacalau retains a tang of welcome salinity, so extra salt is not necessary.

Oh, here’s a highly readable Norway-Portugal-plate article on salt cod in The Independent newspaper.

Disclosure: I was commissioned by Expedia to develop and publish this recipe.