Baccalà alla lucana con peperoni cruschi

If there’s one product that defines the cooking of the little known region of Basilicata, it’s peperoni cruschi, ripe red peppers, dried in the sun and then flash-fried in hot olive oil until they turn nice and crisp. The taste is fruity and faintly smoky, with no heat at all.

I find freshly fried peperoni cruschi absolutely addictive. You can eat them like potato chips, or crumble them over pasta, pizza or eggs. But one of the most celebrated ways to use them is to pair them with baccalà, or salt cod, to make today’s featured dish, baccalà alla lucana.

Basilicata, ancient Lucania

Basilicata—sometimes also called by its ancient name Lucania, hence the moniker of this dish—is one of Italy’s least-known regions. Tucked inside the instep of the Italian boot between Puglia, Campania and Calabria, the region is best known for the town of Matera, with its ancient cave dwellings, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and European Capital of Culture in 2019. But beyond Matera, much of the region remains off the tourist trail, with a cuisine shaped by rural life and made with few, very good ingredients: these sun-dried peppers, cured pork, hand-shaped pasta and, of course, salt cod.

Simple but tasty way to enjoy baccalà

Italian cookery abounds with different baccalà dishes, and we’ve covered a good many here on Memorie di Angelina: lesso, mantecato, alla napoletana, in zimino and con i peperoni, to name a few. Today’s recipe, baccalà alla lucana—sometimes styled all’aviglianese, after the town of Avigliano where it is said to have originated—is one of the simplest. It’s also one of the tastiest. You gently poach the salt cod, then dress it with warm garlic-scented olive oil and a generous crumbling of crisp cruschi right at the end. A little minced parsley for color if you care for it, and you’re done.

Peperoni cruschi can be hard to find outside of Italy, but they can be ordered online, and I’ve included some good substitutes in the Notes below. And if salt cod is not easy to come by where you live, fresh cod makes an acceptable stand-in. Whichever way you go, do give this a try. I think you’ll be as taken with those crunchy peppers as I am.

Ingredients

Serves 4-6

• 1 kilo (2 lbs) baccalà (dried salt cod), pre-soaked (see Notes)

For the peperoni cruschi:

• 12-15 peperoni cruschi, or to taste
• olive oil
• 2 cloves of garlic
• A dried chili pepper (optional)
• salt

To finish the dish:

• A handful of fresh parsley, finely chopped

Directions

Poach the cod.

Drain the pre-soaked baccalà, remove skin and bones, and cut into serving pieces.

Simmer the baccalà pieces in unsalted water for about 10 minutes, or until just tender.

Drain on paper towels, taking care not to break up the pieces, and keep warm. Taste a tiny bit and, if it needs it, season with salt.

Fry the cruschi.

Gently wipe the cruschi and trim off their stems, then shake out their seeds.

In a skillet, add a generous pour of olive oil and heat it gently over a moderate flame.

Add the cruschi, a bunch at a time, and fry them for just a few seconds on each side, until puffed and crisp.

Drain on paper towels and sprinkle lightly with salt. When cool, crumble or tear most into small pieces.

Make the dressing.

In the same skillet, sauté the garlic cloves and, if using, the chili pepper over very gentle heat for a minute or two, taking care that the garlic doesn’t brown. Discard the garlic and chili.

Assemble and serve

Arrange the cod pieces on a platter and nap them with the warm oil. Top with the crumbled or torn cruschi and place the rest on the side. Sprinkle with the parsley and serve right away.

Notes on baccalà alla lucana

The main things to look out for when making baccalà alla lucana: season carefully and take care not to burn the cruschi.

Since baccalà, even after soaking, can be quite savory, you probably won’t need to season it at all. But since (as discussed below) its saltiness can vary a lot, do give it a teeny taste and see if it needs any. Do salt the cruschi after you fry them. A bit of salt is a real game changer. I find them so addictive half of them wind up in my mouth… Just a light sprinkling will do.

It is all too easy to burn the cruschi, which turns them bitter. Use a moderate flame and let them fry just long enough to crisp up. It takes a matter of seconds, not minutes.

About baccalà (salt cod)

Baccalà is cod fish that has been preserved by being salt-cured and dried. When you buy it dry, it is quite hard to the touch and very, very salty to the taste. In other words, you can’t eat it that way. It generally needs at least 8 hours and sometimes up to 24+ hours of soaking in various changes of water. Soaking times can vary enormously depending on how salty and/or dry your baccalà is. And, of course, personal taste. Personally I like my baccalà still quite savory and firm. Best to ask your fishmonger or follow the directions on the package. When in doubt, start early in case you need extra soaking time. 

In Italy, a lot of places will sell you pre-soaked baccalà on Fridays, which is a great convenience. Here in the States, I’ve only come across pre-soaked baccalà in Angelina’s old neighborhood in New York, the Arthur Avenue section of the Bronx. You can probably find it in Little Italys in other cities.

Salt cod is generally much easier to find than peperoni cruschi, but if you can’t find it where you live, then you could use fresh cod instead. You can make a kind of homemade baccalà by salting your fresh cod and leaving it overnight in the fridge. This gives a firmer texture and a more savory taste, closer to the real thing. After that, poach or even better steam it, but for less time than soaked baccalà. Fresh fish only needs a few minutes to cook through. Or fry the fish instead—see Variations below—as frying is more forgiving and you’re less likely to break up the fish.

And if you can’t find fresh cod, then you could go with another firm fleshed fish such as haddock, pollock, hake or halibut.

About peperoni cruschi

Peperoni cruschi, literally meaning ‘crispy peppers’, are sun dried sweet red peppers, usually the local peperone di Senise, a thin-walled, mild variety with a protected IGP designation, whose low moisture makes it ideal for drying. After the harvest, which runs from the end of July until the end of September, the peppers are strung into large wreaths called serte and hung in open-walled sheds for 20-25 days, then fried in olive oil until crisp. The result is sweet, fruity and faintly smoky, with no heat. 

Outside Italy they take some hunting, but they are available online. In the US, online specialty retailers such as Olio2go, Market Hall Foods and Alma Gourmet carry them. Do check the label: some brands sell them already fried, while others sell the dried peppers, which you fry yourself. It’s the latter you want here, as there’s nothing like freshly fried peperoni cruschi. And ideally whole if you can find them, though pieces will do.

If you can’t find peperoni cruschi where you live, the closest substitutes are dried ñora or choricero peppers from Spain, fried briefly. Here in North America, easily found dried ancho chiles, which are sweet and fruity with just a little heat, will also work well. For a no-fuss if quite different alternative, toast bread crumbs in olive oil with a little smoked sweet paprika and use that in place of the crumbled pepper.

Variations

In some recipes for baccalà alla lucana, you fry the baccalà rather than poaching it. After soaking, pat the cod very dry, dredge the pieces lightly in flour, and fry in olive oil over medium heat until golden on both sides. Drain, then dress exactly as above with the garlic oil, parsley and crumbled cruschi.

You can also make baccalà alla lucana ‘in rosso‘, or with tomatoes. You simmer fried cod briefly in a light tomato sauce made with onion, garlic and a few olives, then crumble the cruschi on top at the end.

The obscure origins of baccalà alla lucana

The dish takes its alternate name, baccalà all’aviglianese, from Avigliano, a hill town in inland Basilicata, far from the coast.

The history of the dish is obscure. Local lore says that the Normans brought baccalà with them when they arrived in the 11th century, first as vassals of the Byzantine empire, then as an independent state. Melfi, in northern Basilicata not too far from Avigliano, was their capital.

This seems doubtful, however, since the first records of the consumption of baccalà in Italy date from centuries later. And it was most likely the Basques or perhaps the Portuguese, not the Normans, in the 1500s. But whatever its true origins might be, the appeal of a dish combining Basilicata’s famed dried peppers with dried fish, which back in the day was often the only kind of seafood that most inland people could afford, is obvious.

Today Avigliano celebrates the dish with a sagra, a food festival, held on the last weekend of every August. Local restaurants serve baccalà in every way imaginable, from traditional to inventive. The same preparation turns up just across the border in Campania’s Irpinia, where it goes by the name baccalà alla pertecaregna. In Basilicata, though, it is the local classic. 

Like other salt cod dishes, baccalà alla lucana is traditionally a meatless-day dish. In Basilicata it is traditionally prepared on Christmas Eve, but it is hardly confined to the holidays. Avigliano holds its sagra at the end of August, and one local restaurant dedicates its entire menu to baccalà during the month of November. So enjoy this dish whenever it strikes your fancy!

Making baccalà alla lucana ahead

This is a dish that you should finish at the last minute, as peperoni cruschi lose their crunch rather quickly after frying. You could pre-simmer the salt cod ahead, then gently reheat it when you want to serve, frying the peperoni cruschi and preparing the dressing at the last minute.

Print Recipe

5 from 1 vote

Baccalà alla lucana con peperoni cruschi

Salt Cod with Dried Sweet Peppers, a dish from Basilicata

Cook Time15 minutes mins

Soaking time for the cod1 day d

Course: Main Course

Cuisine: Basilicata

Keyword: fried, pescatarian, poached

Servings: 6

Calories: 125.7kcal

Ingredients

• 1 kilo baccalà (dried salt cod), pre-soaked

For the peperoni cruschi:

• 12-15 peperoni cruschi or to taste
• olive oil
• 2 cloves of garlic
• A dried chili pepper optional
• salt

To finish the dish:

• A handful of fresh parsley finely chopped

Metric – US

Instructions

Poach the cod.

• Drain the soaked baccalà, remove skin and bones, and cut into serving pieces.
• Simmer the baccalà pieces in unsalted water for about 10 minutes, or until just tender.
• Drain on paper towels, taking care not to break up the pieces, and keep warm. Taste a tiny bit and, if it needs it, season with salt.

Fry the cruschi.

• Gently wipe the cruschi and trim off their stems, then shake out their seeds.
• In a skillet, add a generous pour of olive oil and heat it gently over a moderate flame.
• Add the cruschi, a bunch at a time, and fry them for just a few seconds on each side, until puffed and crisp.
• Drain on paper towels and sprinkle lightly with salt. When cool, crumble or tear most into small pieces.

Make the dressing.

• In the same skillet, sauté the garlic cloves and, if using, the chili pepper over very gentle heat for a minute or two, taking care that the garlic doesn’t brown. Discard the garlic and chili.

Assemble and serve

• Arrange the cod pieces on a platter and nap them with the warm oil. Top with the crumbled or torn cruschi and place the rest on the side. Sprinkle with the parsley and serve right away.

Nutrition

Calories: 125.7kcal | Fat: 14g | Saturated Fat: 1.9g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 1.5g | Monounsaturated Fat: 10.2g | Sodium: 1174.9mg | Potassium: 6.8mg | Calcium: 2.9mg