Fish cakes (with Bacalhau - salted cod)

This recipe is like no other. Yes sure we can all Google things but these are truly authentic. My MIL has this cook book with pages of awesome Portuguese home cooking recipes that are all hand-written. Some in English, some in Portuguese. These writings were not all hers, some were from grandma. And, not everything in easy measurements (I'm pretty sure I saw "handful" of something). No matter, cooking is an art and not a science mostly so this is not going to stop me. Prior to this lovely year of COVID, none of us really appreciated or cared about this teeny cook book. But now, cooking is deemed to be such a highly in-demand, highly entertaining, and highly necessary skill. It’s a true treasure to flip through the pages and re-create the recipes. Also you can eat the resulting benefits – I’m sold.

Every holiday is made more complete with crispy bacalhau (cod fish) cakes. These were often served on holidays as an appetizer, before the turkey and fish feast. These are deep fried. We'll just hit "silence" on my waistline's objections here. The good news is this recipe is not at all complicated. In fact, any weekend is a good time to take on this project, as long you have about an hour or so. Read on my friend, I’ll even share the tricks and secrets that were not written in the book with you! Ready for fish cakes? I know I am.

What you need:

• 1 lb of salted cod fish (I got the scrap pieces, you can get either the fillet cuts or scrap pieces)

• 2 med size potato

• 1 med (or half of a large) yellow onion – chopped finely

• Several (3-4) tablespoon of chopped parsley or cilantro (use parsley if you are not a fan of cilantro) – chopped fine

• 2 eggs

• Vegetable oil for frying

• Salt and pepper to taste ** you can easily double this recipe – I wish I did. Since we are going through the effort, make more of these cuz they are so good and don't worry, you can always heat the left overs in the oven for crispy fish cakes later.

Recipe:

• Soak the salted fish in cold water, change water frequently. I did this for about an hour, I kept washing the fish and changing the water every 15 min or so. You can actually just leave it be, rinse it out at the end. If you read different articles about salted cod, some will say soak 48 hours or longer. Now this is why: Soaking will rehydrate your fish and takes the salt out. If you get the thick fillet cuts, yes please soak it longer or the fish can be hard and be almost jerky-like. But if you got the little scrap pieces, since the cuts are thin, much easier to soak through, so doing what I did was just fine.  

  

• Boil the cod in a pot for about 5 min until cooked. Add some time if your fish pieces are big or if you are using the whole fillet type of salted cod.

• Boil the potatoes whole, with skin, until you can pierce through with a fork easily. *this trick will keep your potato mostly dry and so the cakes will form better.

• Shred the cod with 2 forks, so it’s like “pulled pork” type of texture. Let it cool down.
  

• Peel your potatoes, and mash them in a bowl, until smooth. Let this cool down.

  

• Mix the cod, potatoes, onions, cilantro together.

• Crack the eggs in, add salt and pepper. Mix well until you can loosely form little balls holding shape. add a bit more potato if you need to.

• Form tbsp sized fritters with 2 spoons. I do a “scoop, press, and scoop back” kind of motion. Lay these out on paper towel to absorb some residual moisture. form all the fish balls at ones and set them on paper towel to absorb residual moisture. It’s easier to fry in batch, and the outside tends to be more crispy.

  

• Heat up oil in a pan, ensure the oil would cover at least half of the fritter height. Wait till the oil is hot (you can test the oil by dropping a tiny bit of batter in and it will sizzle – sizzle my fishy frizzles)

• So you fry these guys, about 3-4 min per side, flip and fry other side.

• I had to work in batches since my pan isn't huge. In between, I used a parchment paper lined baking pan and kept the oven at about 350F to keep these babies warm while doing 2nd and 3rd batch.

• My cod cakes actually came out with a bit too light on the salt. I honestly thought more salt was going to remain with my reduced soaking time. Not to worry though, too little salt beats too much salt anyway. Think Mickey D's fries, you can always salt them after! This is exactly what I did, after frying, salt lightly.

The cod cakes were so fluffy and it melts in your mouth. I served them with my home make hot sauce
(check it out here: https://www.eatwithjia.com/2020/10/home-made-hot-sauce.html), store bought perogy that I fried, and some boiled broccoli. C'mon, I had to put something green on my plate, otherwise everything is fried I feel so bad about that. In the past I remember oohing and ahhing at fish cakes when I used to go to restaurants. It was so expensive, yet so little seafood and mostly potatoes… those days are behind us, this is 10x better. 

Friends. If you want to impress your family, if you want to try a new home cooking, if you are looking for an authentic Portuguese dish, if you kept seeing these salted cod fish and don’t know what to do with them, if you have especially slow Saturday, if you are like me at all… make. these. Just let me say it again, MAKE THESE!! You can thank me later.