I really thought this was going to be less than spectacular. How great can a recipe seasoned with basically nothing but a sprinkle of parsley and a single bay leaf be?
It was awfully silly of me to forget how amazing salt is—even after a day and a half of soaking this fish (my mother dragged the pots up from the basement cold room and changed the water at least 5 times at my behest, god love her), there was plenty left to bring the dish together. The heaps and heaps of onion and just enough olive oil helped, too, but really this was all about the salt. Don’t skimp on the soaking time, though, and do change the water often or you’ll end up eating pure salt, which is not what you want. Balance is key. While I’d normally say that moderation is for nuns, in this case, it is not. Unless you are a nun making this, that is, in which case, continue as you were…
One word about sustainability. Normally I don’t buy cod, and even less often do I buy salt cod because neither is usually sustainable. The salt cod in most grocery stores, I believe, is not sustainable. Growing up in Newfoundland I heard about the Portuguese catching it in International waters, often just outside Canadian waters, which doesn’t help restore the cod stocks in Canadian waters. It’s officially not poaching, but it’s not that ethical. Why should Portugal care about Canada’s dwindling cod stocks during or after the cod moratorium in Newfoundland? So I won’t buy salt cod ever if it’s Portuguese-caught. That being said, according to my fish guy in St. John’s, there’s more cod than we think in some places, and as he knows the fishermen himself and would never buy fish from a place with low stocks, the fish I bought was sustainable enough for me. If you’re not in St. John’s and can’t buy your fish from my guy at the Fish Depot, however, here’s a simple guide to cod sustainability. You’ll have to ask where the cod was caught and how to know if its sustainable. So IGA and Metro grocery stores might not be your best bets.
I didn’t change the recipe a peep. Use a dry white wine. Have fun layering everything before baking it. Oh! The only thing that went wrong was that my baking dish overflowed, so if you’re not using a deep dish, place a baking sheet on a rack underneath to catch anything that spills. Cleaning dried and burnt cod juices from the bottom of your oven is never fun, especially when you have many more things to bake that day. I did not ask my mother to clean that. I did that one myself.
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