salt cod - how to cook and store?
I bought some salt cod at the store the other day. It's packed in a vacuum pack, smothered with salt. Very dehydrated and firm. In the shop it was at room temp, so am I right in thinking I can just keep it in the cupboard? This is a pre-refrigerator way of preserving fish, or do they do things differently nowadays?
How shall I cook this? I understand I need to soak it in several changes of clear water to get out the salt before I do anything with it. But what if I only want to use a small amount at a time? Can I just cut off one person portion and then re-wrap up the rest of the salted cod?
I saw a recipe for fish cakes on the food52 site that looks yummy, but it won't use up the whole packet and I don't love fish cakes enough to double the recipe.
Considering it use to be one of the most common protein sources in Europe during the Middle ages, I was hoping to find some more recipes. Even my Medieval cook books don't seem to have any.
Anyone out there ever cooked with salt cod before? How did you find it? What kind of recipe did you make?
11 Comments
Before starting the soaking, my mother's grandmother would pinch a salty bit of the dried cod off for each of the children. They'd take them outside on the back porch and savor.
Sometimes I worry about cookbooks. Either they haven't tested the recipes, or maybe they are working with some other definition of the ingredient. I can never tell which.
Any other recipe ideas for salt cod? I've got a lot of it here, and if it's yummy, hope to get more. Good price for fish.
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