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Codfish a la Bonne Femme
Soak 3 pounds of salt codfish overnight. In the morning wash and rinse the pieces well and cut into strips. Wash and peel a quart of potatoes and put them in a saucepan with 2 quarts of cold water; add half a tablespoonful of salt, 4 sprigs of parsley, and 1 clove stuck in an onion. Boil twenty-five minutes, then add the pieces of codfish. Cook slowly for ten minutes. Take the fish out and place it on a hot platter, removing all pieces of skin and bone. Drain the potatoes, then place them around the fish. Put 1 heaping tablespoonful of butter and 1 of flour into a small saucepan and stir for three minutes, but do not let it brown. Slowly pour into the saucepan 1 pint of the strained water in which the fish was cooked.
Season with half a saltspoonful of pepper and let it simmer for eight minutes. Remove from the fire and add the well-beaten yolks of 2 eggs, 1 teaspoonful of vinegar, and 1 tablespoonful of butter. Mix well together and pour over the fish and potatoes. Serve very hot.
A plain French-style salt cod supper: fish poached in the potato water, the same liquid turned into a velouté enriched with egg yolk. The whole thing hangs on the finish.
- The hinge: the yolk liaisonThe pan must come off the heat before the beaten yolks go in, exactly as written. If the sauce returns to a simmer after that it will curdle into threads; hold it just hot enough to serve and pour it over at once.
- Soaking the codOvernight is the minimum for hard salt cod. Use a large bowl of cold water in the refrigerator and change the water three or four times; taste a shred before cooking, and if it is still aggressively salty give it another few hours.
- Salt in the potato waterThe half tablespoonful of salt suited unsalted potatoes cooked before the fish went in. Modern salt cod, even well soaked, carries plenty of its own, so salt the water lightly or not at all and correct the sauce at the end.
- A quart of potatoesPotatoes were measured by volume here: a quart of peeled pieces is roughly 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 lb. Cut them to an even size so twenty-five minutes leaves them tender rather than collapsing.
- SaltspoonfulA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon, so this calls for about an eighth of a teaspoon of pepper. Season the finished sauce to taste instead of trusting the figure.
- Cook slowly, and mean itSalt cod is best poached below a simmer, around 170-180F. Ten minutes at a rolling boil will shred the strips and toughen the flakes.
- Clove and onionA single clove pushed into a peeled onion is a classic oignon cloute, meant to be lifted out with the parsley before the liquid is strained for the sauce. Do not leave it in the pot.
- YieldThree pounds of soaked cod with potatoes and sauce serves six to eight as a main course.