Salt Cod

The first time I visited la Boquería, Barcelona’s famous covered market, I was as excited as a kid on Christmas morning.  All the hams hanging overhead, the amazing fish and shellfish counters, the fresh mushrooms, those beautiful figs, . . . !!!  But you might be surprised when I say that the display that impressed me the most was the salt cod stand.  Do I remember correctly when I counted 47 different cuts/grades/presentations — is that possible, or just a mild exaggeration to make my point when telling this story?  After all, salt cod is salt cod is salt cod, right?

Like the potato in Peru, the closer you get to the source the more variety you witness.  In Spain, they have come up with a staggering number of ways to preserve and use salted cod in their cooking.  At that market, I was in line behind a few women, each of whom purchased several different cuts and qualities of it for use in different dishes to be cooked at home that week.  Some of it resembled the finest halibut fillet, immaculate, pearly-white thick slabs, moist and only very lightly-salted, that looked good enough to slice and eat right on the spot — the likes of which I certainly had never seen before!

These are moments of inspiration for a cook.

And one of my best resulted in a fish stew using salt cod as the base. Adapting a recipe from Galicia (on the Atlantic coast of Spain, ground zero for salt cod!), I combine minced salt cod with onion, garlic, potato, lots of leeks, escarole, white wine, water and olive oil in a stock pot. Unique in my repertoire of soup-making, this is the only soup recipe I have that doesn’t follow the typical progression of sautéing vegetables first, adding seasonings then other ingredients and liquids — all of the ingredients go into the pot together cold and at the same time, then the pot goes on the flame to simmer for 90 minutes.   No need for fish stock; in fact I’m making one as the soup cooks.  No need for long soaking of the salt cod; in fact a light rinse is all that I want because its special salty aged flavor helps to season the soup as the vegetables cook and the wine works its magic.  The result is a flavorful liquid tasting of all those vegetables, with a pervasive underpinning of white umami — subtle, light and completely invigorating.

In the restaurant, I use this soup to simmer chunks of fresh cod and littlenecks.  The soup flavors these latter ingredients, and in the case of the littlenecks they return their flavor favor back to the soup.  I was very flattered when Corby Kummer selected this recipe for inclusion in “The Pleasures of Slow Food”, published by Chronicle Books (2002).