Baccala al Prezzemolo

This recipe is a long-time favourite from Elizabeth Romer's "The Tuscan Year", and attributed to her friend (and subject of the book) Silvana. It takes a bit of preparation and time but not a lot of effort - it's a good one for the weekend.

Baccala

It always feels slightly ridiculous to pay more for baccala than for most kinds of fresh fish but it should be no great surprise. After all, prior to refrigeration a lot more effort was required to make sure fish could be kept for the innumerable Catholic fasting days (which, for Fridays at least, are still recommended).

Cod was plentiful through the middle ages, but not everywhere and not throughout the whole year, so for many centuries baccala was a major source of Friday protein. Baccala can safely be eaten during Lent without fear of The Man Upstairs Who Could Visit You With Plague And Could Do Scary Stuff With Lightning, so for most of history, baccala was what you ate when you were doing penance or abstinence. It is to fresh fish what ham is to pork - a means of once tiresome preservation, no longer required but still desired for its flavour.

Ingredients

Pellegrino Artusi, the nineteenth century author of La scienza in cucina e l'arte di mangiare bene (The Science of Cooking and the Art of Eating Well) managed his reader's expectations by telling them not to expect too much of baccala, and that seems to have been the spirit of the times. Like going to Church, it was dead boring but you did it because you had to. Artusi actually says at the end of his recipe for Baccala Fritto, "If ... you still find this to be an inferior dish, it is your fault for wanting to try it." So, having dampened your enthusiasm, why not try this wonderful dish? The fish has a dense, almost chewy texture and soft, creamy-fish flavour.

Layered fish and potatoes

So, the recipe.

• 1kg or so of baccala. Whatever you do, remember baccala's the salty one - don't try and use stockfish which have been mummified instead of salted.
  
• 500-700g potatoes
  
• an onion
• half a bunch of parsley
  
• olive oil
• a few ripe tomatoes
  

The day before, take the fillets of baccala and soak them in a lot of water for a day. Change the water a couple of times - there's a shirt-load of salt in them and things will get nasty if you don't. Gently simmer the fish in just enough water to cover for about 30 minutes and cool in the liquid. Flake the fish (removing the bones) but not too finely. Chop the parsley finely.

Hmmmmm....

Thinly slice the potatoes and the onion, and in a heavy casserole lubed up with olive oil, make layers of potato, fish, onion, parsley, anointing each layer with a drizzle of olive oil and a grind of pepper. Drizzle a little (a few tablespoons only) of the liquid the fish was cooked over the top and then add the sliced tomatoes. Stick into the oven for an hour or so until the potatoes are soft and have absorbed the flavours of the fish, onion and parsley. Fragrant and comforting - not a grand and pretentious dinner, but a warm and friendly dish for a cold winter weekend.

White Bean and Tuna Salad

We don't go out much anymore, and although it looks like we're losing sight of the original purpose of this blog, we do still eat and we do still have words to describe food.

Once again, tonight we failed to eat at somewhere on High Street, but this time at least we did eat photogenic. So with malice aforethought, I offer white bean and tuna salad, although I can't for the life of me remember where the recipe originally came from. What I can remember is that it's perfect when the weather's turned sweaty all of a sudden.

White Bean and Tuna Salad

You'll need:

• 2 tins of cannellini beans
• 2 0r 3 decent sized tomatoes, or at least a punnet of decent flavoured cherry toms
• A big tin of tuna in oil
• Half a red onion
  
• Green olive oil
• Lemons
• Basil
• Olives
• Cos lettuce
• Salt and Pepper

Rinse the beans in a colander and let them drain for a bit. Dump them in large bowl with chopped tomatoes, a handful of halved olives and the drained tuna. Slice the onion as thin as you possibly can and add it too. Make a sharp(ish) dressing with the oil and lemon juice and toss with the beans, salt, pepper and a handful of roughly chopped basil. It needs to be a bit sharper than usual because the beans have a bland taste (but a beautiful texture). Try not to over-mix it - the tuna should still be fairly chunky.

Dump into individual bowls on a bed of Cos lettuce. A bit more dressing to wet the leaves and you're done. Crusty bread, wine of any description and you're good to go. It's also great with a shirt-load of parsley.