Description
Bacalhau á Brás is one of the most traditional ways to prepare Salted Codfish (Bacalhau) in Portugal.
It is made from salted cod mixed with onions, and thin strips of potatoes bound by eggs, making it a scrambled egg type of a dish.
Salted Cod can be purchased outside Portugal from any good Portuguese or Italian delicatessen.
If you cannot obtain Salted Cod, you can still get a great meal and prepare this recipe using unsalted fresh Cod, it just wont have that authentic Portuguese taste.
YouTube video tutorial is availabe at END of this recipe's page.
600 grams of Salted Cod (Bacalhau)
2 Large Potatoes (about 750 grams)
1 Large Onion (sliced)
4 garlic cloves (peeled and crushed)
6 eggs
Half to One cup of white wine
Pinch of chopped parsley (cilantro), salt and pepper
Handful of pitted black olives (10 - 15)
1. Soak the pieces of salted cod fish for 24 hours in a large non metallic bowl. Discard the water in the bowl and replace with fresh 3 to 4 times in 4 hour intervals if possible.
Blanche (part boil) the cod for no more than 6-8 minutes in a large pan of boiling water, topped up with a little milk or cream to leave cod with a nice texture.
2. Carefully remove bones and pieces of skin, so that you are left with only flaked cod. This is easiest if done by hand, please be careful with the sharp fish bones. SET COD ASIDE WHEN DONE
3. Peel and cut the potatoes in long, thick match sticks. Fry these until they start turning golden brown. SET ASIDE
4. Heat 5 table spoons of olive oil in a large pan.
Add the 4 cloves of crushed garlic and the thinly sliced onion.
Add the cup of white wine.
Cook for about 20 minutes on a medium heat until the wine has reduced and onions have gone very soft.
5. Add the flaked cod to the pan of cooked onions.
6. Also add the potato sticks, previously lightly fried in another pan.
7. Season with a little salt (go easy on the salt as this dish already uses salted cod), and pepper according to taste.
8. Make sure the pan is on a medium heat, give it time to heat up so that the eggs to be added in the next step start to scramble properly.
9. Add 5-6 whole eggs to the pan right on top of the cod, onions and potatoes and scramble everything together untill everything is set together.
10. Sprinkle with chopped parsley.
11. Decorate with pitted black olives.
