My great-grandparents immigrated to this country from Portugal many moons ago. I never had the chance to meet my great-grandfather because he passed away before I was born. But I remember stopping over to my great-grandmother's house as a child, usually right after seeing my grandmother who lived just up the street.
My brother and I loved going over to see her because she always had treats for us, mainly cookies and Tang (hey, we were easy to please back then). But she also had plenty of snacks for any of the adults in the family that would pop over unexpectedly too.
She was famous for her rice pudding, which to this day has yet to be duplicated exactly by anyone. She could make a killer vinaigrette. And she used a Portuguese staple, baccala, the main ingredient in this next recipe, to make her amazing cod-fish fritters which always went fast.
Sundays used to be the day where everyone in the family would drop in to feast on her traditional Portuguese cooking, my grandfather's homemade wine, and to catch up on family gossip. Her cooking was by feel and sight, with no measuring, and it came out perfect and consistent every time, something that everyone can envy, chef or not. Pretty impressive for a woman that joined my great-grandfather in marriage and calling a new land home at the young age of 17. She kept on cooking until her passing well into her eighties. Seeing an ingredient like baccala in the book makes me nostalgic and I hope that Mario's preparation and handling of this ingredient pays her the homage that she deserves.
I want to get started with the prep, but as the recipe notes mention, baccala needs to be soaked in water for 48 hours before it is used, making sure that the water is changed every 12 hours or so.
Once that is out of the way I can start with the marinade for the fish. In a casserole dish, I combine the baccala, olive oil, champagne vinegar, thinly sliced red onion, lemon zest, red pepper flakes, peppercorns, and fennel fronds. I make sure the fish is well coated. The baccala gets marinated for four hours, turning after two hours for even marinating.
Next is to bring some salted water to a boil and to set up an ice bath nearby. The baby fennel bulbs get blanched for almost a minute then removed and shocked in the ice bath. I then heat up the broiler, brush the fennel bulbs with olive oil and seasoning, and then broil the fennel until they are slightly charred and cooked through. Now the recipe calls for baby fennel bulbs but I was unable to find any babies at the market, so I bought the smallest ones that they had and cut them up smaller than I normally would have. You do what you have to do to make things work sometimes.
Once the fennel is cooked, the fish is removed from the marinade and sliced very thin as if you were slicing a carpaccio. You'll need an extra sharp knife for the step which I am sure that by now is already in your arsenal.
The marinade is strained and reserved.
I am now ready to plate. The thin slices of baccala are placed on the plate with the fennel, the marinade is spooned over the fish and fennel, then the fish is drizzled with some really good extra-virgin olive oil and Aceto Tradzionale, or aged balsamic vinegar. I was able to get the aged balsamic that Mario recommends in the liner notes that is made by a friend of his in Italy. This stuff is quite expensive at $40 a bottle, and Mario notes that a small vial of aged balsamic vinegar is usually included in a brides dowry. I can understand why as a little goes a long way.
Overall I didn't hate the dish is much as I thought that I would, but that's a far cry from me wanting to ever make this again. The marinade really made the fish pop and helped to cut some of the richness of the baccala, but I felt like the fennel was just 'there' and didn't really contribute much to the dish. Overall it's a little too light and skimpy in order for me to consider it an appetizer. Sorry Mario, but I much rather prefer my great-grandmother's way of handling baccala.
Until next time...
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