Wednesday, October 04, 2006

Brandade de Morue-3 Ways to Serve















Clockwise:

On large croutons brushed with olive oil, mixed with mashed potatoes and used to stuff ravioli, and fried in a dough similar to what is used for samosas.


I still think a better use for salt cod is in chowder, but this was fun to experiment with. Unfortunately, I used a pound of salt cod and now have quite a bit of it as it reconstitutes to about double its size. Ooops.

The basic idea is to soak the cod for a couple days changing the water a few times each day. Then poach the cod, shred it, mix it with 1 cup warm milk and about a cup of warmed olive oil with a few garlic cloves (alternating until all oil is gone-you may not need all the milk). Adjust salt and pepper, maybe a bit of nutmeg. A stand mixer will help mash the fish better. And that's pretty much it. If you reheat it, don't microwave it (really, trust me on this) but use a double boiler or place a bowl in a strainer basket over boiling water. Once the fish was poached, the process went rather quickly.

I tried stretching my imagination for other uses, but couldn't come up with any. As it works fine for ravioli, I don't see any reason that it wouldn't work for pierogi. Let me know what you come up with if you try it.

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