Stewed cod

Name: Stewed cod
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 40 min
Total time: 60 min
Yield: 4
Ingredients: Desalted cod 1.3 lbs; Canned tomatoes fine 14 oz; Yellow onions 7 oz; Type 00 flour 1.8 oz; Extra virgin olive oil to taste; Salted capers To be desalinated (rinsed before use) 4 tbsp; Taggiasca olives 1.5 oz; Oregano dry to taste; Black pepper to taste; Fine salt to taste

Lactose Free

Difficulty: Easy
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 40 min
Serving: 4

PRESENTATION

Stewed salt cod—baccalà in umido—earns its place on both weeknight tables and holiday menus through a slow-cooked tomato and onion sauce enriched with Taggiasca olives, capers, and oregano until it turns full-bodied and fragrant enough to demand bread at the table. The salt cod itself is floured and pan-seared before it goes into the sauce, a step that keeps each piece soft and juicy at the center even after the long, gentle braise.

The technique is straightforward, but the payoff is a deeply flavored Italian salt cod stew that rewards patience. Serve it hot with thick slices of bread to catch the sauce, or pair it with la bandiera, the traditional Umbrian peperonata, for a meal that works just as well for a quiet family dinner as it does for something more festive. The sauce is the kind that makes a scarpetta feel mandatory.

How to prepare Stewed cod

To prepare the stewed cod, slice a yellow onion into julienne strips 1. Pour a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil into a saucepan 2, add the onion, season with salt 3 and let it sweat gently over low heat for about 10 minutes.

Then add the tomato pulp 4 and continue cooking for about 20–30 minutes, until the sauce has reduced well. Meanwhile, cut the salted cod into pieces about 3/4 in 5, pat them dry carefully and dredge them in all-purpose flour 6.

You should coat them evenly 7. Pour a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil into a skillet and place the floured pieces of cod in it 8. Season with salt 9 and cook over medium heat for about 5 minutes.

The cod should be slightly golden 10. Meanwhile the sauce will have reduced 11. Transfer the cod to the saucepan with the sauce and add the capers previously rinsed 12.

Flavour with Taggiasca olives 13, cover with a lid 14 and continue cooking for another 5–10 minutes so that the cod absorbs the flavours of the sauce 15.

At the end of cooking add dried oregano 16. Plate the cod together with its sauce 17, then finish with more dried oregano 18 and a grind of freshly ground black pepper.

Storage

Stewed cod can be kept in the refrigerator for a maximum of 1–2 days. You can freeze everything if you used fresh ingredients that were not previously frozen.

Tip

Keep the sauce a little more liquid, creating a sort of soup; toasted bread or croutons will pair wonderfully with the stewed cod! If you want to add a bit of heat to the dish, add a chopped chili pepper to the sauce.

For the translation of some texts, artificial intelligence tools may have been used.

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Stewed cod

PRESENTATION

How to prepare Stewed cod

Storage

Tip

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