Baccalà al forno con patate (Oven-Roasted Salt Cod with Potatoes)

Frank17 December 2022secondi piatti42 Comments

As many of our readers doubt already know, Christmas Eve dinner among Italians traditionally features a seafood menu. And it just wouldn’t be Christmas Eve unless at least one dish on that menu includes baccalà, or dried and salted cod.

Besides being a fixture on festive tables, baccalà is immensely popular year round, especially in the colder months. Italians have come up with a whole array of recipes for its preparation. On this blog we’ve already shown you how to make the classic Neapolitan baccalà alla napoletana, with its zesty tomato sauce scented with olives, capers and anchovies, the Roman classic baccalà in guazzetto, with light tomato sauce perfumed with raisins and pine nuts, filetti di baccalà, battered and fried in the Roman manner, the Venetian classic baccalà mantecato, whipped and served with polenta crostini, and last but not least, Vicenza’s baccalà alla vicentina, slow-cooked with milk and onions until it’s reduced into a creamy mass served with soft polenta.

This week I want to offer up what may be the quickest and simplest baccalà dish in the Italian repertoire: baccalà al forno con patate, or Oven-Roasted Salt Cod with Potatoes. In this recipe, the baccalà fillets are oven-roasted on a bed of garlicky potatoes studded with tomatoes and olives. After arranging the ingredients in a baking dish, you just pop it in a hot oven and 30 minutes later, you’re ready to eat. No fuss, no muss. E Buon Natale!

Ingredients

Serves 4-6

1 kilo (2 lb) salt cod
500g (1 lb) yellow-fleshed potatoes, or more if you need or want, peeled and thinly sliced
1-2 cloves of garlic, peeled and slightly crushed
A handful of cherry or grape tomatoes, halved
A handful of black olives, pitted
A few sprigs of fresh parsley, finely minced
White wine
Olive oil
Salt and pepper

Directions

The day before you’re planning on cooking, rinse the salt cod and place it in a large bowl and cover entirely with water. Place in the fridge and leave for 24 hours, changing the water at least three times. (NB: Soaking times can vary—see Notes for details.)

Once the salt cod has soaked, remove it from the water and examine it for any stray bits of bone and remove them along with any skin. Cut the cod into serving pieces and pat dry.

Grease a baking dish large enough to hold all the cod in one layer.

In a large mixing bowl, toss the sliced potatoes with the garlic, parsley, salt, pepper and a good pour of olive oil, enough to coat the slices well.

Lay out the potato slices to cover the bottom of the baking dish. (The potatoes can overlap a bit but don’t pile them high.) Arrange the salt cod pieces on top of the potatoes, then place the tomatoes and black olives here and there around the salt cod, along with any extra potato slices.

Drizzle on some white wine, just enough to wet the bottom of the dish, perhaps 4-5 tbsp worth. Top with the breadcrumbs and then drizzle over more olive oil.

Bake in a hot (200C/400F) oven for about 30 minutes, or until the potatoes are tender and the top is golden brown. If need be, you can finish the dish off by running it under the broiler for a minute or two to brown the top.

Serve hot.

Notes

Baccalà, known as salt cod in English, is cod that has been salt and hung to dry, traditionally outdoors by the wind and sun, often on cliffs and other bare rock-faces, these days indoors by electric heaters. Salt cod been produced in the lands around the northernmost reaches of the Atlantic for over 500 years, and according to some sources much longer than that. It may come as a surprise, but this product from the planet’s northernmost regions found its way down to Italy, where it is (or at least was) enormously popular, despite the abundance of wonderful fresh fish in the seas that surround this slender peninsula on three sides.

It’s an interesting question exactly why this is so—and a question that, in all honesty, I can’t answer. Except perhaps that baccalà is practical since it keeps indefinitely and was, back in the day, very affordable. But that’s certainly no longer the case. Overfishing has resulted in a sharp decline of North Atlantic fish stocks, which in turn means that salt cod is quite pricey today.

Soaking Salt Cod

Soaking times for salt cod can vary wildly. Much depends on how dry and salted it is, as well as your own preference. Most recipes call for 24 hours soaking, though I’ve seen some calling for three days of soaking. And I’ve bought lightly salted cod that was ready to cook after a relatively short overnight soak. Your best bet is to check the box for instructions. If it doesn’t have instructions, then a 24 hour soak is prudent.

After soaking, the fish should be surprisingly un-salty and well rehydrated. For this dish, do make sure that your baccalà is well soaked. This way it won’t dry out in the oven’s intense dry heat. (You can be less fastidious about soaking in braised baccalà dishes.) If you have a “Little Italy” nearby, you may also be able to find pre-soaked salt cod, which of course makes things simple.

Variations

In perhaps the most common variation on baccalà al forno con patate, you layer potatoes both under and over the baccalà pieces. This helps protect the fish from the oven’s dry heat. And it allows you to “stretch” the dish as you’ll need to use more potatoes, up to double the amount given here. In this variation, you can omit the breadcrumbs if you like.

Another very common variation on baccalà al forno con patate involves using thinly sliced onion rather than garlic. The onion is sometimes softened in olive oil beforehand. Some recipes call for oregano, or less commonly rosemary or thyme, rather than parsley. Not all recipes include the olives. But all the ones I know do include tomato, either cherry or grape tomatoes as indicated here, or larger ones cut into dice.

Some recipes have you parboil the potatoes beforehand, in which case you need not be so fastidious about the thinness of your slicing. Yet others have you parboil the baccalà as well, an extra bit of hydration which may help it from drying out in the oven.

Frank’s personal touches

I’ve added a few personal touches here to the traditional recipe for baccalà al forno con patate. The tossing of the potatoes with their seasonings and oil, for instance. This ensures that all the slices are well coated. The usual recipe just has you drizzle the potatoes already arranged in the baking dish. The bit of white wine, too, is my personal little “trick”. I find it helps to cook the potatoes (easier than parboiling) and keep the dish a bit moist. It should, however, evaporate entirely by the end of cooking.

Can’t find salt cod? Use fresh fish…

Finally, since baccalà can sometimes be hard to source, you should know that this recipe will also work with fillets of fresh cod or other kinds of fish. In that case, hold back the fish fillets until about 10-15 minutes before the end (depending on the their thickness). Remove the baking dish from the oven and lay them on top of the partially cooked potatoes. Top with breadcrumbs and drizzle some olive oil over the fillets and return to the oven to finish cooking.

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