Salt cod with peppers is an easy and very appetizing recipe from the Campania region with a unique taste of the Mediterranean. The cod is first fried in olive oil and then left to stew with peppers and tomatoes, which with their sweetness perfectly balance the flavor of the fish.
It can be served as a main course or accompanied by bread croutons rubbed with garlic and oil. In this case, it can easily be a single dish. What’s certain is that as soon as it’s finished, you’ll be left wanting more!
The difference between cod and stockfish
These two terms are often confused. In reality, the raw fish is always the same, cod, with its delicate white meat. What changes is its preservation, which in the case of baccalà (salted codfish) it’s done in salt, while for stockfish the fish is dried in the open air. In both cases, the fish must be soaked, to remove the salt and to rehydrate the meat.
A strange thing about the stockfish...
Probably the only person still doing this work in the whole of Italy, is Umberto Zoratto in the Mulino di Bert, a flour factory in the middle of the Codroipo’s Park of the Resurgences, in the province of Udine, where they manually beat Norwegian stockfish. Dating back to 1450, the mill became the property of the Zoratto family in the 19th Century, millers of the Counts Manin. The stockfish arrives dried wrapped in jute sacks from the Scandinavian islands Lofoten, here it is softened thanks to the blows of the wooden mallet beating on the stone base just as it was done in past centuries. With this system, the fibers of the fish are not ruined, but only stretched, made softer and ready for the best cooking. Once soaked, they will increase their thickness three times over, becoming soft and ready to be cooked.
Aromatic herbs and other delicacies
The combination of peppers and shrimp is already a perfect marriage in itself. However, if you like to add fresher flavors to this cod dish with peppers, try adding herbs such as fresh basil and oregano off the heat. In addition, salted capers (rinsed!) and flaked almonds. Irresistible!
Salt cod with peppers recipe
Ingredients:
800 g salt cod already soaked
500 ripe tomatoes
white flour
5 red and yellow peppers
2 large Tropea onions
parsley
chives
hot pepper
1 glass white wine
extra virgin olive oil
salt
Method:
Scrape the skin off the cod with a small knife, cut it into pieces of three or four cm, and bone it properly. Rinse in running water and then dry it. Flour all the pieces and pour the oil into a pot. Heat it up and then add the fish pieces, a few at a time, and fry them. When they are ready remove them with a skimmer and dry them with paper towels to get rid of the excess oil. Wash the peppers, dry them, put them in a paper bag, and bake them in the oven at 150° for about 30 minutes. Once cooked, let them cool and remove the skin. Cut them into strips and set them aside. In the meantime, pour the oil used to fry the cod in an earthenware pot, add the sliced onions and brown them over low heat. Wash the tomatoes, cut and remove the seeds. Add them to the onions as soon as they are golden brown. Add the peppers, parsley, chives, chili, and salt cod. Arrange the cod in the pot, add the white wine, cover and cook gently for 10 minutes. Serve hot or warm.
In the tutorial discover some tips for the perfect dish!