I am looking for the traditional baccala (cod) soup for the 7 fish Christmas Eve dinner.

Hi,

You mentioned baccalá, so I take that you have salt cod and not stockfish. It's important to know because salt cod need to be soaked over a period of 24 hrs (changing the water few times) to soften the fish and to get rid of the salt, unless your fish monger did it for you; in this case the fish will be ready to cook.

Stockfish is air dried cod; a much harder preserved cod version, that need to be soaked (sometimes over 48 hrs) and tenderised with a meat mallet, otherwise you will end up eating leather.

Assuming that you know what to do to prepare the fish before the cooking, here I give you one of my favourite recipe for baccalá.

BACCALÁ IN BIANCO (Baccalá white stew)

Ingredients for 4 persons:

1 Kg Baccalá chunks (tenderised and with the skin and bones removed)
Plain flour (to coat the fish chunks)
80 ml Extra virgin olive oil for first stage of cooking + 60 ml for final stage of cooking
2 Onions (finely chopped)
1 Litre Milk
Salt and pepper for seasoning
1 Garlic clove (finely chopped)
4-5 anchovy fillets (finely chopped)
A small bunch of flat leaf parsley (finely chop the leaves)

Procedure:

Take the fish chunks and pat them dry with kitchen paper. While doing this, check that there is no bones.

Take a big pan, big enough to contain all the fish chunks on one level (all the fish chunks must be in contact with the bottom of the pan). The pan should be suitable for oven use because later you will be placing the pan into the oven.

Heat the olive oil and sautè the onion until it is soften, but don't let it to become golden in colour. Coat the fish chunks with flour, shake them to get rid of the flour in excess and place them in the pan. Lightly brown the fish on both sides, then add all the milk to completely cover the fish and gently simmer (very low heat – there should not be any signs of boiling) for 1 ½ hours. After this time, check the seasoning (salt and pepper); if the cod was salted you may not need to add much salt.

Next, take a little little bowl and add 60 ml of Olive oil into it. Add the anchovies, the parsley and the garlic into the bowl and mix everything together. Add this salsa mixture over the fish (don't stir the fish) and complete the cooking in the oven (180 °C/gas mark 4) for another 30 minutes.

I like to serve this dish with some slices of grilled polenta.

Good luck

Federico