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Nantucket Cod-Fish
Cut the thick part out of a firm, white dried codfish, and soak it over night, then cut into very small pieces and parboil for a few minutes, changing the water until the fish remains but slightly salted. Drain off the water, leaving the fish in the saucepan. Pour over a little more milk than will cover it; when it becomes heated, add a little butter and pepper, thicken with flour stirred smooth in milk. Stir constantly for a few minutes.
A creamed salt cod that lives or dies by the soaking. Everything else is a basic milk gravy built in the pan.
- The fish"Firm, white dried codfish" means hard salt cod, sold in slabs or boxes; the thick centre cut is the best part and the tail end is thin and stringy. Bacalao from a Latin or Italian grocer works; the boneless skinless loin pieces need less soaking than a bone-in slab.
- Soaking is the hingeOvernight in a bowl of cold water in the refrigerator, water changed two or three times, is the minimum for a thick piece. Taste a sliver before you cook: it should read like seasoned fish, not like brine. The recipe's repeated changes of parboiling water look like a second line of defence against a piece that is still too salty, and each change of hot water costs flavour as well as salt.
- Parboil briefly"A few minutes" is generous. Bring to a bare simmer and pull it off; salt cod is already firm and hard boiling shreds it into cotton.
- Salt at the end, or not at allNo salt goes into the sauce until the dish is finished and tasted. Depending on the soak, it may need none.
- Thickening quantitiesThe original gives none. For about 1 lb of soaked fish, figure 2 cups milk, 2 tablespoons butter and 2 tablespoons flour slurried into a little cold milk. Add the slurry in a stream while stirring, then hold at a low simmer two or three minutes to cook out the raw flour taste.
- PepperWhite pepper is the usual choice for a white sauce and keeps the look clean; black is fine if you do not mind the flecks. The recipe specifies only 'pepper'.
- Yield and servingAbout four servings. It was commonly served over toast, split baked potatoes or boiled potatoes, sometimes with quartered hard-boiled egg on top, and often at breakfast.
Dried salt cod was one of the first true global commodities, and New England's share of it built the fortunes of ports like Gloucester and Marblehead, where the fish was split, salted and stacked for shipping to the Caribbean and southern Europe. Because it kept for months without ice, it moved inland and southward as ordinary provisioning. Creamed salt cod on toast or potatoes was common cheap breakfast food in the eastern United States; the Nantucket name on this version is more likely a nod to the fish's northern origin than evidence of a distinct island method. The recipe's insistence on changing the water repeatedly reflects the fact that a cook had no way to know how heavily a given slab had been cured.