“Please don’t call it ‘fish-flavored mashed potatoes,'” I asked my wait staff the last time I put brandade on the menu. Brandade, or brandade de morue as it’s formally known, can be a hard sell in this country. A Mediterranean dish made with reconstituted dried salt cod, milk or cream, garlic, potatoes and olive oil, brandade and its variants have never really taken hold in America, despite our rich history of cod fishing.
Although, according to food writer and historian John Thorne, America has a wonderful heritage of salt cod recipes, including some tasty-sounding salt cod chowders, Americans seem to have a long-standing ambivalence toward salt cod. He wrote:
Seamen on American and British sailing ships often augmented their diet by catching fresh fish but they considered salt fish as lowly poverty food and refused to eat it, no matter the extremely dubious origins of their salt meat.
Thorne gives us some of Thoreau’s mordant account of his travels along Cape Cod, including this wry quote from the writer that perhaps accounts for the failure of salt cod to take hold in this country’s culinary heritage: “I did not taste fresh fish of any kind on the Cape and I was assured that they were not so much used there as in the country. That is where they are cured, and where, sometimes, travelers are cured of eating them.”
There’s nothing unusual about this, for a food product to originate in one part of the world but to be associated with the cuisine of a culture half a world away. Coffee and chocolate, for example, while they originate almost entirely in the tropics, in South America, Africa and Southeast Asia, are considered to be given their highest expression in the cuisines of Italy, France, Switzerland and Belgium.
So it is, despite the fish’s origin in the North Atlantic, to the Mediterranean I turn when I want to do something delicious with salt cod. I like to prepare brandade in the traditional way, in a terracotta dish covered with a shower of coarsely chopped breadcrumbs. The only nontraditional touch I like to add is a little bit of parmesan cheese to round out the flavor of the salt cod.
John Broening cooks at Duo and Olivea restaurants in Denver.
Brandade
You can find salt cod at many specialty grocers. Call ahead. Serves 8.
Ingredients
1 box salt cod (about 12 ounces)
4 cloves garlic, peeled and thinly sliced
2-3 cups heavy cream
6 medium Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and diced
1/3 cup olive oil
4 tablespoons grated parmesan cheese
Salt and pepper
Coarsely chopped breadcrumbs
Toasted ciabatta
Directions
The day before, soak the salt cod refrigerated in several changes of water, for at least 24 hours.
Drain the salt cod and place it in a small pot sprinkled with the garlic and covered with most of the cream. Bring to a boil, and simmer about 10 minutes.
Meanwhile, place the potatoes in a pot covered with water. Add a pinch of salt (the potatoes should be lightly salted), bring to a boil and cook until tender. Drain and keep warm.
Taste the cream the salt cod was boiled in. If the cream is intensely salty, discard it. If the cream is not too salty, place it in a food processor along with the cooked salt cod, and process it until fairly smooth, about 2 minutes. (If the cream is too salty, use fresh cream for this step.)
Mash the potatoes in a food mill or ricer or with a fork. In a large mixing bowl, work the salt cod mixture into the mashed potatoes (the potatoes and the cod mixture should still be warm). Fold in the olive oil, parmesan, pepper and more salt, if necessary. (The recipe can be prepared up to a day in advance at this point.)
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Place the brandade in individual ovenproof dishes or in one large ovenproof dish, sprinkle with the breadcrumbs and bake until hot, about 20 minutes. Serve with toasted ciabatta and a salad.
