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Fried Cod Steaks
Clean steaks, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and dip in granulated corn meal. Try out slices of fat salt pork in frying-pan, remove scraps, and sauté steaks in fat.
A three-line recipe that assumes you keep salt pork in the pantry and know what "try out" means. The technique is sound; only the shorthand needs unpacking.
- Try outTo "try out" is to render solid fat slowly over moderate heat until the liquid fat runs and the solids brown. Start the pork slices in a cold pan and let them go gently for 8-10 minutes; rushing scorches the fat before enough of it renders.
- The scrapsThe browned bits removed from the pan are cracklings. The recipe says only to remove them, but they can be scattered over the finished fish or a plate of greens rather than discarded.
- Salt pork substituteIf you cannot find salt pork, thick-cut unsmoked bacon renders similarly, though it brings a cured flavour the original did not have. Failing that, use 3 tablespoons of a neutral oil with a knob of butter added near the end.
- Granulated corn mealA granular meal rather than the fine flour sold as corn flour, and not masa. A medium to coarse grind gives a more substantial crust.
- Salting firstSeason the steaks and let them sit five minutes before dipping. The surface moisture drawn out helps the meal adhere; dipping bone-dry fish leaves the coating patchy.
- Cook timeCod steaks cut an inch thick take roughly 4 minutes a side in fat that sizzles briskly on contact. The fish is done when the flesh at the bone turns opaque and separates in flakes; past that it goes dry and stringy.
Cod and salt pork are two staples of New England cooking, and this recipe puts them in the same pan. Salt pork was a common cooking fat in coastal households before commercial shortening — it kept without refrigeration, it seasoned as it fried, and rendered salt pork also went into chowder and baked beans. The instruction runs to two sentences and never says how much fish, which suggests a readership for whom fried cod needed no explaining. Cornmeal rather than breadcrumbs is a long-standing American coating for fried fish and remains common in much of the country.