Sorry, no recipes in this post, but I hope the photos help. March 25 is the traditional day to eat salt cod - known as bakaliaro - in Greece.
This piece of boneless bakaliaro (salt cod) has ben desalinated by lying in fresh water, changed on a regular basis, for two days. It needs to feed 5 adults and 2 animals.
The skin of the fish is removed - it's a little too tough for chewing, but a cat and dog will be able to manage it easily. Half of the filleted fish will be cut into small pieces, while the rest is flaked.
The cod pieces are set aside, while the flaked fish is mixed with onion, herbs, spices, breadcrumbs and an egg, to bind it into fishballs.
The fishballs are moulded and fried in hot olive oil, in small batches (to keep the oil at a high temperature).
The fish pieces are small; to make each bite bulkier, they are floured and then dipped in an egg batter.
When they are fried, they come out much larger than the original fish pieces, making a more substantial meal out of each piece, so that each bite counts as two.
I got 13 pieces of fish and 14 fishballs from one 800g fillet of salt cod (€~8/kg on supermarket special).
The skin and remaining batter can be fried in the oil that was used to fry the fish. Nothing is wasted because nothing needs to be wasted.
It may sound like too much food to add fried potatoes and Greek-style coleslaw to this dish ...
... but if you have made such an effort to cook such a good meal, why not go one step further and create enough for more than one meal? Preparing this kind of meal requires a lot of effort. If you are working, you really can't do this every day.
There were just enough leftovers for another meal the next day. Cooking a fresh meal every second day is what I call a bargain.
©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.
This piece of boneless bakaliaro (salt cod) has ben desalinated by lying in fresh water, changed on a regular basis, for two days. It needs to feed 5 adults and 2 animals.
The skin of the fish is removed - it's a little too tough for chewing, but a cat and dog will be able to manage it easily. Half of the filleted fish will be cut into small pieces, while the rest is flaked.
The cod pieces are set aside, while the flaked fish is mixed with onion, herbs, spices, breadcrumbs and an egg, to bind it into fishballs.
The fishballs are moulded and fried in hot olive oil, in small batches (to keep the oil at a high temperature).
The fish pieces are small; to make each bite bulkier, they are floured and then dipped in an egg batter.
When they are fried, they come out much larger than the original fish pieces, making a more substantial meal out of each piece, so that each bite counts as two.
I got 13 pieces of fish and 14 fishballs from one 800g fillet of salt cod (€~8/kg on supermarket special).
The skin and remaining batter can be fried in the oil that was used to fry the fish. Nothing is wasted because nothing needs to be wasted.
It may sound like too much food to add fried potatoes and Greek-style coleslaw to this dish ...
... but if you have made such an effort to cook such a good meal, why not go one step further and create enough for more than one meal? Preparing this kind of meal requires a lot of effort. If you are working, you really can't do this every day.
There were just enough leftovers for another meal the next day. Cooking a fresh meal every second day is what I call a bargain.
©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.
I totally agree! That's how we generally do it, too. We cook a couple of dishes on the weekend that can be heated and served on weeknights when we are both working all day.
ReplyDeleteTonight we will have a chicken and potato chowder made on Saturday.
That cod meal looks and sounds just delicious. I love fried fish but don't get to eat it often since we are SO landlocked here.
We have talked about (if we can make the plans happen, that is) going on a "seafood tasting journey" to the Pacific Northwest just so I can taste all the seafoods that I have never eaten and hubby can have the seafood that he grew up eating.