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COD, SALT (a la Francaise)
Choose cod which has not been very long salted. Soak it and simmer for a quarter of an hour. When sufficiently cooked, drain the fish, and remove the skin and bone; break the flesh into flakes, put them in a stewpan, and stir them quickly over the fire for five or six minutes, adding, a little at a time, as much olive-oil as will form a smooth paste. Take it from the fire, add a little thick cream, and cayenne, and if the flavour is liked, some pounded garlic. Place the mixture on a dish, and serve it with toasted sippets. Time to heat the fish with the oil while stirring it, five or six minutes. Probable cost of salt fish, 6d. per pound. Sufficient, one pound for three or four persons.
This is brandade under an English name, and it stands or falls on two things: how thoroughly the cod is soaked, and how patiently the oil goes in. Cassell's is terse about both.
- The soak is the whole dish"Soak it" means cold water in the refrigerator, changed three or four times. Cassell's specifies cod "which has not been very long salted," which will need much less time; heavily salted dried cod may want 24 to 48 hours or longer. Taste a sliver of the raw flesh before you commit, and if it is still aggressively salty keep going.
- Simmer is a strong wordBring the soaked fish to a bare shiver — surface trembling, no bubbles — and hold it 10 to 15 minutes depending on thickness. A true rolling simmer for a quarter of an hour toughens the flakes and makes them stringy rather than creamy.
- Olive oil quantityThe recipe gives none. Reckon on 1/2 to 3/4 cup of oil per pound of soaked fish, warmed slightly, added in a thin thread while stirring. Cold oil dumped in at once will refuse to emulsify and the paste breaks into oily crumbs.
- Keep the pan warm, not hotStirring "over the fire" means gentle heat only. The emulsion of oil, cream and fish protein splits if it gets near a boil; low heat and steady work with a wooden spoon are what produce the smooth paste.
- SippetsSmall triangles or fingers of bread, toasted or fried, arranged round the dish. Fried in olive oil rather than butter suits this version better.
- Garlic"Pounded" means crushed to a paste in a mortar with a pinch of salt, not chopped. One or two cloves per pound is plenty; raw garlic in a warm emulsion asserts itself quickly.
- The pricing6d. is sixpence in pre-decimal money, of purely historical interest. Salt cod today is sold dry and hard, loses weight in skinning and boning and takes up water in soaking; Cassell's reckons one pound for three or four persons.
- ServingBest warm rather than hot, spread thickly. It also sets firm when chilled and can be reheated very gently, though it may need a spoonful more cream to loosen.
This is brandade de morue, the pounded salt-cod and oil paste of Languedoc and Provence, given an English title and an English hedge — "if the flavour is liked, some pounded garlic." The name is generally traced to the Provençal brandar, to stir or agitate, which describes the working of the fish against the oil. Salt cod itself was the long-distance protein of Catholic Europe: split, salted and dried on the Atlantic coasts, it travelled to the inland Mediterranean and to Britain alike, and by the late Victorian period it was cheap enough at sixpence a pound to appear in a household dictionary as an economy dish. Cassell's habit of naming a recipe "à la Française" and then treating garlic as optional says a good deal about the period's appetite for continental cookery and its simultaneous suspicion of continental seasoning.