Leftovers. Freezer space. Salt Cod.

Southwest veering northeast 4 or 5, occasionally 6 later.

Slight or moderate.

Showers then fair.

Good.

Due to a late lunch I don’t feel very hungry and just slice 2 tomatoes, take the knobbly courgette bits I had from the Courghetti, slice them, arrange both in the lid of a Pyrex dish, salt them. Top with a teaspoon of leftover pesto (if you don’t have one, use olive oil and a chopped garlic clove) and add “Pul biber” (Turkish red pepper flakes, also known as Aleppo pepper flakes, a great spice ingredient if you like it hot). Take the leftover of feta I had (about 100gr) chop it, put on top of it all and bang it under the grill. Once it is done, sprinkle with Dukkah and eat.

But it does not end here.

I have limited freezer space. The three small drawers I have are filled with the essentials: Ice cubes, mixed emergency vegetables and stock. However I have a lot of fridge space. So the fish I bought today will end up in the fridge for the next weeks.  Introducing salt fish/cod/ Bacalhau. It is not only a freezer space saver, but a salted fish tastes different from a frozen. It might sound silly that I spend a week drying fresh fish and, when I need it, spend three days to make it edible. But I promise you that the salt cod croquettes are worth the minimum effort you put into it. I will try to explain the concept in the least scientific wordings.

Nature doesn’t like inequality. High concentration flows to low concentration. If your environment is richer than you are, they give up and you take. If you are richer, it is vice versa. So, if you put a piece of dried bread into milk, that piece will swell up. Because the water content of the environment is higher than that of bread. But the milk might have less salt than you, the dried bread, so you give. You will look “swell” but taste a bit more boring.

Same happens with salt fish. You surround a fish with salt. The salt is obviously more and has less water. So the fish gives up water and gets salt instead. If I drain that water from the salt, the fish gives up more and more, until the fish is a dry as salt. So far so good. You are, as a salt fish, now flat, as hard as rock and I could whack someone over the head with you.

Now if I put you into water, the same thing happens, only in reverse. The water flows into you, but your salt out of you. In the end you kind of end where you started. So, what is the point (apart from freezer space)?

Something else happens: the protein changes it structure

If I take water out of you and increase salt, you are a changed person. And no amount of hot baths will change that. You are changed for good. Your protein is now tight. Curled up. A block. If you want to be poetic, the protein protects itself.  If I now give you water, you need a different amount than before. Because you are changed. You are tighter, firmer and have a different surface area. You are more concentrated than before. But also more flaky.

This process can hardly be undone. You can’t un-cook a hardboiled egg.

Hence salt cod will taste always different than frozen cod.

The recipe is from Claire Thomson, the brilliant chef and writer of the 5 O’Clock Apron

Salt cod:

It is tricky to give exact quantities of salt, as it depends on how much fish you buy and its shape and thickness. It would be good to have about 1 kilo of coarse sea salt to hand the first time you do this, though you probably won't need it all. Dont use table salt. Fine salt has an anti-caking agent mixed into it which tastes, in big amounts, horrible.  Ocado has the wonderful Sel de Guérande, but it is a bit trickier to use the first time you do a salt fish, since it is damp to begin with. Get some white fish and cut it into small even sized chunks.

Sprinkle some salt in a tupperware that will fit the fish in a single layer and lay the pieces on it. Cover the fish with more salt, cover with the lid and put in the fridge.

Each day, tip away the liquid that has come out of the fish and replenish the salt as required (if too much has dissolved and the fish is no longer covered).

Once no more liquid is coming out of the fish – anywhere between three days and two weeks, though the salt will still feel damp – remove from the container. Leave any salt clinging to the fish, lightly sprinkle with a little fresh salt, put into a container with a lid and return the fridge.

This will keep well for months in a fridge. It is a good idea to check the container every couple of weeks and get rid of any liquid that has collected.

Verdict:

No verdict today. My food was fine and the salt cod has just started to do its magic.

Oops, just noticed that I published this after midnight, so its now a day later.