Bacalhau à brás

Ingredients

• Salt cod — soaked for a day500 g
• Potatoes — in matchsticks700 g
• Eggs8
• Onions — thinly sliced2
• Garlic3 clove
• Olive oil80 ml
• Black olives80 g
• Parsley6 sprig
• Oil for frying600 ml
• Salt and pepperto taste

Salt and spices grow more slowly than the rest: doubling a dish does not double the pepper.

Weight converts to ounces and volume to cups. Grams of flour are not turned into cups, because that depends on how tightly it is packed.

Method

1. 1

   Poach the soaked cod for five minutes, cool it and pull it into flakes by hand, discarding skin and bones. By hand rather than with a fork: that is how small bones are found.

   15 min

2. 2

   Deep-fry the potato matchsticks at 180 °C to a crisp gold, in batches. Drain on a rack and salt them.

   15 min

3. 3

   In a wide pan sweat the onion in the olive oil for ten minutes until soft and sweet, adding the garlic for the last minute.

   11 min

4. 4

   Add the cod and warm it through for three minutes, then tip in the potato and toss.

   4 min

5. 5

   Take the pan off the heat, pour in the beaten eggs and stir without stopping for half a minute, until they turn creamy. Scatter over the parsley and olives.

   2 min

About the dish

Salt cod is soaked from one to three days with the water changed every eight hours. Thick pieces need longer than thin ones; under-soaked fish makes the dish inedible and over-soaked fish makes it bland.

The egg is stirred in with the pan off the heat. Residual warmth is enough to set it to a cream; over a flame it curdles into grains within ten seconds.

The potato is cut into two-millimetre matchsticks and fried crisp in advance. In the finished dish some of it softens under the egg and some stays crisp, and that contrast is the texture of a brás.

Worth knowing

• — Salt only at the very end and after tasting: the cod brings its own and it is very easy to overdo.
• — Ready-cut potato straws can be bought, but home-cut ones hold up better. Crisps from a packet go soft instantly.
• — The dish tolerates neither waiting nor reheating: the egg curdles and the potato softens. Cook it to the table.

Nutrition

Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.

Calories

610 kcal

Protein

42 g

Fat

34 g

Carbs

34 g

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