Baccalà alla Vicentina

Cod cooked in milk and onion for six hours without being stirred once.

Fish. Not vegetarian — contains fish, parmesan whose rennet the source does not name.

Ingredients

• 1 kg salt cod, soaked 48 hours in cold water, changed four times, and the soaking water discarded
• 6 tablespoons olive oil
• 3 onions, sliced very thinly
• 4 anchovy fillets
• 500 ml whole milk
• 60 g parmesan, grated
• 3 tablespoons plain flour
• a handful of parsley, chopped

Method

1. Soak and drain the cod, then cut it into pieces.
2. Cook the onions in half the oil over the lowest heat for 30 minutes until they are a pale sweet mush. Stir the anchovies through until they dissolve.
3. Dust the cod lightly in flour and lay the pieces in a heavy pan in ONE LAYER, skin side down.
4. Spoon the onion over, scatter the parmesan and parsley, pour the milk and the rest of the oil in at the side.
5. Cook on the lowest possible heat for SIX HOURS. Cover it loosely.
6. DO NOT STIR IT AT ANY POINT. That is the whole rule of this dish and the reason it takes six hours rather than one: undisturbed, the fish holds together while the milk and oil slowly separate and recombine into a sauce around it. One stir and you have a pan of flakes in curdled milk.
7. If it looks dry, tilt the pan and spoon liquid from the edge over the top rather than stirring.
8. It is ready when the sauce is thick and ivory and the fish is soft but whole. Better still the next day.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Italy · All recipes